March 11, 2023

Unschooling Homeschool: Choosing the Best Homeschool Curriculum Options

So you’re a Unschooler? That’s great! (If you’re not sure what your homeschool type is. Be sure to take the quiz here.)

Best Homeschool Curriculum for Your Unique Teaching Type

Before we start talking about the best homeschool curriculum options, let’s quickly go over the unschooling approach to homeschooling.

As an unschooling family, your role as a parent is to be a facilitator and guide for your children’s learning. Here are some tips for helping guide your children’s learning:

1. Observe and Listen – Pay close attention to your children’s interests and passions. Observe what they are naturally drawn to and listen to their questions and ideas. Use this information to guide their learning.

2. Provide Resources – Provide your children with the resources they need to explore their interests and passions. This could include books, videos, websites, materials for experiments, and more.

3. Facilitate Experiences – Help your children experience the world around them. This could include visiting museums, attending cultural events, exploring nature, and more. Encourage them to ask questions and learn through their experiences.

4. Foster Curiosity – Encourage your children to ask questions and be curious about the world around them. Support their natural desire to learn by helping them find answers to their questions and exploring new ideas together.

5. Encourage Creativity – Encourage your children to express themselves creatively through art, music, writing, and other forms of creative expression. This can help them develop a love of learning and a passion for self-expression.

6. Trust the Process – Trust that your children will learn what they need to learn, when they need to learn it. Don’t worry about specific grade levels or benchmarks. Focus on providing a rich and supportive learning environment that meets your child’s unique needs and interests.

Now, because this approach to learning is self-directed, there’s not a pre-set curriculum to follow. Remember, you’re allowing your children to explore their interests and passions and learn naturally through real-life experiences. So here’s just a few ideas to get you started:

  • Self-directed Learning Resources – Self-directed Learning Resources is a website that offers a wide range of free resources for self-directed learners, including books, articles, and online courses. It can be a great resource for unschoolers who want to explore a wide range of subjects and topics.

  • Khan Academy – Khan Academy is a free online resource that offers a wide range of video lessons and interactive activities in math, science, history, and more. It can be a great supplement to other curriculum options or used as a stand-alone resource for unschoolers who want to explore specific subjects or topics.

  • YouTube – YouTube is a great resource for unschoolers who want to explore a wide range of topics and interests. There are countless educational videos on YouTube covering everything from science experiments to historical documentaries. (Although I definitely recommend parental supervision, or at the very least safety filters.)

  • Library Books – The library can be a great resource for unschoolers who want to explore their interests and passions through books. Find our what your kiddo wants to learn about this week or month and you can help facilitate this by searching the library’s online database ahead of time. Then once you arrive, you can pull all the books that your child seems interested in.

  • Real-life Experiences – For unschoolers, real-life experiences can be one of the most important curriculum options. By allowing your children to explore their interests and passions through real-life experiences, you can provide a rich and meaningful learning environment that is tailored to your child’s unique needs and interests.

Overall, unschooling can be a great approach to homeschooling for families who want to allow their children to explore their interests and passions in a natural and organic way. These ideas can be great resources for unschoolers who want to support their children’s learning and encourage them to follow their own paths of exploration and discovery. Remember to consider your child’s learning style in order to determine whether or not this approach will work for him or her. (And be sure to subscribe to our email list, because we’ll have a new quiz soon for determining your child’s learning style.)

Any one of these ideas would give you a great start to providing your family with an Unschooling approach to homeschooling. But remember, the curriculum you choose is only meant to be a tool for you, it’s not meant to be your master. (You can read more about my thoughts on that in my Quick Start guide by purchasing that HERE.) And if you’re curious about what we use in our homeschool, check out the final post in this series.

Still have questions? Reach out to us at support@homeschooltribe.com.

Happy Homeschooling!