One of the things I have always wanted, even before MoonGirl was born, was to give homeschooling a chance. As I’ve mentioned in a previous post, my husband and I have had experience in both public and private schools, and I have friends who have experienced both the benefits and drawbacks of homeschooling. While we had good schooling experiences in general, my husband and I have discussed some of our reservations about traditional schooling, and we felt that our own interests and knowledge were diverse enough that we could feasibly provide a well-rounded education at up to a 5th-grade level (around 10 years old).
Now that MoonGirl is over two and a half years old, I’ve started thinking about how to move ahead with her schooling. I have been going back and forth as to whether or not to homeschool, because I didn’t want to become too ambitious and not be able to provide a good quality education and stressing us all out in the end. So, my husband and I have come to an agreement that we would homeschool MoonGirl from the ages of 3 to 5 (traditional preschool through TK). And, if it goes well, we will continue on. If it’s an utter disaster, we would put her in the best school near us.
So, where to begin? I didn’t want something too rigorous. I am a big believer that children learn the best through unstructured play, which has been supported by various studies. MoonGirl is also my little wild child, who does the best when she’s outside and interacting with nature rather than sitting still in her room, so I wanted there to be a focus on the outdoors. Finally, I wanted a secular curriculum for personal reasons. I’ve researched various homeschooling philosophies such as Charlotte Mason, Reggio Emilia, and Classical homeschool, which all had various aspects that appealed to me. However, the curriculum that spoke most deeply to me is Unschooling (here’s a good introduction), or child-directed schooling, in which the curriculum follows and is informed by the child’s interests.
Now, I personally need structure in my life so that I know how best to direct my limited time and energy, so I’m instead doing a modified version of unschooling in that there are certain goals I want to meet with MoonGirl (though she will not know which goals I have set, so as to keep it more child-directed), and we will work within the activities she is most drawn to in order to reach for those goals. I will discuss how I came up with my “curriculum” as well as why unschooling is so appealing to me in future posts.