Best Free Unschooling Curriculum
While its curriculum can be a bit scattered, there are some great free resources for homeschool unschooling to get you started down the right path.
Education is shifting across the country. Whether it be because of the ongoing and seemingly never-ending COVID pandemic, along with the newest variant du jour omicron, or the fact that families, in general, are becoming tired of the public education system, homeschooling is finding more popularity. One subset type of homeschooling is called unschooling, and it too is gaining in popularity.
While its curriculum can be a bit scattered, there are some great free resources for homeschool unschooling to get you started down the right path.
HOW TO START UNSCHOOLING
Unschooling parents have to be able to adapt to their children’s desires. Instead of having a daily plan or a weekly plan, or even a monthly plan, unschooling children forge their own path with their own curriculum. Whereas learning in traditional schooling is done by specific subjects in specific classes, learning under unschooling rules means a child will learn by an interest that can cross many different subjects. There are numerous free unschooling curriculum resources out there that can help direct you, if unschooling may be of interest.
THE BEST FREE UNSCHOOLING CURRICULUM
There are plenty of great free unschooling curriculum ideas out there. A number of fantastic websites are dedicated to those who not only are interested in learning more about the unschooling process but break down each and every concern a parent may have. These are the best options…
Unschool Rules is a very popular unschool website. This free curriculum resource is brought to you by the Concilotto family. Since 2012, the family removed their son from public school and never looked back. The first thing they detailed was a “7th grade-ish year plan” and from there, it was a new plan each year up until their son graduated.
The Unschool Rules website is easy to navigate. They have three dropdowns – Home, Unschooling Resources, and What We’re Learning. Under Unschooling Resources, the family touches on subjects like Stuff We Like, Transcripts for Unschooling, Homeschooling for Working Moms, Unschooling by Subject, and Real-World Math. The family loves to learn by watching biographies. They also feel movies and TV are great learning resources as well as playing video games.
Family Unschoolers Network is a free site that provides links to a number of unschooling curriculum resources that include newsletter articles, websites, books, and reviews that cover anything and everything an unschooling parent would want or need.
Learn in Freedom is another free site that explains everything you would want to know about unschooling curriculum, or learning in freedom. The site includes links to books, resources guides, and articles. It breaks down language development as well as actually learning a foreign language while unschooling.
Those are just a few free websites that can steer you down the right path to find free unschooling curriculum. There are others that are also free and recommended. These are Living Joyfully, Unschooling Mom2Mom, and Free-Range Kids. The resources are plenty.
UNSCHOOLING HELP FOR KIDS
The free unschooling curriculum websites mentioned here are intended for the unschooling parent. They are resources intended to help understand unschooling and what a curriculum may look like. But what about the kids? They are the driving force behind unschooling. Are there places they can go on the internet to help with their unschooling learning needs? There are.
Minecraft Homeschool is one of the more popular sites kids find. They have taken one of the world’s most popular games and turned it into a history lesson. Not only does Minecraft Homeschool do history, but they have also set up Math, Science, Art, and Geography. They make learning fun through a video game setup. Word of warning though, and we do apologize since it doesn’t fall in with the title of this article, but Minecraft Homeschool is not free.
One that is free and will always remain is the Khan Academy. They maintain that their world-class education material is free to anyone, everywhere. Their courses touch on every subject imaginable, for every age K-12 and even some college material. Yes, this has a much more structured appearance to it, but if approached the right way, an unschooled child just may find any of the material useful.
Open Culture is a very powerful website kids can go to that has a great collection of free resources. They have links to over 1,700 free online courses for kids looking to make that next big step to college. They offer free movies, free e-books, just a number of free materials kids can roll through to see what may interest them.
WHAT IS UNSCHOOLING ANYWAY?
Unschooling came from families who wished to homeschool their children but didn’t care for the structured binds the formal style homeschools adhered to. Homeschool follows a formal education path, taking its queues from public education, just done at home. Unschooling takes its lead from the child. With homeschool, your subjects are set, your goals are clear, the testing is familiar. To set that up, some parents want free unschooling curriculum.
Unschooling allows the child to follow their interests. A child can direct which way they want to go as they begin to learn. Plus, they do this learning at their own pace. Most parents who follow the unschooling way of teaching believe that allowing their children to self-teach is the most important thing. They believe that teaching their children how to develop a passion to learn is a very important principle. Tests and grades, as seen in public schools, are an afterthought.
Unschooling parents believe in a curriculum that allows for as much excitement for a child to learn about history, math, and planets as they are excited to play video games. It’s a different way to learn, but it is a free way to learn. By free we mean freedom. There is no set path. You just follow the yellow brick road and see where it goes and free unschooling curriculum can help with that.
FINALLY
As you can see, if unschooling is something you as a family are strongly considering, there are plenty of free unschooling curriculum resources to be found. While unschooling seems to hold no rules or structure, there actually is much more than it appears. The first thing is to decide if this is the way you wish to go, then setting up how you want to tackle it. The kids lead the way, but remember, you aren’t following. You’re helping and teaching every step of the way.
