OFF KLTR!

2021 Update:  The big sister attends public high school.  Little sister still homeschools, but our lives look very different than they did in this photo below.  I loved every minute of slow homeschooling.  And I believe with all of my heart that you can homeschool your kids through high school.  It just wasn’t my kids’ path.  But I leave this tab here for other young moms thinking about homeschooling.  Slow homeschooling was an amazing lifestyle.  I’m so grateful for those delicious years of home-based education.  I treasure them.

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After a 9 year journey, OFF KLTR became a slow homeschooling family!  It was quite an adventure!  We started out at a wonderful, warm at-home play group for two year olds.  And then we foolishly enrolled our girl in an academic preschool for 3/4 year olds.  The school was a terrible fit for us, which eventually led us to Waldorf Education.  And while there are so many wonderful aspects of Waldorf education, the OFF KLTR mama just *knew* there had to be an even kinder, gentler way to educate her children.  And we found it:  slow homeschooling!

1.  HOMESCHOOLING (General)

OFF KLTR:  Recommended Homeschool Reading

OFF KLTR:  Homeschool Resources

2.  SLOW HOMESCHOOLING!

Milva McDonald, in her Examiner article, explains her family’s slow homeschooling experience, “I observed my kids with interest and joy, and provided resources to help feed budding passions. I did my best to act as a guide while trying to stay the heck out of their way. What I did not do when they were very young was sign them up for every math workshop, science club, or whatever activity came on the homeschooling list serve, and I certainly never enrolled them in a learning center. It just wasn’t necessary. Beyond a pottery session here and there, for the most part classes and other structured activities weren’t even a part of my kids’ lives until they hit double digits.  So what did we do?  We spent our time at the park, the library, and in play…”.  This is my family’s kinda homeschooling.  And it is THE BEST.

OFF KLTR: We are Slow Homeschoolers!

3.  UNSCHOOLING (CHILD-LED LEARNING)

Slow Home Schooling would fall under the category of unschooling.

Unschooling:  “is a term that the late John Holt coined in the late ’70′s to describe learning that is based on a child’s interests and needs.  Unschooling does not begin with a parent’s notion of what is important to learn and then turn the choices of how to learn the content over to a child.  Rather, it begins with the child’s natural curiosity and expands from there.  Unschooling is not “instruction free” learning…unschoolers often do no traditional school work, yet they do learn traditional subject matter.  They learn it as a natural extension of exploring their own personal interests.”  – Alison McKee, FAQs about Unschooling High School and College

OFF KLTR:  Unschooling 101

4.  WALDORF HOMESCHOOLING 

Waldorf Education + Homeschooling = Waldorf Homeschooling.

OFF KLTR:  Waldorf Homeschooling Resources

OFF KLTR:  Waldorf Homeschooling VS Attending a Waldorf School

OFF KLTR:  Waldorf Homeschooling VS Unschooling