Yes….I’m 14 and come from what might be called an unschooling family. I learnt to read and write very young by pestering my older siblings’ governess to ‘play school’ with me, starting from when I was aged about 2. Beyond that, our parents simply fill the house with books etc and trust us to follow our own interests and instincts – with 9 kids in the house, I think it would be chaos to try to homeschool in a more structured way.

State guidelines depend, like everything else, on where you live. Up here, everything is pretty laissez faire.Our parents are contacted by the powers-that-be approximately every 18 months and that is just by letter and to ask if we are still being home educated. There’s no testing, minimum standards or prescribed subjects here. As the Education Officer once told my mother: ‘According to the law, you have to provide your children with an appropriate education…but nowhere is it defined what is meant by appropriate’

We’re unschoolers, and we’re here.

I couldn’t possibly give you a rundown, as every thing we do throughout the day is a learning experience. One example is today when we were at McDonald’s the kids were asking questions about the difference between steam and smoke, so we talked about particles, water cycle, entropy, nutrition, atoms, and the list goes on.

You must follow your states guidelines, and the best way to figure out how to unschool under those guidelines is to contact your local unschooling group. Even those that test, I’ve heard of unschoolers who will do the test, and then never look at the results, etc.

There are many unschooling groups around. If you want a no-nonsense one that will get you started, check out unschooling_basics.

Multiple quesions! I’m going to break them down individually to ensure that I answer everything. 🙂

>>any unschoolers in here……?

Yes – I have noticed many unschoolers posting here, and our family specifically would be considered unschoolers by most.

>>Are there state guidelines that you still have to follow such as testing and whatnot?

Each state has different laws pertaining to homeschooling, from simply informing the local BOE of your intent to regular reviews and standardized testing. For specific laws regarding your state:

http://www.hslda.org/laws/default.asp

>>Are there any unschooling groups around?

Lots – try running a search in any engine using ‘your state unschooling’ and you should get some results. A search at yahoo groups results in 801 groups from international to extremely localized.

>>can you give me a rundown of what you do to teach your kids?

Anything can be a learning experience. A visit to the park can evolve into a talk about nature. Addition and subtraction can be applied to eating M&Ms. Long drives are great for books or language courses on CD. Using the subtitles on DvDs encourages reading. A ‘simple’ trip to the grocery store can cover a myriad of subjects – plant and animal biology, weights and measurements, economics, etc. There are scores of obvious places to visit (museums, government buildings, science centers), as well as thousands of lessons that can involve pretty much anywhere you go and anything you do. The biggest trick is learning to take advantage of ‘teachable moments’. Cooking? Your kitchen is a laboratory. Taking out the trash? Resources and recyling.

Read, read, read! Read everything! Point out the words and their sounds if they’re still pre-reading. Find books on anything they’re interested in (most children can and will absorb information often considered ‘above grade lvl’ if they have a marked interest in the subject). Literally litter your house with books – visit the library frequently – get to know used bookstores (local and web) in and out – get novelizations of his/her favorite movies/TV shows. Read some more!

Best of luck to you and hope this helps!

1st yes – part time unschoolers here (different seasons as children progress)

2nd – you will have to conform to state guidelines no matter what for your homeschool takes. Check HSLDA http://www.hslda.org for your state regs. Also find a homeschool group for your state, they will have a better idea of how to actually conform to the laws in the most appropriate manner.

3rd – unschooling by nature isn’t planned. So, we basically just lived life learning its lessons. We did some bookwork in specific sciences in high school, some for the fun of it in middle school and grade school just because the kids enjoyed it.

Subjects we always unschooled: computer, home ec, animal husbandry (bought a farm special for the education it would give the kids), finances, music (did do a couple years with a homeschool band), art.

How we unschooled? We just let the kids explore those as if they were they same as eating meals and sleeping. We see it as an extension of what we did before they were old enough to be whisked off to public school and need a trained teacher. We taught them to walk by lifestyle, read by lifestyle, all those things they needed to learn to move on in the progression of growth. There wasn’t a walking 101, just a fun playtime that evolved into walking. We didn’t need textbooks on the mechanics of walking. It was just a natural progression. Sometimes that progression requires providing resources. It’s hard to learn computer without one in the house. So, we provided resources, they let their excitement, imagination and desire do the teaching.

The interesting thing is 2 are in media, including complete computer immersion – never touched as a “subject” by conventional textbook teaching at home.

1 is a guitarist, going to college with a music scholarship next year. We let him take private lessons for three years, but at 10 he taught himself to play when a cousin gave him a BROKEN guitar. I provided him with the guitar lesson book that I’d had sitting in the piano bench for years. He just took it to his room and eventually came up playing. That is the tru essence of homeschooling – and interest + some helpful resources + a child = education.

#4 is a serious artist and writer. We have done some grammar textbook style, but no art. Her older brother showed her some tricks. She spends much of the day working with different styles of pictures and art books and does a great job.

I never assess progress for what we unschool, since the kids assess their own progress, adjust and move forward out of their own personal interest.

We have done math texts since 3rd grade, never too strict about finishing the book. But that is the only traditional we consistently use.

I unschooled science up to the high school level just by watching every documentary we could find, and looking up everything we could think of in the encyclopedia. I tried a formal course at grade six but they were too advanced for it. For history etc. we read really good literature from different eras and countries and researched what we have read. Every time we encounter something interesting we look it up in our home library, encyclopedias and on the internet. (I also emphasize to my girls that research should be repeated to avoid biases and misconceptions) We read the news and look up the people, countries and events referred to. It is great fun and one of my children has a phenomenal knowledge base about the world and it’s history. ( My other child couldn’t care less.) Unschooling is great for the people who enjoy the learning journey, not for those who want the quick payoff of the grade.

I copied and pasted most from one of my previous answers to similar questions, and I would like to add another resource book on unschooling that I think gives a pretty good snapshot of this method of learning, as well as the life style.

The Unschooling Handbook by Mary Griffith.

ISBN — 10: 0761512764

Please understand that unschooling is the hardest to describe since it is different for each family, it is unique to their life style, as well as each individual in that family.

Most states have basic guidelines for home schooling, ours does not require any testing.

Unschooling families have to be just a bit more creative in how they fit their style of learning into the paperwork “criteria” set by the state.

Example; learning how to make menu’s, food preperation, and cooking, as well as their chores is home economic’s, and health.

Going swimming, roller blading, playing racket ball, volley and basketball, or bowling equals many PE hours, and so on.

Unschooling groups form at the local level; we have found

that families become very relaxed, and often turn to unschooling once they see how it is put into practice.

It really does work, but you have to adapt it as a life style.

Unschooling is not a “schooling method” in the traditional sense.

I take that back, if you ever study early American history I guess it used to be the only method 🙂

Here is a rundown of our unschooling way of life:

First, and most important we have long talks, and discussion about anything, and everything.

We do math, and language arts in the more traditional way, since I believe that math, reading, and writing are the most important things a person can learn.

If these are firmly in place, you can learn anything you put your mind to.

Proper communication is very important.

For history we choose, movies, documentaries, talks with veterans, good historical fiction books, games, and other literature.

For geography we do essentially the same, but we also include games, travel video’s, road trips, and cooking meals from the regions.

Map skills (regular, and topical), as well as compass reading are learned, because these skill are a necessity where we live.

One should not rely on technology (GPS) alone, these gadgets can break, making basic survival skills a must.

The Boy Scouts, the Civil Air patrol can teach many of these skills as well.

Science is part of everyday life, the first six years are the day’s of creation, each “day” has enough subject material to cover a years worth of reading, experiments, as well as field trips; one drawback are the animal habitats; they become a permanent part of our families zoo. 🙂

Home economics’s, and life skills; chores, learning how to budget, shop, and cook by planning the meals, and preparing them.

Getting a job, balancing a checkbook (even at age 12), and learning how to save, learning how to work with, and interact with all kinds of people on the job,or while doing their volunteer work are skills that need to be practiced, and cannot be learned properly from a textbook.

They are learning languages, cultural diversity and music, from members of our congregation who gladly share their knowledge, and talents with them, because the children are genuinely interested.

Bible; Sunday school, Awana’s, youth groups, and Bible camps; add daily devotions, voila, no curriculum needed unless you like to have a chronological study; my kids did want to do that so we got one.

Civics’s, study a basic book; add a study of the constitution; go to see your elected officials in action at your state capitol, follow a bill to see how it is drafted, and what it takes to move it through the system, volunteer at voting booths, or a candidates campaign.

Speech, and debate sign up for Toastmasters, or another club.

Electives; use 4H for everything from cooking, sewing, photography, veterinary science to robotics.

Sports; the sky is the limit, both for recreation, and competition.

I would say all that adds up to much more than the average “textbook” could ever cover.

So many choices, so little time, we pick and choose what we like; if you had to do it all you would never find time to sleep.

Life was meant to be experienced, lived, and questioned, with all it’s ups and downs.

The added benefit is that learning actually clicks, because it is a part of their daily life, it makes sense, and they gain the needed self confidence to become independent, with that I can do attitude.

I unschooled myself in just about everything I do professionally.

I did photography, movie work, audio recording, multi track work, taught myself guitar, bass, keyboards.

My working in observational astronomy from that age of 11 got me published in Sky and Telescope at age 16.

Then my work in photography and music got me published in other magazines.

My work in photography got me published in newspapers and magazines.

I unschooled myself in graphic arts and made flyers, posters, PR materials, long before there was a home computer.

I did it the old fashioned way with rubiliths, rub on lettering, C-Thru rulers and blue pencil.

I ended up in the Photographic industry for many years working in management.

I put TV commercials on the air.

I worked in the music field and produced records with ASCAP current play status.

Then I worked in a motion picture archive for years and was job schooled by one of the formost experts in cinema history and got exposed to some top writers and professors in the field who were our clients.

I unschooled myself in computer programming and made $$ off of serveral programs I wrote and did web sites professionally for a variety of companies.

One of my best sellers was a graphic arts program designed to make CD covers with text, graphics, logos for the novice musician.

Unschooling, let say in programming, is not about opening a book you buy at Barnes and Nobel and doing what they tell you step by step. That’s homeschooling. That following a sylubus.

Unschooling learning all the operators and saying.

Now I want to write my own word processing program. How do I make it justify text flush to the right.

Then you experiement and find a way to do it.

If someone has to tell you, you’re not learning, you’re cheating.

When you go to work for Microsoft they pose a problem that has never been solved before so there is no book and you have use your brain.

Here is a link to where you can find your state laws on homeschooling.

http://www.hslda.org/

There are quite a number of unschooling groups. I’d search Yahoo Groups for your location+unschool. You’ll probably find at least one. You may also want to try your local homeschool groups. You’ll usually find a couple unschoolers lurking in there.

We’re very relaxed homeschoolers. We don’t quite unschool but probably pretty close.

My oldest two have graduated and are working full time. My younger two are 10yo and 5yo. As for a run down of what we teach the kids – We try to incorporate learning into most of the things we do.

We read a tremendous amount. Even my 21yo ds and 19yo dd join us when we read aloud, if they’re around.

When we cook or bake, we talk about math. We divide the recipe into different fractions. We double or triple the recipe and then we make it and eat it. We estimate how many cookies we can make from a bowl of dough.

When we painted the house we figured out how much paint we needed to do the space we had to cover.

We regularly estimate things like how many times we’ll have to empty the bag on the lawn mower or how many cars attached the the train that’s going by.

When we’re outside and find a bug or see an animal, we look it up and read about it.

We made a tree scavenger hunt for our homeschool group. We learned the difference between evergreens and deciduous trees. We learned about compound and alternate leaves. We can identify about 25 trees that grow in our area now. We learned where maple syrup comes from. We learned about different kinds of bark.

When the kids were little we counted everything from certain color cars to telephone poles. We learned about evens and odds while matching socks. While folding clothes and gardening we talked about primary colors and what to mix to make what color. Then we took out our box of water colors and experimented.

When we dye Easter eggs we play with the dyes before disposing of them. Dying eggs lead to tie dying clothes, where we learned about fixing the color in the cloth with mordants.

We don’t watch much TV but we do have a DVD player. We chose our movies carefully. Many have history or science in them that peak our interest so we go on to do more research on that subject. We don’t have video games except for LeapPad products.

When the kids ask a question we look it up. My husband and I try to model learning as a way of life.

On top of that stuff we have Story of the World that we use on a semi regular basis. We’re also working on Catechism. We use copywork for our language arts and spelling. We use narration on most of the things we read. The kids have been doing it so long I don’t even ask anymore. We have a science book that we do experiments from a couple times a week.

The best advice that I can ever give to new homeschoolers is to relax. Learning is natural. Remove the obstacles to learning and children will be naturally curious.

I believe that we’re robbing our world of many very talented people by trying so hard to make our children well rounded. I can’t imagine that Leonardo da Vinci would have been half as good as he was if he hadn’t been able to immerse himself in what he was interested in. Our kids need lots of time to explore and focus on what interests them.

Enjoy your child (ren) and good luck on your unschooling journey!

Seana

There are several unschooling groups on Yahoogroups. That’s where I’d start. Each state has different rules about how you have to home educate there.

http://www.homeedmag.com/lawregs/ is the best site I know for finding state regs.

Yes my sibling is homeschooled