Unschoolers

[vegggeeemom]

I will be starting homeschooling my 4 year old in the Fall, maybe.

He has a speech delay and we believe he has Aspergers Syndrome. So, we might wait until he's 5 to start homeschooling him.

What would the benefits of unschooling my son be?

I am doing ACE with my 11 year old daughter and it's going ok. Struggling at times to get her to follow all the way through.

Where do I start to look and how do you do it?

Pam

[Rawkinlocs]

Hey Pam!

Don't you just love the flexibility of homeschooling? I do ACE too and the girls love it, but my oldest son and I discovered that it's not for him and he would fair better unschooling!

Here are a few sites to get you started, but basically, unschooling is allowing LIFE to be your child's education. Whatever their interests are, you nurture that, etc. I think there are many definitions of it, but that's my understanding of it! Like, my son loves Anime and things associated with Japan, so I will get him books on Japan, he'll learn to speak Japanese (I'm thinking about Rosetta Stone but we'll see) and I told him that when he turns 17 I "might" consider sending him to Japan through some kind of program or something.

Anyway, here are those sites:

http://www.leapingfromthebox.com/hs/elists/idaho.html

http://sandradodd.com/unschooling

http://www.unschooling.com/library/faq/index.shtml

http://unschoolers.com/

There are some members here who unschool and have been doing it a while now...if you do a search, you can find previous home/unschool discussions and see who's unschooling! :)

[Rawmommie]

Unschooling.info is another good site. :)


What would the benefits of unschooling my son be?

I couldn't possibly name them all! Unschooling is a joy. We have evolved in our unschooling over the past 3 years and it's been wonderful. I cannot imagine sending my children off to school.

It will be wonderful for your son b/c he won't be forced to conform to schools standards about how fast he should be learning something, etc. He won't be labeled and he won't feel badly about how he learns. He shouldn't have to! We all learn best when we are interested in what we are learning about. Let him lead the way. Go to the museum, the zoo, the park, the library. Talk, sing, talk, and talk some more to your son. I have found that having an open, honest communication has taught them so much. If I don't know the answer to something, we look it up together!

Good luck in your homeschooling, there are many of us here on the raw boards, I'm sure you will find lots of support. :)

[robertandenith]

Pam I will be homeschooling too, , actually my daughter will be 4 in July and I started already. I am actually doing unschooling with a twist! :p I will have books, electronic books (she thinks they are games lol), cds with music but they have the abc's, multiplication, addition, etc., we also use software. All the materials seems like games but they are actually educational. SHE LOVES THEM! I recently got 3 STeps Ahead and The Phonics Factory both by the same company, and she is loving the first program. I love homeschooling, specially because I will have my kids near me, loving them, teaching them, doing lots of field trips (btw we are going to the zoo Thursday - don't forget field trips, libraries and all that counts too!), and we just recently enrolled her to kung fu classes and we are thinking to enroll her in ballet too. That's another thing I love homeschooling. I can skip the schools and put her in extra curriculum activities which she will be enjoying so much! :)

I am not registering my homeschool through the public schools but through an umbrella/sallelite/private school which are flexible in YOUR way of teaching and will not force all those crazy tests that kids really hate!

[vegggeeemom]

Cheie, thanks so much for those links.

Enith, (I'll call you that...easier then calling you by your screen name ;))

But, do you have a link where you got your stuff? My son LOVES music and would thrive on things like that.

Thank you all for the support.

I'm always a little nervous going into doing something new!

Thanks

Pam

[Zena]

The benefits of unschooling are simply uncountable. I would know, I've been unschooled for the past three years! ;) So I wish you and your kids luck in whatever you decide to do.

(Oh, um, P.S. RawMommie, where in Missouri do you live???)

[Rawmommie]

Zena, how wonderful!! Do you live in MO too? I'm from St. Louis, but 2 years ago we moved out to St. James, MO...it's near Rolla. Love lots of things out here, but miss the convience of the city. Being raw out here is like being an alien on a foreign planet. :p

[Brianna]

I was homeschooled from 4th grade through highschool and I'm definitely homeschooling my kids. I got a much better education than I could have gotten at school. When I was in 1st -3rd grade going to a private school, my test scores were low, but once my mom started homeschooling me, my test scores were towards the top of all the kids in the nation and from the time I was in 7th grade, I got post high school scores on everything.

[Purl]

I hsed my autistic dc. It was awful. Due to their social issues, my guys NEEDED to be in school. Keeping them home made the PDD-NOS worse. Just my 2 cents. Good luck! Give it a try, but don't feel bad if you find that it's not for you or him. The guilt of putting them in ps kept me from putting them back til it was CRAZY around here. PS has been the BEST thing that has happened for their social skills, and general feeling of not being "normal".

[Zena]

(Eek, so sorry for hijacking the thread!)

RawMommie, according to this http://www.mapquest.com/directions/main.adp?go=1&do=nw&rmm=1&un=m&cl=EN&ct=NA&rsres=1&1ffi=&1l=&1g=&1pl=&1v=&1n=&2ffi=&2l=&2g=&2pl=&2v=&2n=&1pn=&1a=&1c=St.+James&1s=MO&1z=&2pn=&2a=&2c=Boonville&2s=MO&2z=&r=f we live two hours apart.