When we first started homeschooling we thought we needed to recreate school at home. But, school at home wasn’t much fun, it didn’t take very long so we had most of the day to do other things, and especially in the younger years so much of the core subject learning we found we learned just by going about our normal life. Combine all that with a kid who wants to move, touch, play and experience things, doing formal school at home became very tedious.

So, we started mixing it up. She’s full of curiosity and creativity, if I let her be and using those organic moments to teach made what she learned relevant and interesting. I want to give you some examples of what we did, and this is by no means an exhaustive list or even examples you should recreate for your own family. These are just ideas you can take to get creative in your own home and individualize to your own children.

Before I get too far though, I want to give quick explanations of what I consider homeschooling, life-learning and unschooling to be.

Homeschool for us is the umbrella that includes all personalized styles of learning outside the public or private school structure. It’s a well-known word so most of the time we use this to describe our learning choice because it saves a more lengthy explanation. If the conversation continues or people are asking questions, we get more specific about our learning style.

Life-Learning is using every day experiences like grocery shopping, letter writing, home management, etc. to teach children how to thrive in their future. This style allows for creativity, individualization to interests and flexibility to fit the needs of each family. In different seasons, based on different goals our daughter has at the time, formal curriculum may be a part of our year, or it may not.

Unschooling is another style of homeschooling, that includes a lot of life-learning but is completely child-led. Some unschoolers allow their children to focus solely on things they want to do. Google defines it like this:

Unschooling is an educational approach where children direct their own learning based on their interests and curiosities, rather than following a traditional curriculum or school structure. This method emphasizes experiential and self-directed learning, allowing children to explore topics that interest them without the constraints of a formal educational program. It was first coined by educator John Holt in the 1970s, who saw children as naturally curious and capable of learning independently. Unschooling is often seen as a form of homeschooling but differs in that it does not rely on a set curriculum or structured lessons. Instead, it focuses on integrating learning into everyday life and activities.

So, depending on your definition all three of these approaches can fit what we do. Although, I don’t feel we fully unschool. I am actively involved in facilitating her learning and directing what she does, keeping her focused and on track, making sure she accomplishes specific tasks – but it is tailored to her interests and future life goals and changes if those goals change.

Now for the interesting stuff!! What have our days looked like?

Let’s look at the elementary years first:

1. Lots of outside play: covers so many things depending what is played but absolutely covers physical education, problem solving, critical thinking.
2. Learning to ride bike, cart wheel, create with Legos, etc.: covers problem solving, critical thinking, engineering, physics, etc.
3. Reading together: covers english, socialization, cultural awareness, and so much more.
4. Church and bible study: covers social studies, english, cultural awareness, conflict resolution (we are imperfect people following perfect Jesus), classroom etiquette, socialization, etc.
5. Practicing writing by writing letters or stories about her stuffed animals (they were her favorite toys!): covers writing, socialization, writing (obviously), english, and more.
6. More play and creativity.
7. Finding ways to practice letters with tangible things like play dough, Lego blocks or anything we could think of.
8. Cooking together: covers learning measurements, addition and subtraction, early exposure to fractions and the like. Cooking can be a way to explore different cultures, their native foods and their traditions. This also leads to…
9. Grocery shopping (this is one of my favorite learning hacks): covers planning for what is needed, writing a list, creating a budget, navigation of the store, reading signs and labels, adding the cost of things and comparing to the budget, figuring out tax, calculating change (let’s teach our kids to use cash!), cultural diversity, communication skills, conflict resolution, problem solving, critical thinking, and decision making.
10. Hands on things like building a bunk for her stuffed animals with her dad: covers learning to use tools, safety procedures, measuring with a ruler or tape measure, etc.
11. Playing board games and card games: many of these cover learning concepts like math and communication, and strategy building, analysis, etc.

Now, the cool part is, once you start to see all the learning happening within these every day tasks, you can start to see how these tasks change and grow as your child does. For example, the older and more knowledgeable the child, the quicker they may be able to figure tax and change in their head. The older and more capable the child, the more complex things they may choose to build or create. So these tasks that make up so much of our routine lives (lives our children are going to be expected to live in someday after their schooling years) provide so much valuable learning that can then be taken further into each child’s interests. And, a little side-note here: these things aren’t costing you a small fortune to incorporate! It’s stuff your family already does! That’s a big win in my book.

So what about middle and high school? Don’t high schoolers need a diploma program so they can get into college? We’ll cover a lot more of those details in future posts, including what the Pa homeschool law DOESN’T say. But for now let’s look at how the above routine can develop into something that works for older kids too.

1. Outside play may develop into doing yard work, building something, cleaning or managing a part of your home.
2. Creating with Legos or other things becomes more advanced and complex.
3. Reading together becomes reading independently and may include publications like magazines, newspapers, historical documents, etc. based on the child’s interests.
4. Church and Bible study: becomes more independent and children can now explore and own their own faith. They still cover all the things as when they were younger, but also now are thinking critically about their worldview and investigating for themselves what they believe and why.
5. Writing becomes more advanced and probably more specific to certain areas of interest and may include tracking information for a project, working on materials for a club like 4-H or FFA, or writing material for scholarships or college applications.
6. Play and creativity changes and they age and may include things like drawing, different art mediums, theater, sports, etc.
7. Practicing letters with tangible things kind of goes away as kids don’t need this anymore.
8. Cooking together sometimes becomes cooking independently. It also provides nutrition, health and cultural experiences.
9. Grocery shopping also becomes more independent and requires more decision making, problem solving and critical thinking skills. This also opens the door to personal finances and money management as they get jobs and have more of their own money to manage.
10. Hands on learning may include things like getting a job/working, volunteering, taking on a project at home (like animals or a garden if you have the space), Driver’s Education, etc.
11. Playing board and card games become more complex, a lot more strategic and if you’re anything like our family…a lot more competitive. Lol. This also helps teach good sportsmanship, kindness, grace and sometimes mercy.

Now, if you add in a little bit of curriculum or planned learning activities to these ideas, you’re more than covering what a child needs to thrive no matter what direction they choose to go after high school. If you have a child set on a career that requires college, adding curriculum may be an important step to helping them feel prepared. At one time JJ thought she wanted to be an Occupational Therapist, so we added curriculum and made sure to create a routine that fostered the beginning of an understanding of the workload involved with taking college courses. The greatest encouragement to this way of learning, is seeing your children grow, thrive and adapt to the challenges set before them. They understand life and the world around them and they see challenges as possibilities and opportunities.

The greatest blessing of it all as parents…being along for the ride and witnessing their growth. Being an active part of their lives builds trust and communication between you and your children and gives you the opportunity to learn things too! Maybe the most important things I’ve learned are about myself…

Let me know if this has helped you. I hope it has! And if you have questions, I’d love to answer them if I can.

May the Lord bless you and keep you!

Love,
Susan