We have tried lots of approaches, and settled into a fairly relaxed position somewhere between “unschooling” and Charlotte Mason’s “living books (quality literature) & life experiences”, backed up in some areas by a more traditional, text-book approach.
I was attracted to Unit Studies, but I found I didn’t have the time (or organisational capabilities) to put them together regularly, so although we still do some projects every now and then, it’s not something we do all the time.
We are using the National Curriculum as a guide for our home education, that is all we’re using it as – a guide. I see the National Curriculum mostly as a resource or platform for me to develop ideas for teaching, and we have never used the tests that go along with the National Curriculum.
We don’t intend to use it in any way as a list of tasks to attain by any certain age! I think it would be useful to have some kind of planned ‘curriculum’ of ideas to offer to our children (tailored to our children individually, and also aiming to cover many subjects not covered by the National Curriculum).
For other home education methods, see the Teaching section.
Little Bears Home Education 