I\'m Summer, a mouthy, sarcastic bitch. I\'m passionate about natural birth, long term breastfeeding, and living naturally. I curse too much, love tattoos, and will some day be crushed to death by my book collection. I homeschool, dream of gardening, and swing to the left. 
Curriculum? What Curriculum?
Welcome to week 1 of the Not-Back-to-School Blog Hop! There’s no need to get dressed or eat a balanced breakfast here, we’re just hanging out in our jammies eating cereal til noon.
This week we’re all sharing our curriculum plans. I love reading all the different curriculum and styles people are using. I really think you can get a good look at a person’s personality by what they choose to teach their kids. So you should all be a bit scared with my unschooling/classical/holistic approach. It’s a big ball of chaos being twisted around by the desire to run free and the love of structure and old books.
Our only real curriculum this year is the free Mosaic history/geography plan from Bringing Up Learners. It’s got a very Classical Education approach but offered in a lighter, secular, more arts and crafts way. I love the idea of present history in order, building on what happened before getting to today. I think it’s the political junkie in me, too often I see people ranting about things with absolutely no idea of the background history of why it got there. That’s actually part of my reasons to homeschool, to avoid the whitewashed, toned down pseudo-history taught in public schools. There will be no Pilgrims having turkey dinner with smiling, happy Native Americans in my house.
We will also be doing a sort of free Nature study using the Nature Study Handbook. We already spend a lot of time outside playing and collecting bugs, flowers, and rocks. But I want to add a small bit of more structure and art to it for my oldest. I bought him a sketchbook and plan to spend some time once a week especially for drawing or painting something from nature. We already did that a little when we painted leaves outside and the boys liked it. I’m going to use the book to teach them a little bit about whatever we’ve found outside and maybe make notebooking pages with their drawing.
After that we will stay in our unschooling set for the most part. Evan learned to read, count money, and tell time because it’s what he wanted. I offer help when he needs it and leave him lots of things to guide him (it’s called strewing) and let him see where it takes him.
Not technically homeschool stuff, but there a few other things we’re going to add. Like getting back into our morning yoga routine and maybe putting together a nature table. I had been hesitant doing one because of Trey, but now that he’s three he’s a little (but not much) better about not needing to grab and break everything he sees. I’m hoping the nature table will do double duty of helping share nature and the seasons on a more intimate level with the kids, and helping Trey learn a little more self-control. A girl can wish, right?
Of course this is just things as they stand now. Everything is open to change as needed, which is one of the beautiful things about homeschooling. We just go with the flow. In a chaotic, mixed up sort of way.
Handbook of Nature Study is one of our favorites as well.
Your approach sounds so…relaxed. My heart rate dropped a bit when I was reading.
I tend to stress myself out, wondering if I’m completing enough with the kids. Perhaps because I was homeschooled myself, and my Mom’s personality is so different from mine. She was a VERY relaxed person, but my Dad was VERY structured. I tend to teeter.
Pass some of that confidence over this way!
(out of curiosity, how many “extra things” do you get involved in? Sports, music, co-op classes? Just another source of
stressenrichment for us.)Summer Reply:
August 3rd, 2009 at 12:26 am
Wendy, it takes a lot to get me this relaxed. LOL I’m a natural planner/stresser at heart. I have to make myself step back and look at the bigger picture often. We don’t do too many extra things, I try to keep the stress down. We did t-ball over the summer, and will do football this fall. I’m debating on taking them to a dance class too. They want to go, but it’s costly and I worry that they’ll get bored after a few weeks and want to quit (the teacher makes you pay even if you quit). Other than that it’s mostly going to the park and having fun.
OH Summer I would luv to homeschool, and your approach sounds awesome!! I have heard alot about ‘unschooling’ method, and if I ever do it, it will be that way!
Thank you for sharing. I really enjoyed reading about your relaxed homeschool. Oh, man, I totally forgot about world breastfeeding week. Maybe because this is the first one in 7 years when I haven’t been breastfeeding, pregnant, or both.
Thank you for sharing on the Not Back to School Blog Hop. I’m really enjoying it.
I’m so glad you participated in the NBTS blog hop. It’s nice to see all the different approaches.
I’m going to see if I can post the correct link. If I can figure out how to do that, I’ll fix it.
-Darcy
I’m stopping in from the hop. We have a similar feel to our unschooling at home too. We have been doing the nature study too. I’m interested in what you do with your nature table. I love your blog, I’m going to add your button on my blog. Looking forward to hearing more about your upcoming unschooling year.
The Handbook of Nature study is on my wish list. I suppose I should just break down and order it and quit thinking about ordering it.
Thanks for sharing the Mosaic link I’d forgotten about it.
@Rana – I’m not totally set on our nature table yet. When I tried it before I let my oldest gather things to lay out on the table, we used scarves that sort of went with the season in color, and we would do a simple art or craft that matched the season (like leaf rubbing or a corn stalk doll). We don’t have as much room anymore since we’re in a small house, so it will be something more compact this time.
That is so awesome that you do yoga with your kids in the morning. If they concentrate and actually do it, I’m sure it really unwinds them and helps them focus.