Wednesday, November 25, 2009

The Possibility of Unschooling

It has been a challenge to find good, free unschooling reading material. Our libraries here are lacking for homeschool material. I've lived in other places and have not had the troubles that I've had here. Many of the books we search for from our reading lists just don't exist here. After much searching online I finally found a book that is available at our library on unschooling and I'm really enjoying it. It seems to be a good introduction to unschooling so far.

Austyn enjoys the stories from Ambleside as well and some of the reading material suggested on Ambleside Online we have at home since we were following The Well-Trained Mind. From what I've read so far we can unschool and use these reading materials.

I am a planner and like some structure. I hope I'm okay with letting go and just being there to help my kids explore and expand their knowledge.

Here is the book I'm reading.


“Books are the compasses and telescopes and sextants and charts which other men have prepared to help us navigate the dangerous seas of human life.” ~ unknown

7 comments:

Rana said...

This book sounds like something I would like to read. If you would like a few more books to check out on Unschooling these were very helpful to me: The unschooling handbook by Mary Griffith, The relaxed homeschool by Mary Pride, and anything by John Holt. I really like How Children Learn. There is also SandraDodd.com her site is great. Hope those can be of help to you.

Sherry Gann said...

I don't know how close you are to a big city, but if you're not too far it might be worthwhile to look into buying a library card there. We live outside of Nashville and our library has diddly squat. My DH works as a Nashville city employee so we get a free membership, but if we didn't we'd still buy the $35 annual membership.

l said...

This book sounds interesting. I might have to give it a try, but I won't put it on hold yet ;)
You can get a "city" library card, we did, it's free and I usually stop there when we go grocery shopping. You can put things on hold there too.
I'll make sure to bring the Unschooling Handbook when we see each other next.

Learning With Passion said...

Thanks guys. When I have more money I'll get some more books, but right now we are on hold. I may look into getting a membership near you, Alex. I wonder which branch is closest to me. I was chatting with a friend on the phone today and I even heard myself say "The kids seem to learn more when we aren't doing school anyway." LOL! I really do need to consider this but I want to be sure we have lots of resources so the kids can constantly be learning. Thanks again!

Anonymous said...

Enjoy! Our library has a very small selection as well, so I understand.

Unknown said...

I have The Unschooling Handbook and The Unschooling Unmanual you can borrow. Maybe we can come for a visit? Hint Hint. hahaha

Learning With Passion said...

Neely, you are very welcome to come with the kids for a visit! We would love to have you. I think the kids will love what we did with our unfinished basement. It's a child's paradise with a paint station and an art station and lots of books and toys. And there is a small couch. It's awesome for kids! Come!!! We miss you!!!