Thank you to Jodi of So Not Cool for sharing a homeschool recipe this week. Jodi lives in Wisconsin and is an unschooling mama to one sweet girl who is 17 years old (they've been learning at home since mid-first grade). You'll also find Jodi nurturing the creative life through writing, photography and always striving to document the beauty in the mundane. Watch for more of Jodi as she joins The Women's Colony this week as a regular contributor.
Jodi's Recipe
Unless I am baking, I rarely follow a recipe. Homeschooling (unschooling, for us) isn't baking, baby. The following have been our most important ingredients. If you use this recipe, please adjust to suit your taste.
Know your state laws and know them well -- I live in Wisconsin and homeschooling is pretty lax here. In some states, however, regular testing and keeping records are VERY important.
Find out how your child learns best -- I did okay, myself, with the classic method of public school education, although I think that I might have learned more if I wouldn't have had to spend so much time doing worksheets for things that I already understood. I just don't believe in repetitive drilling unless that is what works for your son or daughter. So far, the only things that we have done repetitively was to go over stuff that she needed to know for safety's sake like, for example, important phone numbers and home address, what to do in emergency situations, etc ...
Trust your instincts about your child, but be open to the idea that people change -- When X was eight, she obviously had no interest in memorizing multiplication tables. I thought back to my own childhood: I disliked math in grade school, but once junior high came along (read: ALGEBRA!!), I fell in love with math. I also learned to like it even more once I could apply what I was learning (algebra, geometry) to real-life situations. That was the bomb. It turns out that this is the case for our daughter as well. I decided to trust in the fact that real-life situations and a bit of curiosity would lead her towards math as well. And, it did. Dungeons & Dragons played a big part in this for her.
Be willing to take advantage of not just books, but many forms of media -- While we follow what I call "deliberate television viewing", meaning that we don't mindlessly watch the telly but rather plan to view programs of interest or education, please don't discount television as a source of learning. I'm not referring to Sesame Street and Dora here, folks, but rather education-geared channels (The History Channel, Smithsonian, PBS, Discovery, et cetera) and similar specials and DVDs, such as Nova, Nova Science Now, and (the original) The Future is Wild. (My daughter would like to clarify that there is a new version of the latter special and she does NOT endorse it.)
Books, books, books. If you have a child that can't yet read or doesn't like to read, please consider the many interactive books, such as pop-up books and Klutz books. As your children mature, I really recommend letting them read all that they can about the things in which they have an interest. And, when necessary, suggest something that they might not normally pick on their own. Historical fiction is GREAT as well, such as the American Girl books about children during different periods in history.
An aside: Calvin & Hobbes is a fantastic tool for learning about philosophy and theology, as well as expanding vocabulary.
Don't forget about magazines. Whether you get them from the library or purchase a subscription, these are a great source for learning as well as getting in reading practice. If your son is into baseball, but doesn't care for reading, maybe a baseball magazine will help him to garner an interest in reading ... not to mention learning more about baseball.
Books on CD or tape were a large part of my daughter's elementary education. Our family was doing a lot of traveling at that time and now, ten years later, we often refer back to the books that we listened to on CD during long car trips.
Lastly, the radio can be helpful as well. I listen to NPR a lot and our daughter grew up on it. Certainly, weekly episodes of "Science Friday" and educational adult game shows (like, "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me") advanced her science knowledge as well as her vocabulary.
Volunteer to both help and learn -- I think that volunteering is important, whether you sign up to help out at a facility or create your own way to help out others. It is especially helpful if you can find a cause in which your child is interested, and then they can both help out as well as learn while doing so. Personally, we volunteered for several conservation groups and a local nursing home. For the last several years, she has been volunteering at the library and will submit a job application the next time that there is an opening as she plans to attend college for Library and Information Studies.
Let your children try various activities ... AND LET THEM QUIT if they don't like it -- A lot of people may not approve of the fact that I am suggesting that you let your child quit an activity. Here are our personal guidelines: If there is an interest in something, such as piano or dance, we sign up for the initial session or semester. I don't let the child quit mid-term unless it's really not a good match and we're seeing red flags. However, if at the end of the term, we find that this isn't a true interest, we're willing to let her try something else. I mean, at least something was learned during that period of time and I think it's much more important to find activities that your child enjoys, whether they excel in it or not. That said, there have been times when we pushed her a bit to "give it a little more time", we compromised, and then either pulled her out of the activity later or she is still enjoying that activity today.
Above all, please do trust your instincts. You probably know your child best and if you listen to them, have conversations, offer opportunities, and go with your gut ... you will successfully homeschool/unschool your child(ren).
P.S. We all make mistakes. Don't sweat the small stuff. As we've said for decades, "Keep calm and carry on" ... and try to ignore that this motto ends in a preposition as that is a huge pet peeve for me.
Good luck and cheers!
August 31, 2009 
