While reading about homeschooling during my three children’s preschool years, I learned about several approaches to home education. Some seemed too rigid, such as the Classical method and the use of textbooks in the traditional way. The latter was certainly familiar, coming from a public education background myself, but it seemed too constraining. The Unschooling method did not seem structured enough for my taste. Homeschool co-ops were unheard of in my area when we began homeschooling, so at the start of our journey, this was not an option. This process of elimination helped narrow down the choices.
As I continued my search, I was beginning to discover our philosophy of education. I wanted to have some structure, catering to my children’s learning styles while allowing for flexibility and creativity. As a result, I was attracted to the Charlotte Mason and Unit Studies methods, especially for the early years. Ultimately, my husband and I landed on this educational philosophy: use methods that 1) build a solid foundation in the basics while 2) instilling a love for learning. We firmly believed that if we could do these two things well, our children could learn anything.
When anyone asks about how we homeschooled, for lack of a better word, I say that we used an eclectic approach. It’s a good description because we selected curricula from a variety of publishers. In the early years, we followed more of a Charlotte Mason style plus a few unit studies . We did use textbooks for math from the fourth grade up, as well as for high school science. When I couldn’t find what I wanted, sometimes I wrote my own unit studies, using the local library’s resources. We also incorporated a few public school courses for one of our students and community college courses for the other two during high school. Looking back, even if I could, I wouldn’t change a thing. Having the freedom to select the approaches and methods that fit your family and individual students is one of the beauties of home education.
I leave you with a photo of a Mexican Bird of Paradise, a popular shrub used in landscaping. Taken in my neighborhood.