My oldest just turned 6 this month and we have been unschooling for some time. We take things super easy, learn about what the kids want to, but everything is a lesson! Beau is actually (if u want to put a grade on it) in almost all 1st grade subjects, and Paddy is in Kinder which is fabulous! Unschooling is really working for us! DH is concerned that we will have to drop this "easy way" of homeschooling next year when we have to start keeping records. We live in MO so we have to have 1000 hours, and so many of them have to be in core subjects and so many hours have to be in extracurricular and so on. DH and I are a little concerned how we will be able to log in those hours. Do we just get a notebook and write down every time we watch an educational movie, talk about educational things and experiment and hope they equal 1000 hours a year? It seems like ALOT!!!! We unschool year around, but it still seems daunting and I hate to get a "formal" curriculum for a kid who does SO WELL learning the unschooling way! Help guys! Do any of you have any ideas or insight??
The only suggestion I have is to do more of what you are already doing - as far as logging hours. There are so many things that will fit in this or that category: 1. Discussions about any subject- log it appropriately. 2. Cooking (or helping with cooking) could fit into math or science and at times you could throw a little history in there. 3. Reading or being read to- counts as English. 4. Do you have neighbors from another country? You could count a visit with them as social studies. 5. As far as extracurricular goes, I would have a lot of fun here and give it whatever title fits. The list could go on and on and I think it is very possible to reach that goal in a years time.
I agree with above. I would just stretch everything I do into some type of subect... Playing in the dirt: science/PE/art. If he talks while doing it: English. When you clean him up: Health. Do you have to be specific about what you do each hour? That requirement is ridiculous! I'm sorry you have to even deal with that. I think it's so sad that some areas of the country/world don't have the easier guidelines that FL has. I feel so fortunate, but I wish everyone had it as easy.
Since I have two I have to keep records for this year, I bought these. I've had my eye on them for awhile but this is the first year I've had to legally keep records on both kids with my youngest now in 1st grade, so I finally bought them. http://www.notgrass.com/notgrass/homeschool-record-keeping/ And, for the record, I have always quit keeping records once we meet state requirements, which for us is 180-4.5 hour days. Everything we do after that is gravy, though I wait until the beginning of the next year to write their annual reports so I can include things learned past our 180 days in the annual reports. But with this notebook, they allow for 52 weeks, so that's awesome! ETA: There are many more covers out there than those listed here, google it, I let my boys each pick their own cover.
