Socialization has not been an issue with us as where ever we move we jump right into the local homeschool group. Not to mention we are at church at least twice a weeks and she gets some solid play time there and she gets some class room experience on Sunday school. As we go to an all faiths church her education there is more about the environment, morals, peace, and the history of different faiths. She is very social and that is never a worry for us.
We also started unschooling when she was 3. I find this was a mistake for us for many many reasons. There was no order to it, and it was as if the unschooling leaders where wanting parents to put their children about all their own needs including them not having bed times, eating what ever they wanted when ever they wanted and how dare anyone ask their children to pick up a toy and put it away, or bruch their teeth. We feel we did harm to our daughter by giving her so many options in her own life she had no experience or logic to make. She was our wild little one for a while. It turned out, she was crying for guidance and to be parented. At 6 we stopped unschooling, we started more of a classical way of homeschooling with subject at different parts of the day, planned out. Much of it was still hands on and not sit down work, but it was planned and not on her whim as much, though I did and still do include her wants in our homeschooling. Then we Added Right Start Math, and she loves it, very hands on.
Right start math showed me how wonderful a “boxed” subject already planned or me could be. We go at her speed and it is easy on me and she loves it.
Again this showed me how she needed to be directed and not left to be a leaf flying the wind. Putting a bed time in, a bath time, meal times. These all helped us all so much. Children want to know what is next, what they can expect. If each day looks much like the last, it gives them more freedom to be who they are and learn and play.
The next thing we discovered was Waldorf homeschooling. This clicked with us as the first year you teach children fairy tales! It is very in tune with nature and play and specially daily Rhythms. We now find circle time one of the best parts of our day. Waldorf brings the arts into the homes and helps them live in our children. We do finger plays, water color art, beez wax molding, dancing, Knitting! and playing the recorder. Waldorf goes with the development of human beings and does not ask too early things a child is not ready for. It does not start academics as we know them till about age 7 when the child loses their first tooth, indicating a change in them. It is all very interesting. I learned a lot about myself as week as it is not just about the child, it talks about 7 year cycles and I am hitting another one and giggle at the changes I feel are going on in my life when I read about them in black and white in waldorf books. Friends joke the writers are watching us and changing the pages to fit us while we sleep because how else could they predict these things!
Next came Spell, Write, Read. This is an intense program that once you buy you can us into the highschool years. It is laid out for you but I find it takes a lot of teaching yourself so you can teach your child. There are classes for the parents to take so they can teach this program better. It is christian based but that part is very easy to leave out. We jumped into this after lots of research as out daughter was not grasping reading. She is doing much better now and we are still only on the 4th list of spelling words. She loves it now! It teaches the 70 phonograms (letter sounds) and these she calls her magic cards, with them she can spell and read anything! She even shares them with friends and her public school friends have found them helpful! It teaching 1st graders cursive writing right from the start along with how to write well and smoothly.
Currently we are learning the Vimala handwriting so we can teach our children. My husband found a book on it years ago and loved it. He believes you can tell a lot about a person by their hand writing. In turn, if you change your hand writing you can change parts of yourself. If this is true or not I do not think much on, I do know though that putting thought into how my letters are formed and why I am writing a certain way brings it to the front of my mind, if I am thinking on it, of course it will change me given time! 🙂 It is a beautiful font/cursive and so we will be teaching this in place of the common cursive we have been using in the above program.
Now aside from those three basic classes we have “blocks” and we take most of these from waldorf. You put a block in the morning and you do the same subject for 2-4 weeks. 1 grade one of the blocks in on fairy tales. You tell the child a part of the story on day one, day two you do something that has to do with it, day three they put it in their special book. If they are not yet reading and such, they tell you what to write on the board and then they copy that in their book. Then you tell another part of the story, the next day you DO something, and the third day again you color it and write it in their special book. (these books later become how they can practice reading!)
We did a block this year on creation and what different people believed and about the big bang as our daughter had lots of questions. It went wonderfully as I got a few books on the topic for kids.
We are now working on a lapbook to fit into our block, this one is about North America as she is interested in different parts of the world so we are starting with a little of what she knows. Lap book lessons can be easy as well and not costly to buy online on many subjects, all orgaised for me!
Add to that the hand work, knitting that I am learning so I can teach her better, the cooking that goes with waldorf homeschooling, the water colors (doing it the waldorf way with safe special paints IS costly but worth it) and the recorder, things feel very well rounded. Granted not all of that is done every day. This is key!
Many waldorf homeschoolers only do ONE academic block at a time. Like they will do math every morning for a month and then put it aside and not touch it for like 4 months. Then they will do science for a month in the morning…. and so on. We do math and spelling/reading/writing every school day and on many weekend days. Our daughter enjoys it. We do social studies and sience and the waldorf blocks monthly though.
It took us a while to find what worked for us and it was not easy. My ego took a big hit when I finally admited unschooling was not working. I like the bohemian thoughts behind it but I did not find it actually helped us any. It treated children like small adults, and they just are not. Putting so much on them I later saw as a great burden on them. They need to be kids, we need to set their lives up so they can be.
I do not mean to say unschooling is horrible, but I am saying it very very very much did not work for us and I believe did us more harm then good.
BUT if you would like a book on unschooling, I will send you one Adon! 🙂 (Sorry I have a few)
I am happy to help with this if you want! Just let me know. I am now an “expert” on daily rhythms and how they help a family thrive and enjoy their days and time. hehehehehe I swear that rhythms help me keep the depression away when they are followed well! (My past worry about PPD after having baby)
