Hi Ruthla, I consider ds and I to be on the unschooling end of things, but I still do structure his day and his learning more than most definitions of unschooling allow for. I figure, if it works for us, who cares about the theory, that's why we left the school system.<br><br>
What we do is a combination of things. We've combined doing large projects (he's previously done a design your own island project, this year it's design your own planet. His first thought was to have life based on another element than carbon, this has led to him having to research organic chemistry a bit to find out why, exactly, life is carbon-based, so it's still a very unschooly kind of way to do things, just narrowed down a bit so he can handle it and not just sit around saying "I don't know what to do".)<br><br>
I also put together a list of books I'd like him to read, with some "suggestions" as to which ones he could be reading now. I joined some online reading groups and we are doing some of the fiction reads together (currently he's reading Huck Finn for the classics reading group, and James and the Giant Peach for the banned books group.)<br><br>
For writing when he was younger, we did dictation, just a few minutes a day, but it really worked wonders with both his handwriting and his grammar and spelling. I would read a sentence out loud and he would have to write it down from hearing it, so he'd have to figure out how to spell the words and punctuate, etc. It really worked fantastically well for him, much better than any workbook or program that we tried. Now that he's older, he doesn't have much patience for the dictation, so we're trying him keeping a daily journal. He hasn't quite gotten around to starting that yet, so maybe I have to give him a bit of a nudge <img alt="" class="inlineimg" src="/img/vbsmilies/smilies/loveeyes.gif" style="border:0px solid;" title="Loveeyes">:<br><br>
I've bought a few small scale kind of programs, that ds gets into occasionally, plus a subscription to Learning through History magazine, that he loves. It has essays and research questions, crafts and recipes and similar "real work" kind of curriculum stuff in it. I bought a time-line book, but I don't think we'll get started on that until next winter, it's too nice out right now for indoor work.<br><br>
For the summer, I've planned for ds to do lots of nature walks, finding specimens and trying to indentify plants, animal tracks, and keeping a journal of what he finds and how he's come to conclusions. He likes to fish, so I've suggested that he try to keep a fishing journal too, keep track of lures that worked, bait, good fishing spots, etc. This kind of journalling not only covers language arts, but also science, math, social science, art (drawing specimens), phys ed (all that walking and hiking) plus he gets to hang out with the boys fishing (that dreaded socialization). If he were more interested in writing (how did I wind up with this kid? <img alt="" class="inlineimg" src="http://www.mothering.com/discussions/images/smilies/lol.gif" style="border:0px solid;" title="lol">) I would sign him up for some of the writing workshops our library puts on for teens.<br><br>
This fall he's going to join the sea cadets, play football and maybe take an improv comedy class through a theater school he's attended before.<br><br>
I chose a book for us to read aloud together, ds didn't want to keep doing this, but I really love this part of hsing and insisted, and it turns out that he's really enjoying it too, we're reading The Once and Future King.<br><br>
I put together a plan quarterly, based on the seasons. We've been hsing for so long, and there are no other schooling kids in our family so we really don't need to follow the school calendar anymore. We do more outside, experimental stuff in the summer, more reading and research in the winter when we can't go outside much. It gives both of us a framework, and keeps us both on track.<br><br>
He requested a math program this year, because he's had so much trouble with math in the past, so I got him Math-U-See. He's really enjoying that program so far, it's very basic, not colourful, no pictures, no games, exactly what he asked for (!!), because he finds the "make learning fun" kind of stuff is distracting and annoying. We started with the division level, because he's struggled to learn division for 4 years now, he says this program is really helping to make it make sense to him.<br><br><br>
Wow this is getting really long, probably more info than you wanted, so I'll sign off here.
