With information overload and an infinite number of ways to approach home education, choosing a homeschool method or style can quickly become overwhelming!
Instead of boxing yourself into one method, look at the components that make up each method and decide what works best for your teaching style and your students learning needs.
Much like the braces, your child’s homeschool needs to fit their unique needs, situation, and personality. There may be a lot of commonalities and similarities to other homeschoolers, but your teaching style and your children’s learning styles and personalities will create a homeschool like no other. There is no other homeschool like yours, so try not to find a one size fits all package and expect it to fit like a glove. Just like braces, you will be making large adjustments at first, and then over time, your changes will become more like fine-tuning.
When you examine and discern your individual kid’s needs, and your own personal strengths and desires, you can actually narrow down the field pretty quickly. Listen to your gut, that still small voice that knows the difference between right for others and right for you.
Listen to your gut, that still small voice that knows the difference between right for others and right for you.
Action Steps
- Read about the different methods and get a feel for them. Pam Barnhill has a great post on this and has admitted to having tried them all.
- Take a quiz to help know what questions to ask and narrow it down.
- Read about the variety of styles, methods, and techniques, because while you might not think you are the “unschooling” type you find that strewing is not only a cool idea but you have been doing it without knowing it had a name (true story).
- It is OK to mix and match methods, in fact, I encourage it. There is no right way to homeschool. What works in one family may flop in another, and what sounds good on paper may not be realistic. Check out the characteristics of each below.
- The goal never changes, but the method most certainly will. You are teaching them how to learn in a way that is best for them.
When the curriculum or method rules our homeschool, be it Classical, Charlotte Mason, Unschooling, Montessori, or an all in one boxed curriculum, home education can be just as restrictive, tedious or confining as a classroom setting if we let it.
Just be careful not to replace one “box” with another.
Children are born to learn, it is how they learn to talk, learn to walk, love reading and exploring, and ask their favorite question: “why?” Our job as teachers is to harness, encourage, and fan the flame of this natural curiosity. How you do this will take some trial and error.
Tell your child WHAT to learn and education will become a chore, but teach your child HOW to learn and they will never stop.
Look at the characteristics of each popular homeschooling method. There is overlap among them as well approaches that are directly opposing each other. See what resonates with you and feel free to pick and choose.
Homeschool Methods by Characteristic
Pam Barnill’s The Ultimate Guide to Homeshcool Methods
My favorite book ever on this subject is Sally and Clay Clarkson’s book “Educating the Wholehearted Child,” which doesn’t ascribe to a “method” per se but focuses on reading quality books (original documents and classic literature), having good conversations with your kids and asking good questions, exploring God’s world, letting them play and imagine.
Classical Education
Tools of Learning – Read Dorothy Sayers essay on the “Lost Tools of Learning”
Memory Work – Young children love repetition, memorizing, and repeating what they have learned. The classical method taps into this natural ability to “file away” large amounts of information for understanding later.
Parent Led – The parent decides most of what is studied and memorized.
Ancient Greek and Latin – Find out why Latin?
Importance of Fine Arts and Music
Classic Literature/Living Books (no textbooks) – Books that make the subject come alive to the reader. Also see Charlotte Mason.
Focus on Truth, Goodness, and Beauty
Curriculum and Resources: Classical Conversations, Veritas Press, Classical Academic Press, Five in a Row, Circe Institute, Memoria Press, Well-Trained Mind
Cathy Duffy Classical Curriculum Reviews
Charlotte Mason
Nature Study and Journals – A child led approach to learning through observation, curiosity, wonder, and delight. Many overlapping subjects can be covered including science, geography, math, and art.
Living Books (no textbooks)- Books that make the subject come alive to the reader. Printable book list
Focus on Fine Arts and Music- Here is a great list of resources.
Character Training and Habit Forming – Laying Down the Rails is a good one to check out, and Smooth and Easy Days (free ebook). Obedience, attention, and truthfulness are the three most talked about.
Narration – Developing the habit of attention through listening to books read out loud, and comprehension through oral summary in their own words. More narration ideas.
Copywork, Transcription, and Dictation – A gentle approach to language arts, increasing in difficulty and attention as the child gets older and guilds upon these habits and skills.
Curriculum and Resources: Ambleside Online, Simply Charlotte Mason, Free Resources, big list of blogs and other resources, Schole Sisters blog and podcast, A Gentle Feast.
Cathy Duffy Charlotte Mason Curriculum Reviews
Montessori
Originated in a Classroom setting with highly trained teachers, however many parents have adapted this approach to home learning as well.
Respect – of the child to be independent and self sufficient, and creating an environment that caters to this learning style.
Environment – creating an environment that caters to the child’s independence and being as self-sufficient as possible.
Child Led
Curriculum and Resources: Where to Start, American Montessori Society, Learning Care Group
Cathy Duffy Montessori Curriculum Reviews
Unschooling/Relaxed Homeschooling
Child Led
Interest-Based Learning – Unit Studies could fall into this category; Project Based Learning
Real World learning and application
Strewing – the art of enriching the child’s environment through careful selection and placement of quality resources, books, and tools for your child to explore, related to a child’s area of interest already or new ideas and subjects for them to “discover.”
Perhaps the most misunderstood method, it is actually very hands-on with parent involvement, but completely child led on content, relying on their natural sense of curiosity and wonder. This “out of the box” method gives the child the most control over their academic education, it does NOT mean the parent doesn’t still parent, THAT is neglect.
Resources: Wild and Free, Fearless Homeschooling, John Holt, Happiness is Here Blog
Cathy Duffy Unschooling Curriculum Reviews
Boxed Curriculum
My Father’s World, Sonlight, Bob Jones University, A Beka, Gather Round Homeschool (multi age at once), The Good and the Beautiful (multi age), ACE/PACE, Christian Liberty Press, Alpha Omega
Online Options: Time4Learning, Easy Peasy All In One Homeschool, Connections Academy
Resources: Timberdoodle, Cathy Duffy Boxed Curriculum Reviews
School at Home
Uses Textbooks
Regular tests and quizzes
Heavy use of Worksheets/Workbooks
Teacher Led
Lecture style
Learning happens at a certain place and time
