WOW, what a great kid you have there. And you know great kids come from great parents. Good job!!! I am trying really hard to be a family of reading. My daughter Genesis (9 years old) use to love to read, but now she dreads it. I keep getting books for her hoping that one will spark her interest. I’ve made it a requirement that she reads a chapter before getting online or TV. I just don’t want her to hate reading, which right now she does.
Any tips?

This is something that’s brought on a lot of thought and prayers for me over the years… years that I sure didn’t feel like I was doing a “good job”! This question of how to go about nurturing readers, especially when a child doesn’t seem very prone to reading on his own perplexed and intimidated me. Yes, I can honestly say that teaching our oldest son to read was like this big hurdle in my mind… I just knew that if I could get him reading well, the rest would come! It didn’t even occur to me then that he might not like reading much, once he’d learned. I too bought books that laid around unread for years before they were *discovered*, which yes, eventually… they have been!

OH! … and what an insurmountable task it seemed to me, looming before me like some mysterious quest that I didn’t know exactly how to embark upon, to teach my oldest child to read. I think the simplicity of it really eluded me… that teaching phonics, and then nurturing a genuine love for reading, isn’t really so difficult as I’d inadvertently built it up in my mind as being, and so in many ways discouraged myself before I’d hardly begun. That however, is the curse of a perfectionist, and I digress… Yes, this journey has definitely taught me as much as it’s taught my son, about perseverance. It really does simply take a little bit of consistent effort, and time set aside every day.

Our son was not always nearly so enthusiastic about reading as I was, nor as he is now, unlike his younger sister, who’s been a bibliophile from the time she was five and started reading on her own, stressing me out over on the opposite end of the spectrum because I hadn’t taught her those phonograms yet and she might get all mixed up!

Yes, with all of the fumbling, planning, worrying and learning that I’ve done over the years, I think that I’m finally starting to realize that my kids are learning not because of me, but rather in spite of me. Laughing… Seriously though, there are a few things that I do believe I’ve done right in the way of nurturing our up and coming readers, which may even warrant my passing along to you, and so I shall.

Nathan used to moan when I’d give him a book for required reading that seemed to him like it would require too much effort, or didn’t catch his attention immediately by way of its title and cover. Oh, how often I did fret over his seemingly delayed readiness to even learn how to read. And I emphasize seemingly because I soon learned that I was gauging his readiness by the wrong standards: I was judging where we were by my own preconceived expectations and self-imposed time-line, rather than by his…

I do believe that starting with a solid phonics program is the key to giving your children a strong reading start. However, at the same time, I also think that it’s important that we don’t rush them, forcing something before they’re ready. If we want our children to love reading, we should be sensitive to their readiness, because they will eventually be ready and want to learn!

We took it slow, beginning to learn basic phonics when he was six, and progressed steadily from there. Let’s just say that it was not his favorite thing to do, and so I persisted at an easy pace, sometimes only five minutes a day (per what I’d learned from my plethora of reading teacher materials), and eventually I turned it into game-time, which he responded most readily to (in second grade). That’s when it all begin to click for him…

Here is an excerpt from an article that encouraged me immensely in the earlier years, to relax… to pay more attention to him, than to my own fears of failing him.

Better Late than Early
An Excerpt from: Homeschooling for Success
How Parents can Create a Superior Education for their Child

For younger children, the emphasis is usually on building a solid foundation in reading, writing, and basic math. Where schools believe in starting formal learning as early as possible, most homeschoolers believe in delaying formal studies until the child is seven or older. This allows the child to mature physically and emotionally before she is asked to sit down and study.

Dr. Raymond Moore and his late wife, Dorothy Moore are probably the best-known advocates of the later-is-better approach. The Moores’ 1975 book Better Late Than Early summarizes research supporting their contention that children are not psychologically ready for formal learning until age eight to ten. They suggest that waiting allows children to gain the maturity and logical skills necessary for formal work and prevents them from becoming frustrated and discouraged by attempts to handle material they are simply not yet ready to understand.

It is quite common for homeschooled children, especially those using a flexible homeschooling approach, to learn to read as young as three or to delay until age eight or nine. This may seem like a shocking idea, but boys in particular are often not ready to read until they are seven or older, and they quickly catch up to the early readers.

Because of the individualized nature of homeschooling, late reading is not a handicap as it might be in a conventional school setting. Schools rely on text-based instruction, but “late” readers at home simply learn through other means, like watching educational TV and videos, asking questions, and observing the world around them. Also, since the child is not labeled as “slow” or put into the slow reading group, their self-confidence and self-esteem does not suffer. The child will grow into an enthusiastic reader, and thus view reading not only as a tool for obtaining knowledge or keeping up with others but as an enjoyable activity.

Raising a lifelong reader is very different from just teaching a child to read. Approximately twenty million people in the United States can’t read. Another estimated 40 million read at a fourth-grade level. While these are unacceptable numbers, there is another reading epidemic in this country. We’re a nation of “alliterates’”, which means we know how to read but we don’t read. A 1999 survey showed that only 45 percent of citizens read more than a half-hour every day—that would include all reading from fiction to newspapers to work-related materials. While the two hours of television the average American watches each day factors in here, could our nation’s lack of interest in reading have something to do with the way we are taught to read in school? Is it because we assign reading (instead of letting the child choose) and require book reports? Book reports in the second grade? Record numbers of children are forced to read before they are developmentally ready. Thus, reading continues to be an unpleasant experience for most of their school career. Unless a reading problem is involved children learn to read when they are ready. It is developmental and not synchronized to meet an educator’s timetable.

The best advice is to teach your child to read when they are ready, regardless of how young or old they may be. {emphasis mine.} Reading specialists have observed that children display certain behaviors when  they are read to read.

Click here to read the rest: Better Late than Early: An Excerpt from: Homeschooling for Success, How Parents can Create a Superior Education for their Child

Also see: Better Late Than Early: A New Approach to Your Child’s Education

I won’t bore you (well, not in this post anyways) with a list of all of the reading curricula that I read for my own edification, some of which I then *used* on him as I designed my own eclectic reading program! However, I will share with you what I think nurtured him along the most regarding his going beyond merely learning how to read, to his eventually becoming a real READER: someone who picks up a good, living book, of his own volition, and reads for his own pleasure and edification… often. {Oh, GLORY day!} This didn’t happen really until he was about 11 years old. Don’t get me wrong, he’d read a few good chapter books before then, but only because I’d required it.

I’ll never forget the day that Nathan actually thanked me for making him read a chapter book on his own, which “turned out to be interesting, after all”, but only after he’d done a lot of grumbling before starting it. Imagine that?! This was also when he got his “don’t judge a book by its cover” lecture. Good times!

He was nine, turning ten years old that year. That was also the year that I started having him read a harder, more challenging book aloud to me regularly as well (both were required reading for our AO, Year 3 program). Actually, we took turns reading it, and it was divided into short portions, scheduled out over a period of many weeks, which kept us both plugging away at it together, without being overwhelmed. That was all that I required of him though at that time, reading-wise, besides some short, regular poetry readings, and occasional read-aloud sessions from his McGuffey, both of which he actually loved! Over the years, he’s learned to trust my selection of books, and isn’t so quick to snub a book I require or merely suggest.

I will say that besides the Moores, the writings of Dr. Ruth Beechick and Charlotte Mason offered me the greatest encouragment regarding the teaching (or rather, facilitating of) reading at the time. Now I’d like to offer a few tips for nurturing your own readers, much of which I think is somewhat intuitive.

The worth of a book is to be measured by what you can carry away from it.  ~James Bryce

Nurturing Readers~ Some tips from our Reading House to Yours!

• Make reading to your children often a priority, from the time they’re babes, even on into their teens. Be selective with this reading time, choosing quality, living books full of great ideas, worthy of your child’s imagination and ever growing curiosity regarding their world.

• Make a point of incoorperating narrations into your daily reading routines early-on, and continue as the years progress. This, in our experience, has been an area that easily gets neglected. Every day, we begin again… I have fond memories of Nathan and Tabitha spontaneously planning and reenacting quite a few tales with their stuffed animals. There are so many creative ways to include narrations in one’s reading routines. Narrations often happen naturally as my kids’ enthusiasm for something they’re reading about just spills over naturally, and they want to tell me all about it. I’m often having to consciously set what I’m doing aside to tune myself into what they’re saying. These spontaneous narrations often will then turn into great discussions too!
• Require fifteen, then twenty, and eventually thirty minutes of comfortable (reading level-wise) silent reading each day, from a book that’s part of your “studies”, literature supplemental to your history studies maybe (what we call our “school books”- which are simply the ones I’ve scheduled). Now that they’re older, my kiddos read more, but this was a good starting point in their early elementary years. Practice, practice, practice… a little bit each day, just like the phonics lessons that got them there.
• Require your children to read aloud to you each day as well. I cannot overstate the value of this discipline enough. It’s not only provided hours of wonderful memories for us, but also allows me to hear what we need to work on, clarify phonetic mispronunciations and gives your children needed practice with enunciation and elocution, an invaluable skill.
  
• Be patient. Continue to read good books to them, even once they’re reading fluently on their own. Keep your shelves stocked and tables strewn with more of the same, and they will read… when they’re ready, what they want to (along with a few things you’ve *suggested*, or required via their other studies, to challenge them).
• Be a discerning reader yourself. They will learn by seeing you, and eventually will emulate you and will even want to read what you’re reading- just last week Nathan asked me if he could read my book when I was finished. He’s also forever reading news and geo-political stuff over his Dad’s shoulder. Get yourself some good book lists to refer to over the years, as you make purchases, create a PBS wishlist, or go to the library. I had to learn what books I was even looking for, since my own education (unfortunately) didn’t include much in the way of good literature. I’ll include some of my favorites at the end of this post.
• Provide plenty of *easy* books for them to read, along with magazines, with lots of engaging pictures. These will nurture that symbiotic relationship that’s just beginning between your children and their books early on. I must admit that though we avoid it for the most part, I’ve even allowed a bit of twaddle over the years (Magic Tree House series comes to mind here- I think the kids checked every single one of those out from the library one summer), as well as some of those Illustrated Classics. Catherine Levison has a great article here defining twaddle, which is the literary equivalent to junk food, and you want to avoid, for the most part. My son read and re-read a huge collection of Ranger Rick mags that a friend’s daughter had given us. I remember him piling a new stack of these well-read, falling apart magazines on our bed each evening… Nathan has also LOVED the Usborne World History and Time Traveller books, BIG time, and has read them front to back many times over the years! Last year he devoured Oxford’s First Ancient History, which we’d bought him as a gift, seeing as it was a step-up from the Usborne history books that he’d loved so much. He’s also enjoyed Hakim’s History of US series, which we’ve gradually attained via paperbackswap.com, and has led to some interesting discussions. Nathan will often choose history books for his evening free-reading time, and it has been a joy to see this interest of his grow and blossom over the years. His other all-time favorites have been our myriad collection of picture Bibles. In the last couple of months I have been thrilled to find him snuggled in bed with his grown-up NIV, “reading about David”! It was really hard to tell him “lights out” those nights.

• Allow your children an extra 30 mins. to an hour of time after “bed-time” to sit up and read, before “lights-out” time. It works! Our kids have been doing this for years, and it’s become a very important time to them. It’s also a time that Dad will often snuggle and read to them, or myself, once the baby’s in bed. I’ve also allowed them to do drawing or copy-work (yes, per their request) during this “quiet reading time”. Since Chris and I usually stay up well after they’ve gone to sleep, we’ve often allowed this time to be in our “big bed”, which enabled Nathan and Tabitha to be together, and facilitates snuggling so well. One year we read through The Chronicles of Narnia together, a chapter or two a night. It all started when I announced that we had to read the book before going to see the movie, The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe when it came out in theatres. Once we finished that first one, the kids just wanted me to keep going. Now that they’re older though, and their baby sister is sleeping in our room, this time is spent in their own bedrooms. Everything in it’s time. You will find what works best for your family.

• Don’t over do it. Remember that you want them to enjoy reading. Less really can be more, in the long run. If your children seem sincerely overwhelmed, lighten their load a little bit, so long as you’re confident they are putting forth their best efforts. That’s all that matters, that they’re learning, growing… paces will vary.
  
• Help them find good books (and/or articles online even) about topics that interest them.

• Don’t be afraid to tell them no, and make them wait for some books. I did this with The Hobbit, a book that Nathan wanted to read for years before I’d let him, before he was ready. The cover jacket of this book tantalized him to no end, and the inadvertent anticipation this created was worth its weight and wait in gold. When I did finally relent, a couple of months before he turned twelve, he gobbled it up within three weeks, over our winter break, right before starting the LOTR trilogy. Yes, I’ll never forget that holiday break, when I did the homeschool-mama-happy-dance all around the house, while he spent the month immersed in mature books, of his own volition, and *off* from school-work. Now, he’s reading The Hobbit again (per his own request) at a much slower pace, as it’s scheduled into his weekly AO readings.
• Allow them to take their school-work/reading books outside. A change of pace is always nice, and the outdoors invigorating… especially when one has good company.
  

• Get an iPod and load it with lots of great audio books! We’ve done this for the last couple of years, and it’s been such a blessing, not only in catching my slack (having had a baby has really cut into our read-aloud time!), but in providing constructive listening time on long road trips, or as a reading aid for more difficult books. Librivox.org is my favorite place to download free podcasts (chapters) from. We’ve found many of our schoolbooks (classics, in the public domain) available there.

• Siblings reading to each other and even helping with the teaching is also a great reading encourager. How blessed I’ve been to awaken in the mornings to find my son reading to his younger sister, all quiet and snuggly in his room. These are wonderful, precious times and my two older ones are already anxiously working with reading to our toddler!
• Watching the movie made from a book is always a treat around here too. My kids love to critique movies according to their books! Recently they were very impressed by a documentary that we watched, “Exodus Revealed” which incoorperated a lot of archaeology verifying the Israelites’ being in Egypt and their Exodus, which we’d just been reading aloud about again. They were fascinated! We watch a lot of documentaries around here, and I highly recommend Netflix as a great educational supplement. We supplement much of our history and literature readings with great movies.
• Last, but certainly not least, is the fundamental importance of LIMITing screen-time for your kids! At our house, this “screen-time” includes tv, computer and video-games time . In the past this has been fairly simple for us, since we haven’t owned any gaming devices, besides a few educational pc games, and our *vintage* atari game(s) that Chris bought off of ebay years ago. This will be changing soon though, since the kids’ major gifts year will be gaming devices. Yikes! We’ve limited screen-time to the point that it’s just an understood fact of life around here, and will remain so even (especially) once they get their new gaming devices. Chris and I are looking forward to all of the many educational aspects of the gaming world too. We haven’t had cable tv either, except for a year that it was necessary for our high-speed internet connection, and then they had to ask permission to watch certain shows, didn’t have free-reign of the remote, and tv time was limited. Period. They have a set amount of computer time to use each week, and we have a system where they sign in and sign out, so as to keep track of time they’ve used online. Thus, when our kids get “bored”, or have down-time, they often reach for books, rather than vegging out in front of a screen… It’s worked for us. Just last night Nathan was wanting to start a movie at 10:00, and I said “no, it’s too late, but you can read…” So he chose to start the book he’s “been meaning to read for awhile now”, The Swiss Family Robinson, and is immersed in it today, grabbed it and snuggled up on the couch first thing this morning. Thoughtfully placed boundaries are beneficial for our children.

I do hope and pray that you are encouraged! Even as I did these (mostly mundane) things that I’ve listed, and we plugged away little by little with our humble reading routines over the earlier years, I often felt defeated and discouraged, like I wasn’t doing enough… However, now that my older children are ten and thirteen year-olds who relish reading, I can see that it was all just a matter of t.i.m.e., and their being individuals who progress at their own rate, in their own time. There is no formula, because homeschooling is living and learning together, daily. We are not educating with a cookie-cutter mentality, therefore I do believe that the reading journey’s dynamics will be a bit different for each family, and even with every child within that family… naturally.

Book Lists from which to glean~

1. Ambleside Online (see book lists under each year)
   
2. 1000 Good Books List
3. Simply Charlotte Mason
   
4. TruthQuest History
5. Twaddle-Free Literature by Grade Level
6. A Book in Time
   
7. Sonlight
8. Veritas Press

And lastly, I’d like to leave you with a little nugget of advice from my 13 year old homeschooled kiddo, when asked during his interview what changes he might suggest to homeschool teachers,

I think a lot of parents over stress themselves, thinking they have to be up to standards or up above public schooling when they first begin home schooling because they hear that home schooling is better. This makes it to where there is too much stress when they try to teach just like a public school. That is the glory of home schooling because that most of the time the student gets to choose some of his or her assignments and subjects for the day, to have input.

So, there you have it folks… Relax, read with your kids, and enjoy the adventure, since it’s every baby step along the way that will get you there!

There is a great deal of difference between an eager man who wants to read a book and a tired man who wants a book to read.  ~G.K. Chesterton

Please share with us what you’ve done to nurture your own readers and any tips you’ve picked up along the way in creating a reading house within your own home.

Embracing the adventure,

Deschooling is the process of changing the way you think about learning and education. It’s moving away from the idea that learning only takes place “in school” and/or by the methods traditionally used by schools.

I didn’t initially set out with a natural learning mindset. In addition to having attended public school for 13 years myself, we began our homeschooling journey using classical materials so we certainly have a lot of experience with curriculum, textbooks, workbooks, etc. But this last school year life just seemed to be constantly getting in the way of our schooling…it felt like we never had time to sit down and really hit the books and I was really stressed out about it. I remember praying and praying and praying some more and I kept getting the feeling that in answer to my prayers God was telling me to relax, relax, relax. (Easier said than done.)

So after many months of God pointing me in the same direction I finally began the task of deschooling. The first step was to deschool myself and Wonderful Hubby. We read books…

Learning All the Time by John Holt

Teach Your Own: The John Holt Book of Homeschooling by John Holt

The Unschooling Handbook: How to Use the Whole World as Your Child’s Classroom by Mary Griffith

Homeschooling Our Children Unschooling Ourselves by Alison McKee

The Unschooling Unmanual

We discussed what we knew about our kids, their strengths and weaknesses, what we knew about ourselves and our own educations, how we learned best as kids, what we remember about school, where we failed and where we enjoyed success. We finally began to see life through the lenses of natural learners.

Once we felt comfortable with this new mindset we stopped using the term “school” to describe what we did all day. If we happened to have time for a workbook or if we happened to be using a text book we called it “book work”. We wanted to the kids to start thinking about their education as something that was happening all day every day, not just when we were “doing school”.

I also stopped recording and referring to our learning by subject. When you break it down into math, reading, writing, social studies, etc., where do you put things like; helped Grandma move or watched Dad fix the leaky pipe under the sink or helped make and pass out fliers while looking for our lost cat? These things are educational and were part of our real life but they don’t necessarily fit into the little subjects my record keeping book provides me with so I went through the book and crossed out all the subject labels. Now I just record what we do as it happens and without worry of where it fits.

A few months into all of this now I will say that I’ve found our toughest “deschooling” task to be learning to trust each other. I have to trust them to learn with out my constant badgering and they have to trust me to let them say no when I suggest an activity they aren’t interested in. J is doing fine and is very curious about learning. W on the other hand is going about the whole thing a bit more cautiously. I really pushed him in the beginning and he doesn’t really believe yet that he has the freedom to say no.

Little by little we’re getting the hang of living and learning in a natural way. The boys still ask “Have we done school yet today?” and I still have moments of panic and wish they would engage in activities that are more obviously academic. But we’re getting over it and learning to value each and every moment we’re given.

Saying something like that out loud or typing it up and publishing it for the world to see would have scared me to death a year ago. However, much has changed here at Life and Love Learning Center and now I am able to write it with complete confidence. I’ve learned that my kids love to learn and are really very good at it. I’ve learned to set the workbooks aside and let God and life direct us to our next learning adventure. It’s taken me since November or so, thinking and praying the whole time but I guess you could say I’ve actually learned to relax.

Don’t get me wrong, I do still have a plan (I’m kind of a control freak to be honest). I have my Bible learning plan and my Spring and Summer Science Series. And I set a game or a project or some suggested activity on the table almost every morning and hope the kids will have at it. The difference now is that if they’re not interested, I try not to push it.

I’m really enjoying the path we’re on partially because I believe it has actually gotten me more involved in my children’s education than I was before. In the days of workbooks and curriculum I took the books off the shelf, we sat down at the table, did our work and then it was done. I was free at that point to take off the “teacher hat” so to speak and go on with my day. Now I have to make myself available as a resource, tutor, instructor and fellow learner at all times of the day.

For instance,

• Shooing the boys out of the kitchen so I can finish dinner is a thing of the past. Now I say, “Who wants to help me cook?” and I get my volunteer as involved as possible, sharing information and technique along the way.
• Games that we played every once in a while before have taken center stage in our home because Monopoly Jr. is great for learning addition, subtraction and multiplication, Wheel of Fortune for spelling and reading, Risk-geography and strategy, etc.
• I’m presenting them with, signing them up for and escorting them to more classes that they’re interested in because we now have the time to enjoy them, where before it may have interfered with “school”.
• We’re doing more hands on science experiments instead of relying on books and worksheets.
• We’re serving more and looking for volunteer opportunities in the community (again we now have time to do this).
• I’m not just presenting them with material anymore, now I’m paying closer attention to their interests, answering lots of questions, teaching them to use the Internet and library and generally helping them learn to learn.

Days like this and this have proven to me that natural learning is working and that it’s a great fit for my family. I don’t have to “force” them to “do school” and I don’t have to stress out about their education. They’re learning everyday and they’re loving it!

For the last several months he has been focusing his energy on learning to count money. Almost every day he would bring all of his money out and ask if we could count it together. And so we did…over and over and over. We also counted how many coins he had, sorted them by color and size and figured out how much he would have with “this” and the allowance he was expecting in a few days.

He’s recently discovered that there’s more to life than money and is now finding clocks, telling time and Roman numerals fascinating. Telling time I understand but Roman numerals is not something I was ever interested in as a kid. However now that I’m a grown up I’m enjoying learning them right along with him.

Here’s one of the books we’ve been reading together. I found it at a book sale cheap!

It’s so fun for me to see the boys learn and discover things they’re interested in. I really was one of those “unschooling skeptics” who thought, “What if they don’t want to learn math?” I’ll tell you what I’ve decided…lots of people don’t want to do math when you present them with an unending supply of worksheets…but math is every where and if you live and work (or play) in our society it is absolutely unavoidable and sometimes even fun to learn about!

If you know me at all you know that I’ve come a long way in my thinking (about math and about homeschooling!)

Hope you’re having a fun (and math) filled day!

Tell us about your kids. How old are they and how long have you been homeschooling?
God has blessed us with three children so far.  Merikalyn will be six in May, Nolyn is four, and Keagan is about nineteen months old.  Before I even married, I knew I wanted to homeschool my children.  I was homeschooled my last year of highschool, and was able to graduate a year early.  My mom always wanted to homeschool us, but she left the choice up to us.  My brother and I thought homeschooling would be too restrictive.  We didn’t really understand what homeschooling was, and what we envisioned was being cooped up in the house all day and being deprived of our friends. When I made the switch, I was amazed by how awesome it was.  I wish I would have agreed to it sooner.

My husband and I decided we would homeschool our children from the start.  We believe that home education starts from birth, so I guess you could say we’ve been doing it for six years!

Why did you decide to homeschool?
There are many reasons why I decided to homeschool.  My own public school experienced are closely tied in to these reasons.  When I think about sending my children off to school, I think about losing my children. In a time when they should be bonding with their families, they will, instead, be bonding with teachers and peers.  Institutional schools are dealing with so many issues that I don’t want my little ones exposed to.  My parents had no idea of the issues and struggles I dealt with in school because I didn’t know how to talk to them about it.  Sexual harassment and assault, bullying, and drugs are issues that I want to shelter my children from.  One day, they may have to deal with it, but certainly not while they are young and unprepared.

Most of all, we believe in discipling our children, training them up in the way of the LORD, as the bible directs. God has given us, as parents, a command to raise them up, to teach them diligently, and to help them apply the Word of God to their lives.  I just don’t see how that is possible if we don’t spend much time with them.

School aged children are sponges.  They are easily influenced and soak up so much.  Some people act like sheltering and protecting children is wrong, but I feel it’s the best thing we can do for them.  You wouldn’t send a soldier out into war without preparing him for the battle.  Likewise, I’m not going to send my children out into the world without discipling them and arming them with the God’s Word.

Describe a typical day at your house.
We’re pretty easy going.  We usually get the day rolling at about nine in the morning.  We don’t have a strict schedule or routine, but the days usually take a similar shape, although rarely in the same order.

We talk about Scripture throughout the day.  We want our children to understand that the Bible can be applied to every day life and every day situations.  We usually discuss a bible story, followed by a relating project (maybe trying to build an “ark” out of popcicle sticks or creating a rainbow).

The kids love to help around the house, especially in the kitchen. I try to get them involved, especially on the “special” activities that come once a week, like making bread, cookies, or other yummies.  It’s a great time to show them how subjects like math, science, and reading fit into everyday tasks.  Plus, it provides moments of great conversation while we’re taste testing!

We usually read a book or two (or three), and then the kids draw a scene from the book.  This is a really neat thing to do when we read books without pictures, because I get to see what they imagine in those noggins!

My children love playing with our math manipulatives, and enjoy flipping through their workbooks, and you’ll probably find these things littering the floor at some point in the day.  Watch where you step!

Of course, they love to play pretend, and so do I, so sometimes we do projects, read books, or take naps in little hideouts made of blankets and chairs.  When the weather is nice, we get outdoors to do fun activities or just run off some of that energy.

We wind down while playing with puzzles or watching shows like Word World or movies.  (The kids really liked The Bee Movie, and it was a great lead in that the amazing life of a bee, and how important they are!)

Like I said, we’re not very structured; we just play it by ear.  Some days are lazy, some days are full of exhausting activities!

If you could boil your homeschool philosophy down to a couple of points, what would they be?
My main goal in homeschooling is to glorify God and prepare my children to be useful in His Kingdom. Home education is more than math and reading, it’s about discipleship, preparing hearts, and pointing children to God.

Have you ever had to defend your homeschooling style? What did you say?
Unschooling is widely misunderstood, so there are people who seem to attack the approach. There are some pretty opinionated radical unschoolers out there who make it sound like it’s all about letting children do what they want, whenever they want, but that’s not the case.  I’m not against structure.  I think it’s important to have biblical structure and authority in the home, but I don’t feel we should imitate institutional schools in our style.

What’s the most challenging part of homeschooling?
Hmm, that’s a toughy. I think it can be a struggle to keep the right focus.  Sometimes I start comparing my children to other children, and I have to align my focus again.

What do you like most about homeschooling?
In the process of teaching my children, I’ve learned so much as well, and not just in the “book-smarts” arena.  God has used my children to teach me many lessons.  Isn’t it interesting that, when teaching our children, we often find we are teaching ourselves?

Do you have a favorite verse or passage of the Bible that guides your homeschool?
The sixth chapter Deuteronomy is my “go to” chapter for focusing our homeschool, but more specifically the following verses:
4Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD:

5And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.

6And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart:

7And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.

8And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes.

9And thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates.

It’s a reminder that our family’s goal, and how it can take in all of our senses and every area of our lives.

Is there anything else you’d like to say?
While homeschooling our children is a very serious and important task, there’s still room for fun and goofiness!

Thanks, Mandy! And be sure to visit her at her blog, MandyMom.

Tell us the ages of your kids and how long you’ve been homeschooling.

My boys are 2.5, 6.5 and almost 8 — which is killing me. I can’t believe my firstborn is almost 8 years old!! This means I’ve been a mom twice as long as I was a paid professional. Kinda crazy.  And we’ve been unschooling from the beginning. We started reading John Holt after hearing about unschooling when our oldest was a toddler, and it just made sense.

Describe your homeschool.

For us, homeschooling is just our life. Our routine changes with the seasons and with our interests. We’re a very social family, so we have a lot of homeschooling friends we do things with — field trips, parties, themed co-ops.  Whatever sounds fun. My oldest is a blue belt in kung fu and practices two days per week. He and my second son take swim lessons right now, and when that’s finished they’ll take rockclimbing. They are very active boys!  We can get pretty busy, so I’m constantly trying to find a balance between outside activities and time to just be at home.  We have a garden we’re trying to expand this year, and the boys are starting to read, so I want to make sure we have time for those things right now. And time to clean the bathroom!

Tell us why you homeschool this way (philosophy stuff).

Well, my husband is a teacher, so he sees firsthand the limitations of coerced “learning.” So many of the kids he works with don’t know how to think and don’t value learning for its own sake. We were both early readers, and did fine in school, but felt like a lot of our childhood was wasted sitting in a classroom. Unschooling makes sense to us because it values the child’s own ability to think and learn, and gives them the time and freedom to do it at their own pace, and in their own way. It’s been a learning process for us, certainly, and there’s been some doubt along the way, but ultimately we trust that God has led us to teach our children through example, relationship, and real life. And it seems to be working!

Have you ever had to defend your homeschooling style? What did you say?

I think I was more defensive of our parenting style at the beginning than anything else. We’re very close to my parents, and getting through the toddler years without punishment was a stretch for them. But we did get through it, and they see the positive results now. We have AWESOME kids.    Fortunately, my family has always been supportive of our homeschooling, even if they’ve had questions along the way.  As far as anyone else goes, I only explain as much as I think they’re really interested in understanding.  I don’t feel like I owe anyone an explanation of why we do what we do.  But I do enjoy evangelizing to parents of pre-schoolers!  LOL.

What’s the most challenging part of homeschooling?

The hardest part for me is just keeping my priorities straight.  This lifestyle allows so much freedom that it’s easy to get pulled in a million different directions — or even just a couple big distracting ones. And then I realize we’re getting sick because we haven’t had enough downtime. You know, time to get the housework done and then crash on the couch with a good book. I have to make sure I’m really listening to God about what’s important, focusing on what my kids need most from me, and letting the other stuff wait its turn.

What’s the most fun about homeschooling?

What isn’t fun about homeschooling?!  Seriously, I can’t think of anything. (Except maybe cleaning glitter out of the grooves in my dining table. But even that was a reminder of the fun we’d had.) Definitely all the opportunities we have to hang out together, doing cool stuff with our friends and exploring the world together.  It just doesn’t get better than that. Well, it could if my hubby didn’t have to go to school. We wish he could be with us all day, too. Thankfully, he gets lots of time off in the summer!

Do you have a favorite/guiding verse or passage of the Bible that keeps you going?

God’s always leading me to new ones just when I need them! But this one sticks with me and brings me back to Him when I start to wander: “The Lord himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.” Deut. 31:8

Thanks for answering all these questions. I feel like I know you a whole lot better now. Is there anything else you’d like to say?

It’s really such a blessing to be able to connect with other homeschooling moms online. I love seeing what everyone else is doing — not just to get ideas, but to know that our lives are so full of similar experiences and abundant possibilities!

If you want to invite your friends to the field trip, I have a school bus graphic you can pick up on my blog.

Hope to see you there!

Really, what good will it do to bicker with my husband when we both want what is best for the children? And what harm will it do to ask them to work through some reading and math lessons? The rest of the day is still ours to roam and explore, to find the answers to the hundreds of questions that flit through our minds.

I’m finding that bending is what unschooling is all about. And if that bending is occasionally in the direction that makes my husband feel comfortable, then so be it. God will use my willingness to honor my husband to grow me and as an example for my children.

So, who do you scare?