Not Back to School Day

Unschooling is sometimes referred to as child-led learning, and most dedicated unschoolers advocate a non-coercive education in which the child has a significant role in choosing the content and the pace of learning. Perhaps most importantly, unschoolers believe that children will learn what they need to learn if allowed to seek answers to their own questions. — Lisa Rivero

Yesterday we attended the special-edition park day with the Seattle Homeschool Group. It's called Not Back to School Day!

And now I suppose we're officially homeschooling!

Orlando turned five. He is now "school-age".

The Seattle school year started, in which he would be eligible for kindergarten (though we would have held him back were he going to go to school).

I've finally made it a priority to commit to attending weekly park days so that Orlando and I (and Mica) can form meaningful connections with others in Seattle. I changed my email subscription so I get all the messages in my inbox and now I'm more "in the know."

A few months ago I started reading tons of books about approaches to homeschooling (unschooling, classical, Charlotte Mason, unit studies, Waldorf, et al) and wondering what our approach is going to be...

• Can I combine unschooling and classical (which we wouldn't start for a year or two)?

• Can I take parts of different approaches and combine them?

• Will I be able to strike a good balance between parent-suggested and child-suggested?

I created a set of homeschooling focuses for Orlando, based on what he's told me and based on what I think he might be ready for.

Orlando told me that he wants to learn to read books. We have a picture dictionary that we read a lot already, but I bought alphabet letters and we put them up on the wall. I created a bigger workspace for Orlando to paint, color, trace his letters. We started reading novel-length books for kids (Big House in the Little Woods, Cricket in Times Square). I started reading books to prime myself on how to help Orlando learn what he wants to (handwriting, phonics, sensory integration, etc.)

I spent a bunch of time in Cozi making our calendar...

WEEKLY ACTIVITIES — circus class, musical instruments, homeschool park day, walking in the woods, shopping/cooking/cleaning.

MONTHLY ACTIVITIES — homeschool science club, homeschool emergent readers group, homeschool chess club, lunch with Papa at his office, family field trip.

I have a whole year to figure this thing out... just as I've had the previous five years to learn, relearn, adapt, and create. I look forward to working together with this small person who's joined me here!


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And! One of my favorite families of all time has decided to homeschool! The kids are 12 and 10 and they each have a blog where they've been recording their experiences. They'd love to connect to other homeschooling families!

Homeschooling Cowgirl

Wild Poppy Homeschooler