How to strike a balance between unschooling and structured

[HollyDay]

This has been my goal my entire homeschool career. I want to be somewhere in between free-flow unschool and rigidly structured. My personality works best with structure: x number of workbook pages/day type thing. I have made great strides! I started out with Abeka -doing it "by the book" very rigid in my plan. Now I am more ecclectic in my mix of books - some living literature - some workbooky. But, I find myself still a slave to the schedule. How can I strike the balance? How can we have art days and I not worry that we didnt complete the CW HOmer lesson or do the GWG lesson or read X number of pages in our reader? Where and how does one solve ths??

[Deece in MN]

To have those days, just schedule them in. :D

Really, don't let your curriculum control you. You can make the schedule and then fit the curriculum into that.

Yes, you may end up doing "Friday's" work on a Monday or something like that, but so what? Learning will still happen whatever the day is on the calendar. :)

I found that once I could get past that kind of thing, I felt like I had the freedom I desired with the structure my dc needed.

Anyway, it sounds like you have really found a nice balance as far as the curriculum goes. Now, just make sure you are in control of the curriculum and you will figure it out.

I hope this makes sense. Enjoy your day!

[Alana in Canada]

Yes, I'd like the answer to this too!

Last year I used to plan what I called a "games" day--we did all of our subjects--but as games. It took a lot of work on my part to get it all set up, but it was fun. I also used those days to catch up on our read-alouds!

[Sunkirst]

I'll second what Deece said. Part of it is realizing in your heart that those unstructured days are just as important as "real school." I tell the kids when we will have a free day, so they can look forward to it. The other part (for me) is making sure that those unstructured days aren't just a free fall. I like to make sure that there are lots of interesting things to do around the house on those days. I also like to make sure that I'm still available.

-Kirsten

[Maria/ME]

I agree also. It's a little about setting those ideas of what structure accomplishes topsy turvey. We feel that because we have structure and can tick off another thing on our list we are accomplishing something.

One thing that really helped me was to write down what we did each week. Not a list, but a free flowing style. I would NOT allow myself to put anything negative only the positive. I was amazed at how much we really "grew" and "learned" w/out having structure. And my thoughts grew more positive too. I also read a TON of unschooling books. Even though I knew that at this point in time I could never totally unschool, I wanted that attitude and outlook. Immersing myself in books like Child's Work by Nancy Wallace, The Unschooling Handbook and Alison McKee's "Homeschooling Our Childrend and Unschooling Ourselves (I think that is the name) really helped a lot. Read some unschooling blogs too. Often the issues of what is accomplished in a fluid way are addressed.

Also,a allowing myself to "let go" and being less rigid helped. That was hard for me. I"m a control freak who resents control. Does that make sense? I had to allow myself to see what I could do without saying "should" in my head. Letting go of a feeling that homeschoolers "should" do this or that or another thing. Another big deal for me was stopping from comparing myself to others, homeschool or not. Very hard to do. Frankly, as much as I loved it here at WTM I found that I was looking at the lists of accomplishments of others and feeling I was running up short. I wasn't short. Just different. I started a Weekly (i call it Weakly) report...that has been interesting. I feel a pressure to report something stellar. It's made me really examine, tho, my feelings about why/how and for who I homeschool.The last couple weeks and this week have been very unschooling for us. That's another thing. Some days are intensely scheduled some days aren't. Some weeks aren't. Some months feel like I haven't done a thing. But I have. Really understand what unschooling is all about.

Hoping you find a good balance for yourself!! And when you have let us know!!

[Mama Lynx]

This has been my goal my entire homeschool career. I want to be somewhere in between free-flow unschool and rigidly structured. My personality works best with structure: x number of workbook pages/day type thing. I have made great strides! I started out with Abeka -doing it "by the book" very rigid in my plan. Now I am more ecclectic in my mix of books - some living literature - some workbooky. But, I find myself still a slave to the schedule. How can I strike the balance? How can we have art days and I not worry that we didnt complete the CW HOmer lesson or do the GWG lesson or read X number of pages in our reader? Where and how does one solve ths??

I have chosen a few extremely important subjects to be our core. For us, this is math, Latin, music and reading.

I personally believe that if all we ever do is math, Latin, music, lots of reading, and Classical Writing, my children will have an excellent education. So when our days start to get too structured and crowded, I pull back to just our core.

We've gotten a little bored and burnt out lately, so I've pulled back to math, Latin, music and reading, and have even dropped CW for awhile. They'll be FINE. I also keep in mind that they do not have to do every chapter, every exercise, every diagram, every model. If my child learns to write well, no one will ever care that he only did half of Homer B :)

[frankcassiesmom]

For ME? The key is doing school year round. I'm sure I could let go enough otherwise, but it's soo hard for me. So I can do 4 days a week, do Friday as an art and library day, take a day off to learn all about the birds in our area if I have to, etc. and not feel guilty that we're behind.

[elegantlion]

I do two things. One is an undated planner. Our days are not listed as Mon - Fri, but days .1 -.5. That allows my mind the freedom to not freak out if day .2 is on Thursday not Tuesday. I list the weeks 1-36 in front of the day. (ie: first day of school is day 1.1, last day of school is around 36.5)

Another thing we do is a four day a week schedule. Day .5 is our "other subjects" day. Our is a little more structured in that we usually have spelling tests, reading, but we also do art unstructured and our French lessons.

We started with Abeka as well. We are now in our fourth year of homeschooling and I find myself getting more relaxed each year. ;)