Is Jena’s blog still available? I clicked on it and it said that it was private and readers need to be invited.

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And as far as delaying test taking and entering college, yes! A lot of public schoolers take a year off between high school and college. Generally, kids take the SAT or ACT in their junior year, but you can take it ANYTIME at any testing center. Just check out their websites. And many colleges are not requiring homeschoolers to take the GED. Many will just want your homeschool transcript. If your child has done a few years in a public high school, just put that on their homeschool transcript. Include an official transcript from that school, plus your home school transcript, when you apply to colleges.

Hope that helps! and Go for it!!

My biggest problem now is balancing housework and doing stuff with the kids. They want me to do things with the ALL THE TIME! I love spending time with them, but it is very demanding with me. Even as I type this, they are pulling at me. So I take bits of time to myself when I can get them (I’m pretty introverted). I can’t imagine having a set curriculum to follow! I have enough stress right now without thinking about having to plow through things we both might find boring or tedious.

Jena, once again, thanks for your inspirational writing. I also LOVE your blog.

Your comment makes me smile and brings back such great memories. Yes, teach her to read and write her letters as much as you both want. If she is eager to learn, make the most of it! We can’t be afraid to teach–it’s the overteaching that turns kids off.

And yes, interest-led learning can be very time consuming for the parent when the child is little. Do whatever you can, and remind her to be reasonable. Mommy only has so much time and energy! Sometimes you can get her started, show her how, then stand back and see what she does with it. And we have to loosen up on our perfectionism. At this age, the purpose is their exploration and discovery more than the finished product.

If her interests are too expensive, etc, try offering other ideas that she would like just as much. One of our daughters wanted to take riding lessons and get a horse. That was just not going to happen in our family. It was very hard to work through that, but we survived.

Kids need the freedom to follow their interests, but they also need to realize that they are not the center of the universe. Learning to defer to others, to be patient, to make the most of what they have–those are all part of being a successful human.

But we parents need to communicate this in a noncondemning way, as I’m sure you do. I always had to remind myself to be gentle and kind to my kids as much as possible, in all areas of life, and as a result, they respect me and follow my lead when it really counts.

Hope this helps,

Jena
.-= Jena’s last blog: Unschooling on SimpleHomeschool =-.

I appreciate your words as I am starting to think more about unschooling lately. I started thinking in a school way but am not entirely happy with the schoolish set-up. I also never follow things exactly so I can never follow a set curriculum. We get too interested or change our methods or divert.

My daughter is 5 1/2 and homeschooling in a semi- structured way. I find literature based activities or real-life or manipulatives style maths the most enjoyable for both of us. I want Emily to also learn some more independence though.

What does interest-led learning look like for a 5 yr old? Would you do any phonics? Do you do any spelling words? handwriting practise? DD thinks it’s so great when she realises that the letter to the zoo is actually “school” but don’t we need to practise the letters a few times before we can write the letter? I guess I am thinking a small amount of drill facilitates the real-life activities the child is interested in.

I find interest-led activities to be very demanding – DD is unable to read on her own, unable to make a lot of things on her own that she really wants to and most of her ideas are expensive, complicated and would require me to put in 99% of the work. She says she wants to grow flowers. She can’t press the soil down firmly enough around seedlings for them to grow! She can’t lift the watering can easily or turn the garden tap on herself.

I think DD loves me being in there doing stuff “for” her and would much rather me continually help her than do things herself. She enjoys interaction with others (including me) and is happy not to push herself mentally or physically. I like things to be done well and I think often jump in to help sooner than I should.

I would be interested to hear your comments if you are able to respond.

Thanks,

Jude

I can see now that there were aspects of interest-led learning in the homeschool method my parents used, but there were also increasing levels of structure as we moved from elementary to middle to high school ages. My parents found a nice balance of structure and freedom in those especially important years of 7th – 12th grades. We did course work, but still had plenty of time to explore our other interests – horticulture, botany, beekeeping, etc.

Fast forward to now: my younger brother and I both received full academic scholarships to college, and both graduated at the top of our classes. He heads to graduate school in the fall, and I work successfully in corporate America. I credit the philosophy my parents used in homeschooling for much of my success. One of the most important lessons to teach any child: it doesn’t matter if you can regurgitate the answers or replicate the math problems. What matters is whether or not you understand the concepts. Students who begin their educations with interest-led learning have this advantage over their peers – they learn for the satisfaction of learning, not for the result (that is, grades).