Finding Your Homeschool Style

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Today’s article is the last of a four part Homeschool Series. You can find the other three posts here:

Part 1: Following God’s Call to Homeschool

This week I want to talk about finding your homeschool style. Finding your homeschool style will help you in so many ways. When you know your style, you can decide what homeschool curriculum to buy. You will also be able to find others who share your homeschool personality.

I’ve spent time with many different kinds of homeschool families, from traditional to unconventional. I love hearing people’s stories, hearing why they chose to homeschool and what learning looks like in their home. But finding others with a similar homeschool style is like finding your tribe. You encourage one another, inspire one another and remind one another why you started homeschooling in the first place. You can share ideas, methods, blogs, podcasts and books with each other. Finding your tribe can keep you going during hard seasons.

What About Curriculum?

One of the first things parents look for once they’ve made the decision to homeschool is curriculum. This seems logical, right? If you’re going to teach your children at home, you need the materials and resources to do so. There are hundreds of curriculum options to choose from. It can be overwhelming. Deciding on your homeschool style can make choosing the right curriculum so much easier.

Your homeschool style will depend on several factors including:

your reason for homeschooling
your goals
your personality
your children’s personalities
your children’s ages
your family dynamics.

Before I began homeschooling I read So You’re Thinking About Homeschooling by Lisa Whelchel. Lisa shares fifteen examples of homeschool families with various backgrounds and homeschooling styles. This book helped me see the possibilities and opportunities open to homeschool families. The stories that spoke to me the most helped me zone in on my homeschool style. From there I did more research and landed on the homeschool style we stayed with for most of our homeschool years. (I say most because I was more of an eclectic homeschool mom. I didn’t always stay within the parameters of my chosen homeschool style.)

I’ve put together a list of common homeschool styles. I hope this list helps as you start researching which style is best for you. Also, you don’t have to stay in any of these boxes. You can move, jump, combine any of them. That’s the wonderful freedom of homeschooling. 🙂

A general list of the most common homeschool styles includes:

Online School
Traditional or School-at-Home
Unit Studies
Classical
Charlotte Mason
Montessori
Unschooling
Eclectic

Online School

There are as many reasons to homeschool as there are homeschool families. Sometimes your reason for homeschooling makes your homeschool style obvious and your choice for curriculum easy.

If you want to homeschool but you’re not confident in your ability to teach your children yourself, online school may be a good option for you. Online school is a great alternative if you don’t believe the schools in your area are safe or academically strong. Some families choose online schooling because their family needs a more flexible school schedule. Programs like K12 and Connections Academy give students a public school education at home. Students who start with these programs usually have no trouble transferring to public school in the future because these programs are accredited and taught by certified teachers.

Some online schools are Christian based and/or university sponsored online like Libery University’s Online Academy.

My friend, Rosemarie, isn’t a native English speaker, but she wanted to homeschool her children. She wasn’t confident in her ability to teach them all they needed to know. She wanted them to be prepared in case they transfer to public school for the high school years. Online school gave her a safety net. She had lots of time with her children at home doing fun family activities but the bulk of their education was facilitated by other instructors.

Traditional or School-at-Home

A traditional homeschool approach looks like “school at home.” Traditional homeschoolers often follow a school routine similar to a public school schedule and often use the curriculum you will find in a traditional classroom.

My friend, Anna, brought her son home for middle school with the intention of sending him back to public high school in a few years. A traditional approach helped her adapt to homeschool life quickly. It was what her son was accustomed to. And a traditional curriculum kept her son on track with his public school friends so he could stay where they were academically while being homeschooled.

Most moms are coming to homeschooling with a traditional school mindset. Sometimes we have to start with what we know and adjust as we find out what works and what doesn’t work for us and our children.

Unit Studies

The unit studies approach is a homeschool style where multiple subjects are taught around a single theme or topic. The idea is that as children deep dive into a given topic they draw stronger connections and gain a deeper understanding. Advocates of this style also say unit studies is a more natural way of learning, especially for young children.

An example of a unit study approach would be to focus one month on frogs. During that month science could include learning about the life cycle of a frog and studying the characteristics of an amphibian as opposed to a reptile or mammal. For spelling and vocabulary you could learn words like frog, toad and tadpole. Older kids could learn words like metamorphosis, amphibian and habitat. For literature you could read fairy-tales like “The Princess and the Frog.” The kids could practice reading with “Frog & Toad” readers. Hands-on projects could include finding frogs and studying them in their natural habitat. With multiple students at different ages you would have to adjust your activities according to their abilities.

I’ve always thought the unit study approach seemed fun. And there are many unit study curriculum options that would take care of most of your planning. I dipped my toe into unit studies after reading Better Late Than Early by Raymond Moore. I don’t think I was organized or consistent enough to pull it off well.

Classical

The classical homeschool style was popularized by Susan Wise Bauer’s book The Well-Trained Mind: A Guide to Classical Education at Home. In it Susan lays out an educational model that organizes a child’s education into three stages of learning known as the trivium. The stages include the grammar, logic and rhetoric stages. The grammar stage is the early elementary stage. Young students commit to memory rules, facts and information they will need for later years. During the grammar stage students get a good foundation in language. The logic stage coincides with the middle school years where students start to make connections with the facts they’ve memorized and begin to see how cause and effect relationships work. The rhetoric stage mirrors the high school years. At this stage students focus on developing communications skills as they pull on the training they received during the first two stages.

This is admittedly an over simplified explanation of classical homeschooling. And Bauer’s approach to the trivium model is not the only one. She is the one who popularized it so her book is a good place to start. The Circe Institute is another wonderful place to learn about classical education, especially for the rhetoric stage.

Charlotte Mason

The Charlotte Mason homeschool style has a special place in my heart because it’s where we spent most of our homeschool years. This style appealed to me because I liked the idea of making learning a lifestyle, a way of life. Charlotte Mason said “education is an atmosphere, a discipline, a life.”

Charlotte Mason was a British educator during the turn of the twentieth century. She wrote several books explaining her education philosophy. Charlotte Mason’s 20 Principles taken from her book A Philosophy of Education gives a good look into what she believed about teaching and learning.

The more I read about Charlotte Mason homeschooling and the more I read her books on education, the more I was drawn towards this homeschool style. For my children’s early years I used mostly a Charlotte Mason approach. We read many, many books (something I will never regret). My children spent hours outside playing and observing nature (something else I will never regret). Narration, copywork, artist study, composer study, hymns and folksongs were part of our everyday life.

This gentle way of learning and growing together was a good fit for us. My kids did well with short lessons. For the most part, Charlotte Mason was a good fit for me as the teacher and my children as students. The idea that children need a feast of ideas resonated with me. The thought of making my home a learning place, creating an atmosphere where they could grow inspired me. Charlotte Mason was good soil for us.

Montessori

Montessori is an educational style that is child-centered. It emphasizes hands-on learning, independence and respect. It was developed by Italian physician and educator Maria Montessori in the early 1900s.

Montessori spent time observing children and how they learn. She encouraged children to take ownership of what they learned and to work together to accomplish goals and solve problems.

One of the goals of the Montessori style is to teach the child self-regulation. Teachers are facilitators, not instructors. Teachers are to model appropriate behavior with the expectation that students will follow suit.

Traditionally, the Montessori style has been used in classrooms. But its student-led, hands-on approach makes it adaptable to a home environment.

Unschooling

Unschooling is a homeschooling style that encourages children to learn at their own pace, without a formal curriculum or schedule. It was popularized by John Holt in his book How Children Learn.

Unschooling is the complete opposite approach as traditional education. It is entirely child-led, giving the student control of what, when and how they learn. Parents are just facilitators who provide resources to help their children in their own educational goals.

Eclectic

I think of eclectic homeschooling as the style for those who refuse to fit into the box. An Eclectic homeschooler combines different homeschool styles and methods to fit their particular needs. As an eclectic homeschooler you can create a personalized plan for each child. For some moms that sounds exciting and freeing. For others that sounds overwhelming and daunting. Thus, the beauty of homeschooling! You get to do what works best for you.

Eclectic homeschoolers can combine elements of traditional, classical, Charlotte Mason, online, Montessori, unschooling or unit studies for a tailored approach. The choice is yours.

I hope you have found this list helpful. If you are still undecided, I hope you will continue researching these options. And please let me know if I can help in any way!

God Bless!

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