It's been easy so far to teach the kids without any curriculums, but I am being told by others that it won't continue to stay as easy as it's been now that ds is moving into 3rd grade this year, and that I will need to have some structure to our learning, and probably a curriculum. Right now we do a lot of unschooling/relaxed learning. I have used Abeka as a guide to knowing what stuff to help them learn, and we find other hands-on ways to learn it. It's fairly time consuming for me, since I have to come up with exciting ways to teach them stuff they might not otherwise want to learn on their own.

So, what curriculum do you use if you use one, and if you unschool, do you find there are gaps in the kids knowledge?

We don't unschool. I like everything very organized, so we go with a curriculum. We've used Christian Liberty since grade K and have been very happy with it. It comes with everything we need including teacher's manuals, tests, and answer keys. My dd is in 3rd grade now. We will use this again next year. It is very Christian, so don't use this if that is a concern. Anyway, the website is www.homeschools.org. Oh, and by the way, it is very work book oriented, so I add other fun hands-on things, too.

I think if unschooling/relaxed learning is working now, I'm not sure why it won't continue to work? you may need to be a little structed about a few things like math facts but unschooling works really well for alot of people. It greatly depends on your children's learning style. Do they seem to be thriving? are they learning fine on thier own or with little guidance? What are your goals for 3rd grade? How can you encourage the completion of those goals using the method you currently use?

we are ecclectic/unschoolers/relaxed learners... I don't really know what label fits us best.... I have several curriculms that I occasionally consult for ideas and seldom use step by step. We use Making Math Meaningful for math (I'm not confidant I can teach that on my own) and we use Learning Laguage Arts Through Literature because CJ can read wonderfully but he knew nothing about grammer rules or parts of speech (which made playing mad libs no fun!) I have a music program I want to use to but I just haven't made it a priority.