Julie Naturally
natural self-reliance for Christians
Here, Julie writes about her experiences in unschooling young children using natural learning methods. We often rush young children when they are not developmentally ready. If we allowed them to learn according to God’s timetable for them, they would suffer less anxiety and stress. In contrast, young children need many experiences and hands-on, wholistic projects that unschooling and natural learning offer. Julie tells just how to do that.
I learned early on how to teach math for K-6th grade in one year. My oldest son refused to do math curriculum. I made up for this by using Math Facts to the Max, Times Alive:Times Tables the Fun Way, Family Math, and a few other tools you can find in this math resources post. …
We think we know what to teach preschoolers, but what if we’re wrong? Even in homeschooling, many preschool curriculums and learning resources focus on early reading skills. These include learning the alphabet and letter sounds. Some include basic math activities such as counting to 100 and single digit addition up to 10. Ideas for what …
How long does it take to learn to read? Judging by the age at which many folks start teaching reading skills, they must think it takes 3-4 years. I would argue that it takes much, much less time than that. It takes about thirty hours. That’s right, only one hour a week for less than …
As homeschooling parents, we want to know how to teach our children everything, including how to teach little kids to write a story. But, telling stories and writing stories require very different skills. Some of these skills are developmentally based. All children under age 10 tell stories. However, their writing efforts usually don’t match the …
While we have used math curriculum periodically (check out my list of math resources), I always try to unschool math in some way as well. Why? Isn’t the curriculum enough? First, I generally don’t use a curriculum until the child is around age 10. Until that time, I focus mostly on math facts, money, and …
Sometimes we want to change the world through homeschooling. When we hear someone say that they wish they could homeschool, our ears prick up. Before we can stop ourselves, we say, “I can help you!” or even think about homeschooling other people’s kids for them. Mostly, though, they outright ask us, “Hey, you homeschool your …
Here in the northern hemisphere, it is summer and since I live near the Great Lakes, it is precious. For three months, it is warm enough to swim in Lake Michigan (although I don’t think the lake ever gets warmer than 70 degrees Fahrenheit.) When I was a kid, the streets swarmed with kids, we …
When my children were younger, I struggled to keep everyone at the table at the same time. Living books were important to me, but my rambunctious bunch wouldn?t quiet down. I was okay with them playing with Legos or squishing clay while I read, but quietly? That seldom happened. At that time, only one child …
