Unschooling: Am I Messing Up My Kid's Education?

My son started teaching himself to read soon after he turned four. Since my husband and I couldn't really imagine sticking him in preschool to learn the alphabet when he was already reading out loud from Green Eggs and Ham, we decided to look into homeschooling. Having no clue where to begin or what homeschooling method worked best, I researched every approach I could find, from Montessori to distance learning to Charlotte Mason. The one method that I immediately decided against was unschooling.

Unschooling, an idea that centers around teaching kids through their natural environment (read: no curriculum, structure or worksheets) seemed too free-spirited and disorganized to possibly work. To do the homeschool thing right, I thought, we needed structure. Curriculums. Worksheets.

But our own homeschool experience, begun ambitiously with sharpened pencils and workbooks and CD-ROMs about pioneer life, soon morphed into relaxed - but effective - unschooling, because that's what worked best for my kid. At six, he is now reading middle school books, messing around with pre-algebra concepts and filling notebooks with the intricate details of video games he wants to design for a living when he turns fifteen. Which is cool with me, since he says he'll make a lot of money and share some with his poor parents.

If you are considering homeschooling and are still in the research stage, or just wondering what the heck unschoolers do all day, this list will give you a quick snapshot of the kind of activities that make up a day in the life of an unschooled kid:

1. Visiting a farm
2. Putting on plays
3. Making cabins out of popsicle sticks
4. Climbing on a jungle gym
5. Arranging alphabet magnets on a fridge
6. Planning a road trip
7. Taking an art class
8. Helping Mom or Dad clean house
9. Getting a weekly allowance
10. Watching Animal Planet
11. Visiting an art exhibit
12. Playing Monopoly
13. Listening to a book on tape
14. Taking a bike ride
15. Babysitting a younger sibling
16. Shooting hoops
17. Baking cupcakes
18. Building castles with Legos
19. Catching lightning bugs
20. Taking apart an old toaster
21. Cooking over a campfire
22. Volunteering at a soup kitchen
23. Coloring a picture
24. Playing with dolls
25. Sketching a bowl of oranges
26. Reading Harry Potter together
27. Weekly piano lessons
28. Shooting marbles
29. Fishing with Grandma or Grandpa
30. Crocheting a scarf
31. Typing a letter
32. Going to the zoo
33. Taking a walk downtown
34. Organizing a closet
35. Grocery shopping
36. Visiting a senior center
37. Planning a weekly menu
38. Raising a pet rabbit
39. Learning sign language
40. Reading the newspaper
41. Tending a flower garden
42. Baking cookies for a neighbor
43. Writing to a pen pal
44. Pretending to be a pirate
45. Working a crossword puzzle
46. Painting with watercolors
47. Keeping a journal
48. Picking apples at an orchard
49. Pressing fall leaves
50. Playing at a playground

I know - it sounds like life, not school, right? But from what I've been able to tell, unschooling is less about what you're doing and more about the idea that each activity you share with your child has the potential for amazing learning opportunities. Kids are naturally curious and will soak up all kinds of great information when you give them a chance.

For example, my son learned about the concept of sales tax one day in a checkout line at the grocery store. He learned about the growth and development of chickens when we bought some chicks for our new farm, and all about animal care and responsibility as he helped raise them. He learned basic beginning fractions while helping me bake a batch of brownies. Books on a huge variety of subjects are constantly available to him through a collection accumulated from thrift stores and garage sales, and anything he shows interest in (from space to dinosaurs to how a doorknob works) is explored with us in further detail, and through library books, encyclopedias and the internet.

He's our first homeschool kid, so we've just been kind of bumping along so far, letting him lead his own education for now and hoping we're doing everything right but half-afraid that we're screwing him up permanently. But when he comes trotting up to my husband and I asking to write a letter to his favorite author or tells us all about the life-cycle of a butterfly while we're out taking a family walk, we breath a sigh of relief and remind ourselves that it's okay. Unschooling isn't right for every family or homeschooled kid, but for him, it's really working.

If you don't believe me, try one of the activities above with your child (from the approach that every activity can be a valuable teaching experience and not just something to do when they complain of boredom) and watch the learning happen.