MellowYellow Posted January 24, 2012 Share Posted January 24, 2012 I am interested in what type of curriculum/materials you use. My DH thinks we should completely unschool, where I rather use more of just a relaxed approach and have some sort of planned curriculum for at least math and language arts. Unschooling scares me because I fee like if they don't learn the basics of something I have failed them and only have myself to blame. I do love the idea of following their lead of what they are interested in and planning activities based on that. My son is in kindergarten and is using Saxon 1 Math and Phonics. I am trying to decide if I want to keep using these next year and just teach the basic info and leave out some stuff or if I should find a different curriculum all together. What do you do for math? What do you do for language arts/grammar/Spelling? Science? History? Art? How often do you do each subject? Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
choirfarm Posted January 24, 2012 Share Posted January 24, 2012 For kindergarten through 2nd I made sure that I did phonics every day and math every day. I also made sure I read something aloud every day. After that I sort of unschooled. She had a penpal- She wanted to write her a letter. So I wrote that down on the writing slot for the day. She needed to write something for AWANA- writing again as well as Bible.. Mom- look at the birds in the nest.. MMM what kind of birds are they?? Science. I had a template with all the subjects. I didnt allow her to watch tv or play on the computer, so she normally came up with something in one of the areas.. Life provided so much. AT 3rd grade, I became much more structured. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
5LittleMonkeys Posted January 24, 2012 Share Posted January 24, 2012 Ellie just linked this article in another thread. You might find it interesting to read regarding relaxed\delayed math. It's long but I found it extremely interesting! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NanceXToo Posted January 24, 2012 Share Posted January 24, 2012 (edited) I consider myself to be a relaxed homeschooler. I use Oak Meadow as a curriculum. In the earliest years, it is not overly academic...it starts out more Waldorf-inspired and gentle and slow-paced and sweet and doesn't push a lot of formal academics. I'm using it for K with my son this year and just adding sporadic Funnix beginning reading lessons. As it gets into the later years (so far I've used it for 4th, 5th and now 6th grades with my daughter), it does become more "academic" but still not in a dry/textbookish way, which I appreciate. It doesn't focus on a lot of textbook/workbook stuff but rather on short lessons written to the student in the syllabus followed by using living books, interesting writing assignments, hands on activities, and a lot of integration (social studies and English is integrated so whatever you learn about in social studies, the English reading will pertain to that, and the vocab words will come from that, and the writing assignments will be based on that, and the hands on project or activity will revolve around that, and so on and so forth. It will also integrate geography, art projects and more). I really like it. If you want to follow the link in my signature to take a peek at my blog, I have a lot of information on it...my daily entries show what our day to day lives are like as relaxed homeschoolers using mainly Oak Meadow (I did switch the math to something else from 5th grade on with my daughter, and I did add on one or two other things we found interesting such as Story of the World for instance, and Meet the Masters art), and on the sidebar to the left of my blog are reviews including a detailed Oak Meadow review and some other information, sample schedules for each grade we've used so far, articles I've written, including quite a few on my educational philosophy/laid back approach and so on. I don't think I could ever go with an unschool approach either, but I am pretty relaxed/eclectic, enjoying a more laid back curriculum, doing school around life rather than living life around school, willing to drop things to go out and do other interesting things when they come up because I think there are lots of ways to learn and that it's nice to have the freedom to take advantage of them all as they come up and so on. Edited January 24, 2012 by NanceXToo Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MellowYellow Posted January 24, 2012 Author Share Posted January 24, 2012 (edited) I consider myself to be a relaxed homeschooler. I use Oak Meadow as a curriculum. In the earliest years, it is not overly academic...it starts out more Waldorf-inspired and gentle and slow-paced and sweet and doesn't push a lot of formal academics. I'm using it for K with my son this year and just adding sporadic Funnix beginning reading lessons. As it gets into the later years (so far I've used it for 4th, 5th and now 6th grades with my daughter), it does become more "academic" but still not in a dry/textbookish way, which I appreciate. It doesn't focus on a lot of textbook/workbook stuff but rather on short lessons written to the student in the syllabus followed by using living books, interesting writing assignments, hands on activities, and a lot of integration (social studies and English is integrated so whatever you learn about in social studies, the English reading will pertain to that, and the vocab words will come from that, and the writing assignments will be based on that, and the hands on project or activity will revolve around that, and so on and so forth. It will also integrate geography, art projects and more). I really like it. If you want to follow the link in my signature to take a peek at my blog, I have a lot of information on it...my daily entries show what our day to day lives are like as relaxed homeschoolers using mainly Oak Meadow (I did switch the math to something else from 5th grade on with my daughter, and I did add on one or two other things we found interesting such as Story of the World for instance, and Meet the Masters art), and on the sidebar to the left of my blog are reviews including a detailed Oak Meadow review and some other information, sample schedules for each grade we've used so far, articles I've written, including quite a few on my educational philosophy/laid back approach and so on. I don't think I could ever go with an unschool approach either, but I am pretty relaxed/eclectic, enjoying a more laid back curriculum, doing school around life rather than living life around school, willing to drop things to go out and do other interesting things when they come up because I think there are lots of ways to learn and that it's nice to have the freedom to take advantage of them all as they come up and so on. I love this part "doing school around life rather than living life around school." That is such a great way to look it, thanks! I will definitely check out your blog. Edited January 24, 2012 by MellowYellow Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MellowYellow Posted January 24, 2012 Author Share Posted January 24, 2012 Ellie just linked this article in another thread. You might find it interesting to read regarding relaxed\delayed math. It's long but I found it extremely interesting! Thank you, I found it very interesting. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jar7709 Posted January 24, 2012 Share Posted January 24, 2012 I identify as relaxed/eclectic, too, and our kids are about the same age. I love the idea of unschooling, but I can't go whole hog, I need to preserve some routine and structure to some things for my own piece of mind and so I can continue to work. We do LA and Math in a structured way using Moving Beyond the Page/Explode the Code and Miquon/Math Mammoth for an hour or two most mornings. In the afternoons we spend a half hour to an hour reading fiction, science, and history books in a CM-y way, or we are out and about at activities or appointments. While I do see my kids learning from the more structured LA and Math curriculums, our lives are all about learning anyway, so for us it's about keeping our eyes open for those other learning opportunities in life. They really are everywhere. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
faiths13 Posted January 24, 2012 Share Posted January 24, 2012 We have been working on implementing the Charlotte Mason philosophy into our hs. It is pretty relaxed, yet very challenging. http://simplycharlottemason.com/basics/what-is-the-charlotte-mason-method/ http://www.charlottemasonhelp.com/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SweetMissMagnolia Posted January 25, 2012 Share Posted January 25, 2012 abeka and some things from TWTM (wwe-sotw) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Farrar Posted January 25, 2012 Share Posted January 25, 2012 (edited) I think of us as relaxed. Currently for 2nd grade, one child is using Math Mammoth, the other is using a wide variety of things for math, but a good dose of Miquon and lots of RightStart games. We also use Explode the Code and Spelling Plus. One uses the spelling lists, the other does the dictations. We have some logic stuff from Prufrock Press (Logic Safari) and Tin Man Press (Wakeruppers). Science and history are designed by me using living books. But for K, we didn't do much formal curriculum at all. We did Handwriting Without Tears. And we did SOTW ancients, but a really gentle, project filled version of it. Everything else was game based and living book based. ETA: Thinking more... I don't think there's a specific curriculum to being "relaxed." Some curricula feel a bit more open to it because they're more outside the box and less drill oriented, but I think any curricula can be part of a relaxed homeschool if it's what works for the individual family and is done in a way where the family doesn't let the curricula's schedule (if there is one) become oppressive. Edited January 25, 2012 by farrarwilliams Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
.... Posted January 25, 2012 Share Posted January 25, 2012 (edited) I am interested in what type of curriculum/materials you use. My DH thinks we should completely unschool, where I rather use more of just a relaxed approach and have some sort of planned curriculum for at least math and language arts. Unschooling scares me because I fee like if they don't learn the basics of something I have failed them and only have myself to blame. I do love the idea of following their lead of what they are interested in and planning activities based on that. My son is in kindergarten and is using Saxon 1 Math and Phonics. I am trying to decide if I want to keep using these next year and just teach the basic info and leave out some stuff or if I should find a different curriculum all together. What do you do for math? What do you do for language arts/grammar/Spelling? Science? History? Art? How often do you do each subject? Thanks! I "think" we are considered relaxed homeschoolers. Have you read this article? http://sonyahaskins.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=207:relaxed-homeschooling-an-introduction&catid=82:relaxed-homeschooling&Itemid=12 That pretty much sums up my attitude on homeschooling. :D My oldest daughter follows TWTM 5th grade schedule (almost exactly out of the book), but she's very driven and everyone else would probably be considered relaxed homeschoolers. We're also Weather-Schoolers. Yesterday, it was almost 70 degrees outside (we're in Texas), so my kids spent hours at this park with a field and trees. They were climbing trees, my 1st grader was following ant trails (not fire ants - LOL) and they ran our border collie for about an hour through the field (poor dog). When we came home, the 1st grader sat and read for awhile. She dragged out a bunch of library books and I read those to her. We also read Life of Fred. We also school year-round and even on the weekends (but don't tell my kids that's not normal :tongue_smilie:). You asked about curriculum. My 1st grader is actually very heavy in math. She is a math whiz and she loves math. She's using Singapore Math, Miquon and we just bought Life of Fred (which she thinks is awesome). That's pretty much where her curriculum ends. I have her copy a sentence every day in her notebook. Also, I'm reading through all the Little House books and she will draw a picture in her notebook of the story and try to write a sentence about it. We have CLE Readers lying around and she's been on a kick lately to read those. Almost everything else is just library books. Maybe we're Library-Book-Schoolers. I just let her check out a bunch of books and I read them to her. I keep a Book Basket for her. Oh, she also uses All About Spelling - I guess that's the other curriculum item she uses. She seems to like it. We also have a series going at all times. My oldest kids are reading through the entire Narnia series and using ROAR! http://www.amazon.com/Roar-Christian-Family-Chronicles-Narnia/dp/1590525361/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1327493424&sr=8-1 My oldest two kids LOVE this. We read the book together and have a small lit discussion. My older two kids use more curriculum than the younger ones, but I get their input about everything. My son wants to learn Spanish, so he started Spanish. My oldest daughter asked for Apologia's Anatomy and Physiology, so she'll be starting that soon. Oh, I forgot to add: We are also no TV People. We don't have cable and the kids have a small limit on how long they can play a video game or watch a show. I think that's important when we talk about creating a learning environment. SWB talks about screen time in TWTM - if they weren't watching TV, what else would they be doing (besides whining - LOL)? Edited January 25, 2012 by starrbuck12 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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