So you've decided to homeschool. It is a wonderful, challenging, rewarding, and slightly terrifying journey. You will learn to trust and let go, to press forward, to breathe, to fall in love with learning, and most of all, to fall in love with your children in more ways than you knew you could.
Remember This
Before we begin, let’s remember what we are looking at.
Style.
A style is a way of doing, that has certain methods and trends. Some may look cleaner, neater, or even better, but it still remains style.
Some of us are diehard style people. The people that feel at home in plaid pjs at night and plaid button up shirts in the day in a rustic cabin complete with wall mounted bucks and wooden ducks on the mantle. Others of us wear yoga pants and crocs because it’s comfy and we aren’t planning any outdoor activities.
Neither are wrong, but they both express a style. One, very vividly woodsy, the other, relaxed and swayed with what is needful.
When we think of homeschool style, we are looking at various methods of learning. People learn in many ways. Some ways are easier, some carry more joy, and some are described as “the worst” by your 5th grader.
So what style is best? Will my style ruin my children? Is this 19th century education expert better than the ancient Greek method? Does this Italian woman have more wisdom than the curriculum experts at that homeschool conference? WHAT SHOULD I DO?!?
Maybe start by asking these two questions.
What style is best for my family?
What style is best for me, the homeschool parent that has to DO the prepping, teaching, and training?
Remember: Homeschool is learning at home.
That means that your environment is your family, and often that family lifestyle and choices will sway you in a direction for what fits you. Find the freedom in learning within your home. No one is going to judge you more than yourself, so let go of any expectations of achieving a homeschooling style that looks perfectly like someone else. It can’t. Your family is unique, and your homeschool will reflect that. In fact, it should reflect that.
Maybe you love baking. Grab those kids and bring them alongside you so they can learn fractions with brown sugar and baking soda.
Maybe you love knitting. Extend your wisdom to your little one's fingers, teaching them dexterity, pattern, and the engineering required to make that sweater.
Don’t be afraid to find your own unique homeschool style, even as you admire and make use of the wisdom of those before us.
The Styles
Here's your tongue-in-cheek initial baptism into the waters that is homeschool styles.
Interested in taking a quiz to find what fits you? Try this quiz from Homeschool On.
Unschooling
Unschooling is not equivalent to unlearning. My assumption was that this was a method of trying to make your kids dumber. It is not, so don't worry-- you don't have to call social services on families that practice this.
Unschooling is a terrible-sounding term for passion-led teaching. Is your kid interested in robots? Let's study robots! We'll learn the in and outs of electricity and power sources, motors, gears, technological advances, all while reading great books on the subject and writing about it, too.
The teachers of this style often reject “school” in its current form. They critique school as a system meant to create an obedient workforce. They prefer to nurture the creative and curious mind.
The premise is that children are naturally drawn to learn, and so rather than feed them through a system ("school") of learning in various unrelated subjects, the student will naturally be more inclined to learn and study and grow in all areas of education when they are pursuing their own interests. Of course, mom helps them to dig deeper and challenges them, but overall the child is driven by their passions, and studies are navigated by whatever seems most intriguing and not by fulfilling specific curriculum or criteria.
So you want to do experiments all day? Ok, sure! Why not! So you want to read every book on the Trojan War? Lookout library, here we come! All you care about is your TV show? Let's find out how it was produced! This is basically compulsive obsessive disorder as a homeschool style.
Check out this awesome article about How to Unschool.
Montessori
For some reason every time I think of Montessori I think of spaghetti and an abacus. Montessori method is a combination of age-appropriate learning, wooden blocks, and interpretive dance. So think Dorothy Sayers meets Martha Graham in a log cabin. (Pretty much nobody knows what I'm talking about so I'll explain more.)
Montessori’s methods are applied in preschool and elementary years. Kids are encouraged to touch, discover, and experience the world around them, learning as they go.
Be forewarned, many images of this method are Pinterest-able and Instagram-able, but you don’t need to buy thousands of wooden toys to make this method work. In fact, Montessori sought to educate poor children.
Montessori’s writings are the best place to start in understanding her style. She believed children developed in particular ways, and have certain innate characteristics that drive their educational interests. These interests should be fostered in a welcoming environment to learn, including a natural, tactile, and movement-friendly space. Teachers pay attention to a child's interests and abilities to help them in their natural growth. Montessori provides a whole philosophy of education and won a Nobel peace prize, so if you follow her methodology you can brag about that like you're a boss.
Charlotte Mason
This lady is from the 19th century and has six huge volumes on education that are so old-school that it's a little like reading Shakespeare without a good love scene. There are books about her books that try to summarize her philosophies with modern day language and examples.
Charlotte was a teacher, and from personal experience with children became convinced that kids need to play outside and read old books.
Here is where we get the term "twaddle." Twaddle is the opposite of "living books", which are basically old books.
I’’m kidding… sort of. Seriously though, living books are books which possess deep characters, beautiful language, and wholesome content. Twaddle is the Charlotte Mason curse word for lousy reading material that will rot your kid's brains.
Charlotte Mason followers offer pretty delightful book lists for all grade levels, such as these:
Literature by Grade Level from Charlotte Mason Home
Living Books Lists from Our Journey Westward
Mason’s method seeks to develop character as well as the mind. She particularly valued being outdoors, and believed that children must get at least an hour outside a day. She asked parents to use the outdoor time to study nature, growing in careful observance and admiration for bugs and junk. Personally I find her writing to be enchanting. Her deep care for children accompanied by her overall regard for their growth of character alongside intelligence is powerfully motivating. I'm a Mason groupie. You can find free curriculum plans for her method here.
Classical
Classical education is a method of learning that sounds like wearing togas and debating Socrates at the Parthenon.
However it is actually a language centered education that includes learning Latin, being a history buff, and having eloquent conversations like Socrates and Plato (toga optional).
This method values critical thinking, sound logic, reading great works, and learning subjects now dubbed "archaic” that uniquely develop the brain and expand understanding (e.g. Latin, cursive handwriting, etc.). Purveyors of classical education tout the importance of learning how to learn, recognizing that if one is equipped in how to properly learn, they can learn anything.
Classical Conversations (CC) is a whole method unto itself and is primarily co-op based. Younger students are good at memorization, so they have them memorize with dance moves, chants, and a 13-minute Timeline song. In middle school students diagram sentences and write charts until their wrists sound like rice grinders. Then in Challenge, which is kind of like high school, and they read a lot of great books and finally learn why they memorized a billion facts. Kids study all the core subjects (or what true classical nerds call the Quadrivium), including Latin and Cartography so they can sail around the world like a medieval boss.
I personally loved Classical Conversations co-op, and while I have departed their method for various reasons, I still use some of their memory work in my homeschooling from time to time.
Classical conversations should include a glossary. Here’s mine.
Trivium: The three stages of learning, classified by Plato himself, namely Grammar, Dialectic, and Rhetoric.
Grammar: The first stage of learning, wherein students learn the language/terms of the subject. “Pasgetti.” No, Spaghetti. This is also where the term “parrot” comes from. Dorothy Sayers eloquently compares this stage to an annoying bird who copies everything you say.
Dialectic: “Why, why, why??!?” This is the questioning stage of learning, aided by inquisitive minds.
Rhetoric: “I’m a know it all, so blah blah blah!” Now the student has a basic understanding, so students formulate their own opinions and ideas, and express them. (AKA teenager.)
Stick in the Sand: This is not a metaphor for being stubborn. This is a summation of a pep-talk to not overthink or over complicate a child’s education— meaning you can teach a child anything with just a stick and sand. (You don’t even need pencil and paper!) “I bought six books, 15,000 blocks and rainbow streamers to teach math, and I’m so overwhelmed with homeschooling. What should I do?”
Pep-talk reply: “Stick in the sand.”
Let children flourish in their stage of development
Unit Studies
This homeschool style is equivalent to the phrase “beat a dead horse.” Unit studies take one subject, say a dead horse, and study it in every way imaginable. Sometimes this even includes math. “How many times did you beat the horse until you knew it was dead? Multiply that by 7.”
The amazing thing about unit studies is how one can study a single subject for several weeks, with various methods, and still find more fascinating things to learn. Unit studies demonstrate the very thing about homeschooling we so often forget — we can never learn it all. For that reason learning to learn is a beautiful journey, and many unit studies tap into this journey with playful and creative challenges.
For instance Five in a Row is a popular homeschool curriculum that functions like a unit study on a favorite book. They provide studies that explore the geography, history, science, and even math related to the book.
You can find reviews of various unit studies here. Often unit studies are sold as curriculum downloads or packets, but sometimes parents will create them as they go.
Traditional
This is doing school-school at home. Some people even buy school desks, and have a bell, and lecture their students like normal regular school teachers. I’m all like, “I have a couch, and that works.”
And many traditional homeschoolers actually agree- a couch is a cozy place to school.
Traditional schoolers are those who like to keep on-track with traditional grade levels and achievements. These are often the people who purchase the full curriculum packs, and following the step by step instructions that are provided. This is actually a wonderful solution for many families, because they know they will cover everything that most schools cover, and it gives parents the assurance of following through with federal or state standards for any given grade. Parents also know that if their child needs to go back to a private or public school that their child will enter their grade confidently.
Some beloved traditional schooling curriculums include Abeka, Sonlight, Good & the Beautiful, and Saxon. Check out these recommendations:
Full Curriculum Christian Options — from Homeschool-Curriculum.org
Secular Homeschool Programs — from Love to Know
encourage a love of learning
Eclectic
If this homeschool style were pants, they would be crazy pants. Really colorful, lots of polka dots, zig zags, and a little lace.
This homeschool style is often practiced by the mom that wants to have it all, and therefore picks a math book from this company, a science book from this other place, and history from another. They sometimes embrace many different styles, and chose what seems to work best for either their teaching style, or their child’s learning style. I am pretty sure I am this one, and I would really like to wear these pants.
Being eclectic means that you like to choose what fits each child best. Maybe you tried Saxon math and you realized your child needed a more hands-on math curriculum. Or you really love the classical history lessons from The Story of the World but you want a more Charlotte Mason style approach to language arts. These people find their way with what fits the best.
build character as much as brain power
Road-Schooling, World Schooling, Farm Schooling
Do you live on the road? Perhaps an RV? Or perhaps you live on a farm? Some families take a year off— like high school graduates going backpacking through Europe; except the backpack carries a toddler and they probably have a jogging stroller loaded with granola bars. These brave souls explore various countries and literally use the world as their classroom.
Traveling the world is a fantastic way to learn so much— culture, language, etiquette, history, and more. It can be expensive, but if possible, it is an enriching experience that would shape young minds for a lifetime. This method is achievable by those who work remotely, have a large sum of money stashed away, or have a lot of friends world-wide that are happy to host your rambunctious family.
Roadschooling is similar, but it tends to be centered in a single country. These people own RVs, are happy with simple living and tent camping, or travel a lot. They use the places they visit to build their curriculum is in history, sciences, and nature. Parents can use libraries on their stops to fill up on reading materials related (or not) to their location. Check out some steps to roadschooling here.
Farmschooling is modern day Little House on the Prairie without having to deal with mean ol’ Nellie Olson. Chickens are teachers, cow the principal.
Seriously though, kids who live on a farm learn a vast amount of life skills, especially when parents are intentionally invested. From learning how to fix a tractor to agriculture, animals sciences, botany, and landscaping, these kids are immersed in a full college degree on farming. Parents take the time to help their children understand the whys and how behind a successful farm, growing life skills while learning how to learn.
A similar method is called Moore. Named after Raymond and Dorothy Moore, this method says kids should not start formal schooling until at least the age of 8. It emphasizes stress-free learning by not overtaxing younger children with lower attention spans, allowing kids to read books related to their subjects rather than be driven by textbooks. They encourage manual work as much as study, and serving in the home or community at least an hour a day. Thus if you own a farm or a family business, this method validates your kids milking the cow just as much as doing their multiplication tables. They believe all this hard work, service, and interest driven learning makes kids happy creative geniuses that will take over the world.
The Take Away
Despite the many styles, there seems to be overarching similarities in homeschool styles— namely a desire to help children flourish in their God-given developmental stages, encouraging a love of learning, and building character as much as brain power. These are all things that parents can rally around.
Secondly there is a profound current of "no worry" that is emphasized in all these styles. Certain structures in educational systems are rejected in favor of creativity, and joy in the process. I've yet to encounter a homeschool system that says "you're not doing enough!" Ultimately your love and deep care for your child's success will be the determining factor in ensuring a good education.
Overall, if a homeschool style doesn't fit, don't do it! Style is just that— style. If you find that a certain style or curriculum aligns with your values, embrace it, and enjoy it! You know your child best, and you will learn together.