Different Types of Home Education

I'm still doing lots of research and have been amazed how many different types of home educating methods and philosophies there are. Here are some I've come across.....

Structured learning.
This is the one that is most like how you would imagine "school at home". The children work out of text books following a curriculum. Some even follow the National Curriculum.

Interest-led Learning, or "Unschooling"
Apparantly the term "unschooling" originally came from an educational pioneer called John Holt. Advocates of this method believe that children are by nature curious and able to learn and don't need a formal structure to do so.

Eclectic Learning
This is a mixture of the first two. Parents use a combination of structured and child-led learning in conjunction, using textbooks for some subjects and not others. They mix and match to create an education suited to the individual child.

Virtual On-line Home-schooling
This is where a child is enrolled at a school but participates online, either because they are unhappy in the school environment or live too far away.

Unit Studies
This is where parents take a literary text to incorporate most school subjects. For example Treasure Island can lead to study of history, geography, maths, culture, language, food etc.

Montessori
Used in many nurseries and schools as well as in homes, the Montessori education method focuses on hands-on experience, movement, choice and order.

Waldorf
Also known as Steiner Education. This method has a humanistic approach, developing the student as a whole: head, heart and hands. The ultimate aim is to help children develop into free, morally responsible and integrated adults, helping them to fulfill their own unique destiny.

Charlotte Mason
The Charlotte Mason Method uses living books, narration, habit training and dictation. There is also a strong arts focus.

Classical Education 
Classical education is described as a three part process to training the mind. The three stages (known as the "Trivium") are the Grammar Stage, the  Logic Stage and the Rhetoric Stage.


It seems to me that we are heading towards the third one; Eclectic Learning. I also like the philosophy behind Waldorf though, and I have a kind of Unit Study for Around the World in 80 Days planned..... although my focus will be primarily on Geography with some work on other subjects.

Hmmmmmmm still planning.....

Montessori Schools

My friend Jodi posted this up on her Facebook today....

This is very much how Inwoods is run :) In fact the nursery at my children's current school is run as a Montessori too. Sadly it seems to be losing some of that as the children go up the years :( another reason to take them out.

Gathering thoughts and ideas

Now we've made the decision I'm excitedly gathering thoughts and ideas and getting a feel for how our version of home-schooling will work. I've finally joined Pinterest for this very reason and set up a board there to pin ideas, I've also subscribed to a lot of home-schooling blogs that interest me to get a feel for how it works in different families.

I've always been drawn to unschooling, but I need to bear in mind that the children may well be returning to main-stream education at some point in the future, plus I'm not sure my husband would yet be on-board with that little structure.... that can change though ;) What I'm thinking at the moment is more formal schooling in the mornings and then free unstructured learning in the afternoons.

We have a Forest school nearby called Inwoods that allows home-schooled children to attend one day a week, and I also have one day a week I meet up with my mother, so I'd like to continue that only with the children included. With my mother we could see shows, visit museums, or just shop or go to the park. The other 3 weekdays will take the formal morning, informal afternoon structure I said about earlier, with the odd class, music lesson etc. thrown in. Weekends will be one "Daddy day" to give them some focused time with their father and me a break, and a "Family Day" so we do something together as a foursome.

I've made a vague list of subjects I want to cover; English, Maths, The World (History, Geography, Science, Forest School and a language, probably French), The Arts (Drama, Art, Music, Dance) and Sport, probably swimming to start. I realise though that there will be a great deal of overlap amongst those. I'm even drawing up a vague timetable as I know it helps Papaya to see how her day will be set out.

I'm actually getting quite excited about it! we have a meeting with the school Bursar next week, but I think even if they were able to give us a big bursary we'd still go ahead with this plan. I can just see how it's going to benefit us as a family; The Comedian and my jobs are unstructured and sporadic, so we need that kind of flexibility with schooling too.