When Iwona and I first started our journey into the unschooling world, the biggest question we had was how to find learning and socialization opportunities for our two boys if they were no longer going to attend a traditional school. Like every. major change in life, it can be daunting to fathom that you are now solely responsibile for your children’s education, but that responsibilty can also be very freeing for you and your children.
Children learn on different timelines and through different modalities, which is why the unschooling method works so well for so many children. There can be structure if that is what your child is craving, and there can be as much unstructured time as their little minds and bodies need as well. Finding the learning tools that will create a successful and fulfilled child took some time for us, but I’m here to provide some insight and feedback into what has worked best for us to save you some time and give you some ideas.
Utilizing social media and finding like minded families in your local area is probably the first step everyone should take. There are so many FB groups out there that are local to each of you. Not only do these groups provide socialization opportunities for your children in the form of playground meet ups, joint activity meet ups like field trips to local museums, aquariums, parks, and activities, but they are also a great place to share and learn educational activities and methods for approaching different subjects that have worked for other famiilies. I highly recommend putting yourself out there and joining any groups that are local to you. They may not all end up working for you, or you or your children may not gel with the ideals, activities or age range of the group, but if you check them all out you may either glean one valuable idea or one valuable friend from that group.
Blogs, like this one, are another great place to get inspiration for learning opportunities. When we first started our journey, it felt like we were joining such a niche group of people that didn’t just wake up and send their kids to school every day. Once we jumped down the rabbit hole of unschooling, we realized that so many individuals feel that same as we do. We utilized the homeschooling and unschooling blogs that were available at the time to reassure ourselves that we were doing the right thing, and also to understand what a life without standard education would look like. It helped us to feel confident enought to take the first steps in our journey, and those were the hardest steps for sure. One of the blogs we found to be most relevant to our journey was the starkravingdadblog, which provided invaluable and relatable articles that we could lean on while still getting our feet wet in this new world.
We are always evolving as a society, and as a result, our education system must follow suit as it is the bedrock of our children’s lives, no matter how it is presented to them. A part of this evolution is providing more and broader apportunities for our children to not just be educated but to educate themselves. Unschooling allows the time to open new avenues of learning and discovery for kids, and we are discovering that when given that freedom children may go in unexpected directions with their interests. As a result, non-profit schools have been popping up that teach everything from rocketry to engineering, cooking classes to pottery. A quick internet search will reveal that hte opportunities are limitless, and that is, in the end, what we are all trying to provide for our children. Limitless opportunity.
