Today’s post is all about unschooling resources!
Today’s post is all about unschooling resources!When you start your homeschooling/unschooling journey, or even if you’re just considering it, you need a master list of resources to help get you started! I’ve been working hard compiling this list for all of you!
What is Unschooling?
I recently wrote a post explaining what unschooling is, but here’s a great quote to summarize for you…
When people ask, “How do you unschool?” My answer is that we follow our interests – and our interests inevitably lead to science, literature, history, mathematics, music – all the things that have interested people before anybody thought of them as “subjects”. A large component of unschooling is grounded in doing real things, not because we hope they will be good for us, but because they are intrinsically fascinating. (source)
The Master List of Unschooling Resources
This is going to be pretty lengthy, so let’s just dive right in, shall we?
UNSCHOOLING BOOKS:
As a parent, it’s a good idea to start off with a good unschooling book. It really opens your eyes to this method of natural learning.
WEBSITES:
There are mounds of information on the internet about unschooling, you just have to know where to look!
- Unschool Rules – (One of my favorite sites for breaking down subjects (for my public school-taught brain)
- Family Unschoolers Network
- The Unschooler Experiment – Stories about adults who were unschooled as children.
- Learning in Freedom
- Radical Unschooling
- Living Joyfully
- AHA! Parenting
- Christian Unschooling
- Unschooling Mom2Mom
- Free Range Kids
- Freedom to Learn
- John Holt GWS
- Sir Ken Robinson
- Stone Age Techie
- Stories of an Unschooling Family
- The Natural Child Project
- The Orange Rhino
- The Ultimate Guide to Reading Comprehension
The Unschooling Blog Carnival is one-stop shop to read from many different unschooling blogs. It’s a great way to see real life examples of others who have embraced the unschooling method of learning!
- Unschooling Blog & Pinterest Carnival
- Sue Patterson’s Raising Kids
- Sue Patterson’s Unschooling
- Unschooling is Awesome
- Simple Homeschooling & Unschooling
ONLINE SITES for KIDS:
Minecraft Homeschool – I can’t say enough good things about this online Minecraft Homeschool. They have taken this popular game and turned it into an amazing way to learn about history! My kids finish their chores early each day just to be able to take their quiz and earn money to build their assignment for the week. Love it.
Typing for Kids – I really love this program and how fun they make typing for kids!
Starfall – Online learning and games just for kids!
Khan Academy – Their mission is to provide a free, world-class education for anyone, anywhere. All of their resources are completely free forever, regardless of whether you’re a student, teacher, home-schooler, principal, adult returning to the classroom after 20 years, or a friendly alien just trying to get a leg up in earthly biology.
Open Culture – such a powerful collection of free learning resources, including a list of free online college courses, language learning, and so much more.
Schmoop – an exciting way to learn literature and history.
Self-Made Scholar – Free classes and resources for self-education.
Zinn Education Project – excellent resources for learning history, Howard Zinn style.
Coursera – free online courses.
Homeschoolers Guide to Getting Into College – it’s not only possible, but very doable.
Free Rice – game for learning different subjects.
DVDS/MOVIES:
- Life
- Blue Planet
- Planet Earth
- Climbing Redwood Giants
- Great Migrations
- Bill Nye the Science Guy
- Merlin (A BBC family-approved series set during medieval times) – it’s also free on Netflix
- Once Upon a Time – also on Hulu
OUTSIDE ACTIVITIES:
- Hiking
- Biking
- Sports
- Cloud watching
- Geocaching
- Wildlife Photography
- Tracking
- Local 4-H Club
- Gardening
- Not Back to School Camp (a camp for unschooled teenagers)
- Gardening with Kids Pinterest Board
CRAFTS/PROJECTS:
- DIY.org
- Make:Projects
- Lowe’s and Home Depot free Saturday workshops
- Green Kids Crafts Pinterest Board
- Green Kid Crafts Subscription Program – this is a great resource for parents who don’t like search for craft ideas and gather all the supplies for crafts. Every month, you are shipped a Discovery Box of ready to make crafts! My kids really look forward to this delivery!
About Green Kid Craft’s Subscription Program
Green Kid Crafts delights kids and their parents with fun, creative and earth-friendly craft and STEM activities, delivered right to their door through the company’s subscription program! Every month’s Discovery Box is packed with three unique and engaging activity kits designed to foster a child’s creativity and confidence while developing their respect and love for the environment.
Green Kid Crafts’ Creativity Kits, STEM Science Kits (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics), and monthly Discovery Boxes are developed by teachers, crafty moms, and STEM experts to support key developmental skills for kids ages 3-10.Their award-winning products celebrate creativity and activates thinking, questioning, inquiring, and original creation while aligning with the company’s Happy & Healthy Child criteria. Each activity is also kid tested and parent approved for fun.
Green Kid Crafts is a mom-owned, green company founded by Penny Bauder, a mom of two and an environmental activist from Alaska. The company operates a virtual office, employing a network of passionate team members based across the US from California to Alaska to Connecticut.
LIBRARY:
When I go to the Library with my kids, I let them pick out what they want, and then I find a bunch of books that I think they’d be interested in and that make learning fun and stack them all together. Without me even asking, they read all the books I choose as well.
Lydia’s Library Picks (9 years old)
Ethan’s Library Picks (10 years old)
My Picks for the Kids
Be sure to join local Homeschooling and Unschooling Facebook Groups:
I can’t stress enough the importance of joining a homeschooling/unschooling group! You will be blown away at how many people in your community are homeschooling. It’s not only a great support for parents to talk, but also for your children to make friends and to plan activities together. I’m in a few different local homeschooling groups and there are so many events we have to say no to many so we don’t over schedule. There are some amazing people out there. Go connect with them and you just might find life-long friends!
Read my other articles on Unschooling:
- Why we Chose to Homeschool in the Middle of the School Year
- Learning Disorder or Genius? Why parents & teachers are getting it wrong.
- What is Unschooling?
- How to learn ALL subjects through Unschooling.
- Unschooling Update #1 – That time we learned about birds, bees, disease, life, & death.
If you are looking for a resource for unschooling, consider looking at https://peerunschooling.net/. The aim is to create a community for parents and teen unschoolers to be able to learn and thrive together.
Hey guys,
Very good article! Also, I just wanted to give you a tip if you can’t reach your beloved video/audio content online. The case is about Netflix, but works with all major platforms: https://vpnroom.com/how-to-watch-any-netflix-library-with-nordvpn/
Heya DaNelle!
It’s really encouraging to see moms like you out there. I was thinking about unschooling for a long time now but I’m still having doubts, so articles like yours make me happy. On the same note, maybe you can recommend best ways to protect my kids while they’re online? I’ve seen in some comments that vpns are a good tool, but I have no experience there, by googling I’ve found the best vpns for security https://www.top50vpn.com/most-secure-vpn can anyone advise me on that? Thank you!!
Hi Jaz-
Yes, keeping kids safe online should always be a top priority. This article has some great tips on keeping your kids safe: https://kidshealth.org/en/parents/net-safety.html
I hope that helps. Best of luck with everything!
Thank you -Bobbi (DaNelle’s Assistant)
I appreciate that you guys have added key resources for learning. I prefer unschooling for my kids. These guides give me a good idea how to proceed.
I love this! We started homeschooling our youngest and drilling flashcards when he was little….sigh….And we’ve tried various homeschool groups. I was not sure if my husband be onboard with unschooling or free-range, self led learning. BUT he agrees that our children experience a greater love and appreciation for learning than when we were drilling them. They ask for educational audio-books, our 8 year old reads because he wants to. The twins choose to play educational games on the computer. We keep a bin of options by our kitchen table and they can color, craft, work on STEM kids, read and more. I really feel they are getting a childhood that incorporates learning through play, through living. It is liberating. I do have to keep myself in check and not worry about what everyone else thinks about us doing this unschooling thing. I am thankful for your resources and to know that so many families are choosing this!
Hello there ,
I saw that you mentioned ahaparenting.com/ here weedemandreap.com/unschooling-resources/ and I wanted to share my gratitude concerning your work on helping parents out there.
I want to suggest you share an important guide which came out last month. I found it was very thorough on child safety online:
https://www.vpnmentor.com/blog/the-ultimate-parent-guide-for-child-internet/
I liked the way they summarized each section with actionable items for the parent.
Once again, thanks for helping protect our kids,
Jane
I’m looking for an online community for uschooling parents. NOT facebook. Do any still exist that are extremely active?
Hi!
Passing along an extra resource to add your list: the Peer Unschooling Network. PUN is a digital community for unschooled teens from around the world. Whether you’re already an unschooler looking to make friends or your curious and looking for someone to talk to, I highly recommend it. https:peerunschooling.net
Would love to be included in this list!
I taught public school for 8 yrs. I have a transgender tween who is thriving in public school. I have two super active toddlers, who love play, the outdoors, and have distinct individual interests (already). Am considering not returning to the classroom and unschooling the toddlers. I have 2 years to wrap my mind around this and want to approach learning about unschooling as I did when in grad school learning about schooling (lol). Can you, from your recommended reads, suggest which book I read first, second, and third? Ranking them would allow me to get them free through the public library respectively. Also, any documentaries on unschooling itself? I have found a few TEDtalks…
Love this blog! TYIA : )
The Teenage Liberation Handbook by Grace Llewellyn
Your “master list” omitted an entire publishing house devoted to homeschooling and unschooling books: http://www.DoLifeRightInc.com/about/
So much info! Thanks! I homeschooled my oldest until fifth grade, traditional curriculum. Then the first and second went to public school, and the third… The third was so unhappy and wanted out and I have been trying to do “traditional homeschool” again until I recently realized I DON’T HAVE TO! Unschooling is freeing and I’m hoping it will kindle his love of learning again. Thanks for the great lists.
I love the feeling that comes with unschooling! Totally liberating!
There is something seriously wrong with that Minecraft Homeschool link. It not only didn’t load what I expected, it kept popping up dialog boxes regarding my ISP being blocked. It isn’t blocked but that page is messed up.
I really appreciate your list of resources and can’t wait to dive in some more. Thanks!
What an amazing resource, thank you 😀 We unschool from a yurt in a forest in NZ!
Thank you for this post. I love unschooling. We are into our second year. My boys are 7 & 9. So far I have been getting stuff I know my kids enjoy. Such as math workbooks- 2 of the same so they can be competitive in their speed, any book to read that interests them, art supplies, sports equipment, lots of paper and pencils. I also subscribe to Netflix, hulu, and am an Amazon Prime member. We watch Bill Nye, Reading Rainbow, Popular Mechanics for kids, and anything to do with dinos! My boys have tablets so I have downloaded educational apps for them. I check every so often to see if they are even playing them, delete the ones they dont play and try something new. They know they are in charge of what they learn, and I am here to support them. That awareness makes them more aware of the opportunities to learn. They love It!! Anyone who has kids know they are curious by nature. Feed it, encourage it, and help them grow!
I was curious out of the books you recommended, which ones have you actually read? I would like to read them all but if you had to choose say two, which ones would you choose? 🙂
This so awesome and hugely helpful – thanks so much!
Oh..yippee, thank you for posting all this awesome unschooling info…we have always homeschooled, I have a 14,12,9 and 7yo. but I have been really interested in unschooling…so thank you..i think you can learn so much from just doing…the things that your interested in… I love your farm…I just moved away from az in dec. and I miss it.. I was on my way to my own little farm, but had to leave it all behind… now I have to start all over.. but reading your blog in very inspiring… Thanks so much
Hi,
So this may sound like a really silly question but I’m very interested in venturing into this once my little one is of age for school. But my only worry is how do they receive a diploma if you decide this way of teaching?
Cool! Thanks for this list! 🙂