The Misfit homeschooler: Living in a secular world

We do child led interest learning (also called unschooling in some circles) and people always seem to assume that it means we don't do planners/schedules etc.  but I've found that if we (as a family) don't have a plan than we don't have time to do anything. That's going to be especially true this year! So I've been asked a lot lately how exactly do I plan stuff and still call it "child led interests". In a nut shell this is what I do: Every year I ask the kids "what do you want to learn this year?" they give me a list of stuff they are interested in. After talking about each thing and getting me on the same page as they are, we start talking about books, curriculum etc that they can use to learn the items on their list.Then I start my "master list" for, well, everything! Basically the idea is that if I was sick or couldn't help them for awhile, someone could pick up this notebook and basically just step in if needed. I usuall...

Starting to get organized for the coming school year. I just got an email that the student planners for the kids are now available at franklin covey, so those will be ordered soon. They have 3 different levels for the kids. An elementary, a middle school and a high school planner. the older selections being more detailed while the younger ones are getting them prepared and used to keeping track of their work, etc. We used them last year with the kids (although I did drop the ball later in the year when I got crazy busy), so I need to make sure we keep up on them for the school year. It really helped my ADHD/dyslexic kiddo to see what was on her schedule each day/week/month and keep track of how she was doing on things so she could visibly see an improvement in area's like reading where she struggles. It helps with executive functioning as well, and learning to keep track of what needs to be done, what you'd like to get done and what is just "extra" and learn to priori...