Why We Chose an Eclectic Homeschooling Style

Once you’ve found your child’s learning style, what do you do next? What kind of homeschool style best suits you and your family? How do you decide? When I was in my researching phase, I read everything I could about the different methods: classical, Charlotte Mason, Montessori, Waldorf, unschooling and everything else. The best thing you can do is talk to other homeschoolers. It’s one thing to read about it, but when you can speak to someone who is actually doing it, it’s such a valuable resource. And even if you don’t agree with what they are doing, then you know what won’t work for your family. I spoke to a woman who homeschooled her 11 children up to grade 8 and she was the best resource I found. No one ever implements anything exactly as the book says. People tweak things to suit their families. If only someone would have told me that from the beginning. I was in love with the Charlotte Mason method and planned my whole homeschool around Ambleside online’s booklist and schedule. I stuck to it religiously for a term and while we loved the books, it’s not how I wanted to continue homeschooling. I needed something else. My favourite books that I continue to use as a reference and sometimes to refresh my mind are:

• The Well Trained Mind
• A Charlotte Mason Companion: Personal Reflections on the Gentle Art of Learning
• The Three R’s
• You Can Teach Your Child Successfully: Grades 4-8

I never tried unschooling because if left on his own, I figured my son would have played video games all day. Instead I chose to pick and choose what areas or concepts I liked from different methods and tried to implement those into our homeschool. It’s what works for us. We  follow the 4 year history period, practice copywork, dictation and outlining  like classical schoolers, we work on oral and written narrations like Charlotte Masoners and read a lot of good books. What you need to do is open your mind to the possibility that school doesn’t have to look like school at home. There are other ways of learning. You don’t even need textbooks. How crazy is that?