Balancing Homeschool Styles

In the homeschooling world, it’s common to find parents who are staunchly in one camp: you’re either pro-curriculum or anti. You’re either only Charlotte Mason or you’re all Classical Education. But here’s the thing that you need to know if you’re a homeschooling parent: you don’t have to choose. Balancing homeschool styles is possible and – in my opinion – better than clinging tightly to one side of the other.

When kids go to school, they’re put into a classroom where the kind of education they’re going to get is pre-determined by the curriculum, the teacher’s educational philosophies, and the state standards. Parents and kids don’t have a lot of sway in how their education is going to look.

But in the world of home education, it’s an entirely different story. We have all the say. We get to create a homeschool environment that’s as unique as our family makeup.

So that means that any homeschool method or style we choose doesn’t have the final say either.

Balancing Homeschool Styles – what does that even look like?

You might be a huge Charlotte Mason fan or love nature schooling, but you also are drawn to some elements of Classical Education or you have a season of unschooling.

You can use curriculum and leave space for natural, organic learning. Your kids can be in sports 𝘢𝘯𝘥 have unstructured play time outside. You can sit on the couch or around the table to learn together and then send your kids off to learn on their own. You can have rhythms and routines 𝘢𝘯𝘥 let your kids have freedom in their schedules.

It doesn’t have to be all or nothing, because this is not school. You’re a home and a family, and YOU get to decide what fits best. And I think this is what is really the best part about home education.

Balancing homeschool styles means that when someone tells you that what you’re doing isn’t “real” Charlotte Mason, you can say “That’s fine, what we’re doing works great for us.” Or when someone questions if you’re “really an unschooler,” you can feel confident in the fact that labels mean nothing.

Because the point isn’t to just pick ONE method and stick to it. The point is to give your kids a beautiful home education experience that equips them for the future and gives them a love of learning.

True homeschooling freedom isn’t found in a curriculum or in standing firm in one style of home education. Homeschool freedom is found when learning becomes the rhythm of your everyday. Not because you use curriculum all day long, but because there are no boundaries or limits to how your family learns.

And YOU get to decide what that looks like for your family.

So we can say yes to the tools, systems, and curriculum that help our families lean into the rhythm of learning. And ditch the ones that steal our joy, splinter family relationships, and make learning a drag.

Because shifting your gaze to HOME not school lets you look beyond the boundaries of being an unschooler or a Charlotte Mason homeschooler or a CC family or (fill in your preferred homeschool method). It lets you just be a family learning alongside each other, making choices based on what fits your life and your rhythms, not what fits inside your boxes.

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Here’s to an education that beats to the rhythm of our lives! And here’s to letting go of the labels and boxes that keep us from a life of freedom.