Unstructuring your Homeschool

Don't get me wrong, I'm one of the handful of homeschool moms who does not have a problem with the institution of education. I don't mind if my kids stand in line and raise their hands to speak (actually I wish I could get them to raise their hands to speak at home!) I'm definitely an abberation though, as many home educators look for ways to make their homeschool less structured. However, the challenge then becomes how to lose the structure without making your homeschool TOO lax and risk your child not taking their education seriously. It may be difficult at times to get your child focused and stay on task in a relaxed homeschool environment, but it is not impossible. It takes patience and trial and error, but here are a few things I've learned in my own homeschool experience:

• Be organized, but not too organized. You don't need to schedule every second of every day, but you should have a general idea of what you wish to accomplish each day. My homeschool planner is basically a bunch of bullet points of topics that need to be covered. There are no time frames or deadlines. At the same time, the topics are in a very specific order and I know exactly how I want to teach each lesson. All of this information is public knowledge in my home. I do have a homeschool planner, but I post my lesson plans up on the wall so that my kids can see exactly what they are learning, when and how. I think making my schedule and lesson plans visible to my kids makes them more willing and cooperative because they know what to expect. 

• Gather their input. Children tend to thrive when they take joy in what they are doing. Ask your child how they wish to learn. For instance, Sydney hates writing. Not necessarily creative writing, but any kind of writing. Any time pen must touch paper she complains and whines and drags out her assignment for hours. However she does like writing on the whiteboard. I don't know if  it makes her feel like a teacher or if she just like writing standing up, but she will never say no to writing on the whiteboard. She can breeze through several math problems, do lines of copywork and even draft poetry if she can write it on the board. Why fight? I am just happy the work is getting done!

• Incorporate break time. We only do actual schoolwork for about 2-3 hours a day. I give my kids unlimited breaks, but I restrict their break time to about 30 minutes per break. Otherwise we'd never get anything done. They look forward to their breaks and they know break time is coming. Sometimes, if Sydney knows she has a break soon, she will try to race the clock. We also have frequent days off. I've never been a fan of the five day school week, and even now as an adult, I don't work five days a week. We have a weekly agenda and if we can accomplish our goals in a day or two, then I'm all for that. I won't jump ahead to the next week unless my kids want to. Their reward for knocking out a week's worth of work in two days is the rest of the week off. Quality over quantity. If I feel comfortable that they have retained the necessary information that they need, why bore them with busy work for the rest of the week? 

• Make life the final exam. How do I know they're learning enough? How do I know they're not falling behind? Homeschool tests and exams don't have to be 50 question, fill in the bubble format. If we are out and about and I hear a vocabulary word that we have been working on, I'll ask Sydney to give me the definition. When Sydney was learning three digit addition, I had her help me add up our bills. When we learned about clouds, we simply stared up at the sky and discussed what we saw. I quiz my kids often and I tailor my pop quizzes to what we learned about that week. I always look for real life examples. That to me is the true test of what they learned. 

Ultimately, most children thrive with some kind of structure. If you can develop some kind of homeschool routine, even something simple like Math Mondays or Foreign Language Fridays, you'll probably start noticing that your homeschool life will get easier and easier. In time, if you can find something that works and stick with it, you'll be pleased with how effortless homeschool can truly be!

How do you maintain an unstructured homeschool environment? Let's talk about it!