My son is four and sick of preschool. I'm pg and it's a good time to take him out and evaluate how we do at home together. He needed to do some preschool and I needed to work some but I think we can do home now. I'm thinking about homeschooling/unschooling. I would like to combine some Waldorf with unschooling. That's my gut instinct. I haven't done near enough reading.
My questions are
-how do you go about unschooling from a legal perspective
- and are there some just really basic books or websites that I should start educating myself with?
I'd really like to follow ds's lead. I've learned that he cannot be led. If I wait for him to be ready, he's fast. If I push for what he should be able to do, he won't even. I can't see public school for him. Waldorf is an option if home/unschooling doesn't work but I want to try first and this upcoming year is our oportunity to feel our way.
Thanks. I'm sure these questions get asked again and again so I really appreciate response.

You could try The Unschooling Handbook. It's a basic book that covers most aspects of unschooling.

Thanks, anyone got one for sale, trade or loan?

Also, You could check out this link for unpreschool:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/unpreschool/?yguid=150711624

and

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/UnschoolingResources/?yguid=150711624

and here's a link that has some links of interesting stuff to help, too:

http://www.livefreelearnfree.com/

I do have that book and I'd be willing to loan it to you for a month or so. Or...they sell it on Half for $6.

-how do you go about unschooling from a legal perspective
- and are there some just really basic books or websites that I should start educating myself with?
I'd really like to follow ds's lead. I've learned that he cannot be led. If I wait for him to be ready, he's fast. If I push for what he should be able to do, he won't even.

Hi there!

I'm following a child-led approach with our 6yo son. It's about the same as unschooling, but the term 'child-led' is a better description of our method. To me, it means filling his daily life with lots of opportunities to learn things, and paying close attention when he shows an interest. Then I feed that interest according to his desire. For instance, if we get a book from the library about pioneers, and he likes it, I might show him on a map the routes many pioneers took west. We might talk about reasons why people would move west into wilderness. We might find out what some of the early pioneer homes were like, make some models, etc. Mine is like yours in that he doesn't like to be led, but is VERY self-motivated to learn.

Legally, it truly depends on what state you live in. I live in PA which is known to be a bit more strict about filing requirements, but we won't have a problem with it. In New Jersey there are absolutely no requirements. It really varies. To learn more about your state laws, check this link:
http://www.unschooling.com/resources/states/index.shtml
There is also info about this on the HSLDA site.

You don't need to read anything if you don't want to. You could just follow his lead. If you want to learn more about unschooling, try to find the Unschooling Handbook, some John Holt books, etc. My favorite homeschooling/ unschooling book is Better Than School by Nancy Wallace. It's her biographical, unsullied account of her family's journey to unschooling. She calls it homeschooling (it is written in the 70s) but it's pretty unstructured and most decisions she makes about her children's education are drawn from their initiative.

For support, you could search Yahoo Groups for unschooling and your state and see what comes up. There are several PA unschooling groups. There are also general unschooling groups where you can read messages from all sorts of people and find out how they handled things like state requirements and dubious friends and family.

You can do this.

Tara

Child let sounds great. I love information so I want to read everything. i can't see us doing workbooks or cd's. But I want to have lots of ideas so that I can see the potential in things and have some ideas about what is age appropriate and what is too advanced.
I had untreated depression when we were home before. I have it under control now and now that he has decided that he doesn't want to go to school, and things are better financially, I think we can do this. I know I can teach him. I have a ba - not required in this state, and have always been told I should be a teacher. Thanks for the state requirements link. NM is always so lax. The fine for not registering is $25. Just have to get some books. Checked my library online, no deal. So maybe I'll find a cool bookstore or else have to order online and wait. Love to start new things so I'm feeling impatient.
Thanks so much!

See if your library can get the book for you via inter-library loan! All you need are the title, author, ISBN, and published date! It's a free service!

Unschooling FAQ (http://user.mc.net/~kwentz/ULfaq.shtml)

I'd call what we do somewhat child led or unschooling. We just sort of "live education". My life motto is "the truely educated never graduate". Every place & everything we do is a chance to learn. The biggest trick is learning to identify when your child is receptive to the learning & when it's best to just let them be. Luckily my DD is pretty vocal about when she's just not up to learning. "MOMMMM, Puh leeze. *roll eyes*".

For example, today our "schooling" included my DD writting a grocery list of the things she wanted from the store, helping me clean the living room, helping my unpack the groceries by organizing everything by "food type" (dairy, vegies, fruits, grains etc), Doing simple math to tell how many sandwiches each member of the family would get for dinner, making shadow puppets & putting on shadow puppet shows, feeding the pets, building a "mini golf" course in the back yard with her friends & taking the dog for a walk. Reading, math, nature, health, art, gym & a lot of fun.

We also do a fair amount of traditional worksheets because my DD enjoys them. However the best part of unschooling is that if your kid isn't into WS's, you can forget about them. Although they are a great way to tell what is "grade standard".

Good luck. Homeschooling is great.

Chole