A quick unschooling read is "unschooling rules". It's light-hearted and fun to read and explains so much in a short time.

Best of luck for having this in place - we find that the longer we are out of school, the less chance there is of our kids fitting back in. As someone mentioned, the growth and learning keep accelerating. Even allowing for the 2 years my now 7 year old needed for healing time (school was toxic for him) he is now loosely 3 years ahead on most things (except writing) and his inner drive is only now kicking in, so we are seeing leaps and bounds mostly.

Including music practice (2 x instruments), chores and other academic work, we are currently on about 2 hours a day. He is expressing interest in increasing this slowly now so that by mid January we are at 3 hours a day. The rest of the day is spent in playing with other kids, experimenting, day dreaming, climbing trees, researching own topics and other personal persuits of happiness.

We see a similar trend in our 5 year old, although his LOG is higher and he is less social and so chooses to spend proportionately more time "working". He is on 2 - 3 hours a day. But to give you a fair idea, he was a bit ill yesterday and was moaning that he had been too ill to do any work. When asked what he did do, he said that he "only did music practice x 2, and an extra piano practice, snap circuits, made a rain stick, played chess and studied some end games, four life of fred chapters. Read two books, did some mazes in my "advanced" maze book. Folded washing and helped mom weed the strawberry patch. Oh yes I also did some writing practice for fun and planned a story I am working on" For him that was all fun and therefore since not initiated or suggested by me it was emphatically NOT work.

My point is that homeschooling can look like whatever would work best for your daughter right now. If she needs rigour, perhaps giving her the freedom to select from pre-prepared activities will work, or giving her the freedom to develop those independent learning skills could be exactly what she needs right now.

Either way, best of luck!


Mom to 3 gorgeous boys: Aiden (8), Nathan (7) and Dylan (4)