Methods
Homeschoolers cover an entire spectrum of different educational methods. On the one end, you have unschoolers, families that believe in self- or child-led learning. Relying on real world experiences, they learn by living. On the other end of the spectrum, you find parents who have "school at home." They may set up a classroom environment, use structured curriculums, and rely on schedules to keep things moving smoothly. And of course, there is everything in between. There are as many different ways to homeschool as there are homeschoolers. Explore the different methods, ideas, and approaches that make the homeschooling experience so rich.
Learning Styles
Knowing your child's learning style can help you teach him or her in the best way possible. Explore these diverse ways of learning and get tips on the best way to help your child grasp and learn new material.
Charlotte Mason
Charlotte Mason's philosophy and model of teaching can be used with great success in the home. Explore this method and find ways to incorporate this teaching and learning style into your homeschool.
Montessori
The Montessori approach to education can work very well in the home environment. Learn about incorporating Montessori techniques at home, national support organizations, and how to find resources and materials.
Classical Homeschooling
The classical method of education is based on the Trivium of the three stages of learning: the Grammar stage, the Logic stage, and the Rhetoric stage. It is a traditional model of learning and teaching. Read more about this method and find out how homeschoolers are using it to teach their children at home.
Unschooling
Unschooling is more than just not going to school. It is following your child's interests to get the most out of learning through living.
Waldorf
Explore the Waldorf philosophy of education and see how it can be integrated into learning in the home.
Unit Studies
Unit studies are a creative and dynamic way to integrate core subjects into topical learning. They can excite interest in your child and can help you cover a number of subjects in a shorter amount of time. Learn more about unit studies and how to incorporate them into your own homeschooling methods.
Eclectic Homeschooling
What do you call the homeschooler who doesn't necessarily subscribe to a certain homeschooling method? Well, the term eclectic fits just perfectly. Eclectic homeschooling involves a diverse and unique approach to learning at home.
Vocational Training
Vocational training offers teenagers and yound adults the opportunity to learn a trade, often with on-the-job training.
Co-Ops
What do you do when you are overwhelmed and feel like you can't do everything all by yourself? Join a co-op! Co-ops pull together the resources, strengths, and gifts of several people to help provide a more diverse, complete, and rewarding educational experience for your children.
Online Programs
A virtual school in general refers to a program in which your child is at home, but takes courses over the Internet. These virtual schools offer online programs and often full curricula. They are usually administered by a public or private school. Thus, children enrolled in these programs are effectively enrolled in a school and skirt the definition of a homeschooled student. There are some controversies regarding these programs, but they do provide an alternative that is appropriate for some families. Learn more about how these programs work, what to expect, and how to get the most out of them.
Community Colleges
Many community colleges around the country have opened their doors to homeschooled teenagers, giving them an opportunity to start their college careers early, to gain classroom experience and college credit, to challenge them with more difficult materials, and to expand their horizons. Many parents look to community colleges to provide instruction in materials that they are not well suited to teach themselves.
What's Popular
100 Top Picks For Homeschool Curriculum: Choosing The Right Curriculum And Approach For Your Child's Learning Style
The key to successful home education is determining your educational philosophy and linking it to your child’s learning style. Then you can make an informed decision in choosing the right educational curriculum for the child. Homeschool guru Cathy Duffy can help you accomplish these critical tasks, with her top choices from every subject area, approaching everything through a Christian worldview perspective. 
Christian Unschooling
Christians can and do unschool. Here you'll find support and more.
The Best of All Worlds: Eclectic Homeschooling
When you choose something, do you like to have a wide variety to choose from, whether it is for your furniture, food, music, etc.? If so, then you could easily instill these same preferences and choices into your homeschooling style. Offer your child the best of all the worlds – eclectic homeschooling.
Handbook of Nature Study
Based on Charlotte Mason's method of education, this website offers ideas and resources for incorporation nature study into your homeschool.
Learning To Learn In Order to Teach
This article is a look at the Auditory, Visual, and Kinesthetic/Tactual styles of learning. This is a primer for parents who are seeking to understand their child's style of learning. Be sure to continue with the links at the bottom of the article that include "clues" to recognizing a person's primary learning method as well as strategies that focus on that individual style.
What is Eclectic Homeschooling?
A definition for eclectic homeschooling can be hard to pin down. This article helps to form an understanding of this method of homeschooling.
Montessori Homeschooling Questions and Answers
Basic information about using the Montessori Method at home.
Homeschooling Creatively
This list is a place where parents can come to understand and give value to our creative children as we home/unschool with them. The focus will be on discussing alternative ways (versus public school methods) to help our creative children learn which best suits their learning style and respects their complex personality traits, taking a look at creating a success-based learning environment that draws on the strengths of our creative learners while providing support-based opportunities to gently ...
One-Hour-A-Day Homeschooling
Matt James, physician and author of "Homeschooling Odyssey," along with his wife Barb have been homeschooling for 25 years. Four of their children have gone to Stanford, one of their children dances in the School of American Ballet in New York, and their youngest is looking forward to his own exciting opportunities. Oftentimes we think that Homeschooling has to take 4-6 hours a day in order to be effective. Yet the James family has been able to send their children to one of the most prestigious ...
Learning Styles and Hemispheric Dominance—Right or Left Brain: Which is Dominant in Your Family?
This is part two of a set of articles discussing learning styles and hemispheric dominance. Here Karen M. Gibson focuses on the theory of right-brain/left-brain dominance and some of the research and theories surrounding this concept. She also details some strategies for learning in response to understanding your child's natural patterns and styles of learning.
Lisa Nolan Montessori
Montessori for the Earth offers affordable on-line Montessori and homeschool programs and ebooks for parents, homeschool, teachers, and aides by a certified Montessori teacher. Their Montessori on-line Distance Learning programs are designed for parents and homeschoolers, teachers and assistants, educators, administrators, and college students who want to learn about (or review) Montessori education and curriculum so they can incorporate it into their home, classroom, or college studies.
A Paradigm Shift
Abandoning the institution of school and taking a natural learning approach is really a paradigm shift. Most people will not understand that natural learning does not involve children following a curriculum, taking exams, being socialised (through peers), using textbooks, etc. At best they will think that you are a bit daring, slightly unusual, experimenters.... at worst they will think that you are dangerous, putting your kids at risk or should be reported.... How can you show them that ...
Montessori Teen Board
This Montessori Teen Board is an easy and inexpensive way to effectively teach the teens (the numbers 10-19)
In Their Own Way: Discovering and Encouraging Your Child's Multiple Intelligences
Children learn in differing ways. Thomas Armstrong specializes in helping parents identify the unique areas in each of our children that enhance their special way of learning and expressing creativity. This work on multiple intelligences talks about the eight different kinds of multiple intelligences, showing you how to discover your child's particular areas of strength. 
What is Unschooling?
Unschooling is trusting the learner to be in charge of his or her own learning. It is not a method of instruction we use on our children, but a process we adults go through to unlearn the lessons and undo the effects of our years of schooling.
Resources
Tomorrows Child
Tomorrow's Child magazine offers insights and information that helps parents to feel confident that Montessori will prepare their children for the real world. It will help you understand and appreciate Montessori and apply it in your home.
Basic Montessori: Learning Activities for Under-Fives
For the first time, Basic Montessori opens the celebrated philosophy and method to a more general public. David Gettman has devised a clear and modern explanation of Montessori's revolutionary ideas about early intellectual development, and provides a step-by-step guide to the Montessori learning activities most commonly used with under-fives. These include activities for introducing reading and writing, counting and decimal concepts, science, and geography, as well as activities that help develop the child's practical and sensorial skills.
The Teenage Liberation Handbook: How to Quit School and Get a Real Life and Education
This classic homeschool resource is intended for teens who are ready to take charge of their own education. Written by Grace Llewellyn in the '90s, it is still relevant today. Teens will be empowered by claiming their natural ability to teach themselves and to fully personalize their education. Covers the decision to leave school, as well as many of the learning opportunities available to teens. 
Secret of Childhood
Maria Montessori describes the child with warmth and the exactness of a scientist. She also discusses the array of materials and techniques needed to release his learning potential.
Freedom and Beyond (Innovators in Education)
John Holt looks at the role that schooling in society plays in education.
Montessori Play And Learn : A Parent's Guide to Purposeful Play from Two to Six
We all want the best possible starts in life for our children, and one of the best possible starts in life, educationally, is the "method" pioneered by Maria Montessori and taught successfully today throughout the world.

Now, Lesley Britton, the leading Montessori practitioner in England for more than twenty years, will show parents how to bring Montessori home. If you would like to facilitate the development of your child's unique personality, make it possible for him to develop to his full intellectual capacity, and help him become socially and emotionally well adjusted, then this is the book for you.

Montessori Play and Learn is packed with ideas, activities, and games that can fit into your normal routine and help supplement preschool learning for your child. For planning your home, introducing your child to the supermarket or the neighborhood, and helping him discover other people and cultures, this book provides valuable tips and insights that help parents and children grow and learn together.
-- Create hundreds of learning opportunities from everyday life
-- Learn dozens of games and activities to help prepare children for mathematics, reading, science, and writing
-- Make your home environment as stimulating for your child as the best Montessori preschool.
Real Lives: Eleven Teenagers Who Don't Go to School
Grace Llewellyn, author of the The Teenage Liberation Handbook, offers the stories of 11 teens who made the decision to reject traditional schooling methodologies and take their education into their own hands. The essays highlight offer a day-in-the-life look at teen homeschooling and unschooling, as the teens embraced self-education and increased in their self-confidence and motivation. 
Homeschooling: The Early Years: Your Complete Guide to Successfully Homeschooling the 3- to 8- Year-Old Child
Nothing beats seeking the voice of experience if you want to join the estimated 1 to 3 million parents who teach their children at home. Here's a guide that comes direct from the experts: a mother of two homeschooled, now-grown children and 83 homeschooling families she surveyed. Their stories make reading this starter kit on teaching ages 3 to 7 worthwhile. For those ready to take on what author Linda Dobson calls "a natural extension of being a good parent," the manual provides at-a-glance boxes of insightful anecdotes called "How We Did It," as well as lists at the end of each chapter of helpful books, magazines, Web sites, software, and computer message boards that connect homeschooling households. The straightforward writing covers the basics on reading, writing, and math; different teaching approaches; organizing a curriculum; even how to deal with skeptical relatives and spouses. There are no specifics on each states' homeschooling requirements, which vary widely. But as a primer for parents starting out, the book serves as a confidence builder and an inspiring how-to guide. --Jodi Mailander Farrell
For the Learners' Sake: Brain-Based Instruction for the 21st Century
This proposal for a platform of education reform needed to prepare students for a 21st-century workplace and society draws on information and ideas from two current areas in neuroscience: brain research (physiology and applications to learning) and systems thinking (mental models). Analyzing the history of education methodology over the past two centuries, this book shows how the 19th-century factory model prevalent in schools today fail to produce the kinds of flexible thinkers and problem solvers needed in the 21st century. A comprehensive tour of the brain and details of the most recent neuroscience findings inform a plan to arm today's students with an education lacking in traditional classrooms. Also included are dozens of ideas for brain-compatible activities that can be adapted for use in the classroom.
Homeschooling: The Teen Years : Your Complete Guide to Successfully Homeschooling the 13- to 18- Year-Old (Prima Home Learning Library)
The teen years are when many homeschooling parents start to question or abandon their efforts. It's a precarious time, with challenging academics, pressing social issues, and the prospect of college looming. Parents can now breathe easy: this guide calms the teen-time jitters and even offers hope to those just turning to homeschooling now that their child is about to enter high school. With brief "how we did it" testimonies from other parents sprinkled throughout the book, author Cafi Cohen offers sage advice with the turn of every page. A columnist for Home Education Magazine and Homeschooling Today, two of the most respected periodicals on the subject, Cohen has also homeschooled her two children into college. To comfort doubters, she begins with 10 reasons for homeschooling your teenager (work experience, limited peer pressure, and family togetherness, among them). She goes on to devote long chapters to traditional subjects such as math and history, and even gets to those you might not have considered, like driver education. Her suggestions for parents new to homeschooling: decompress slowly, study only one subject a month at first, and read at least one book on learning styles. This approach will save much time and reduce those trial-and-error episodes.

The guide is neatly packaged and easy to read in the same style of its sister publications, Homeschooling: The Early Years and Homeschooling: The Middle Years. A large collection of lists and quick tips offer everything from the top 10 books for teens and the most popular math programs to money-saver suggestions such as joining a local college's foreign-language club and asking for discarded equipment from local schools. The last chapter contains two college application essays written by teenage homeschoolers. It also provides reassuring information about diplomas. Many universities follow Harvard's policy of not requiring a diploma, but if you or your homeschooling support group do issue one, your teenager can answer "yes" to the diploma question on most job applications--a fact sure to illicit a collective sigh of relief from thousands of parents who homeschool their teens. --Jodi Mailander Farrell

Waldorf Education: A Family Guide
Waldorf Education finds itself catapulted from its humble beginnings 80 years ago into the midst of the central educational and social issues of this decade.

What draws parents and educators toward Waldorf Education today? "Waldorf Education - A Family Guide" offers a "first look" for parents and educators into the history, philosophy, curriculum, and traditions of this unique education. This comprehensive book is a collection of articles describing the world of Waldorf Education - the fastest growing independent school movement in the world.

Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling
This radical treatise on public education has been a New Society Publishers' bestseller for 10 years! Thirty years of award-winning teaching in New York City's public schools led John Gatto to the sad conclusion that compulsory governmental schooling does little but teach young people to follow orders as cogs in the industrial machine. In celebration of the ten-year anniversary of Dumbing Us Down and to keep this classic current, we are renewing the cover art, adding new material about John and the impact of the book, and a new Foreword.
The Absorbent Mind
In response to the crisis in American education, more than five thousand public and private schools across the nation have adopted the timeless Montessori Method of teaching, of which this book is the cornerstone. Written by the women whose name is synonymous worldwide with child development theory, The Absorbent Mind takes its title from the phrase that the inspired Italian doctor coined to characterize the child's most crucial developmental stage: the first six years.

A new foreword by John Chattin-McNichols, Ph.D., President of the American Montessori Society, places this classic book in a contemporary context, offering an intelligent discussion of current thinking in child education.
Montessori Life

Designed to provoke thought, professional growth and provide a forum for discussion of major issues & ideas in education.
Montessori International
Montessori International is the magazine for all parents and teachers. Montessori International magazine is a high quality colour education magazine with a Montessori focus and a truly child-centred approach. The magazine is for Montessori parents, nursery owners, teachers, and students with an interest in Montessori education.
Teach Your Own: The John Holt Book Of Homeschooling
The classic work on teaching children at home, updated for today's new laws, new lifestyles, and a new generation of homeschooling parents. Today more than one and a half million children are being taught at home by their own parents. In this expanded edition of the book that helped launch the whole movement, Pat Farenga has distilled John Holt's timeless understanding of the ways children come to understand the world and added up-to-the-moment practical advice. Rather than proposing that parents turn their homes into miniature schools, Holt and Farenga demonstrate how ordinary parents can help children grow as social, active learners. Chapters on living with children, "serious play," children and work, and learning difficulties will be of interest to all parents, whether homeschooling or not, as well as to teachers. This new edition is supplemented with legal advice as well as a guide to cooperating with schools and facing the common objections to homeschooling. Teach Your Own not only has all the vital information necessary to be the definitive reference for parents teaching their own children, it also conveys John Holt's wise and passionate belief in every child's ability to learn from the world that has made his wonderful books into enduring classics.
Kinder Dolls: A Waldorf Doll-Making Handbook
This comprehensive guide for beginners and experienced doll makers shows how to create many different kinds of handcrafted dolls from natural materials. Handmade dolls with their simplicity of expression and design leave children’s imaginations free, rather than being confined by perfectly finished dolls made of artificial materials. Instead, these dolls encourage the magic of creative play and bring children the gift of imagination in which they see themselves as “makers.”

Included are:
· Ten designs, including soft, baggy, angel, pouch, sack, and limbed dolls
· Twelve basic clothes patterns and ethnic variations
· Tools, techniques, and materials
· Safety guidelines and sewing methods
· Recycling tips and where to get materials

Montessori: A Modern Approach
Montessori: A Modern Approach has been called the single best book for anyone -- educator, childcare professional, and especially parent -- seeking answers to the questions: What is the Montessori method? Are its revolutionary ideas about early childhood education relevant to today's world? And most important, especially for today's dual-career couples. Is a Montessori education right for my child?

Paula Polk Lillard writes both as a trained educators and as a concerned parent -- she has many years as a public school teacher, but it was her enthusiasm for the education her own child experienced in a Montessori school that led her to become a leading voice in the Montessori movement in this country.

Her book offers the clearest and most concise statement of the Montessori method of child development and education available today.
Rhythms of Learning : What Waldorf Education Offers Children, Parents & Teachers (Vista Series, V. 4) (Vista Series, V. 4)
In numerous lectures and through teaching teachers for the first Waldorf school, Rudolf Steiner described and suggested methods of education based on the rhythmic unfolding of spirit, soul, and physiology in children as they grow. In each section of "Rhythms of Learning," Waldorf teacher Roberto Trostli introduces the reader to lectures on specific aspects of children's rhythms of development and how Waldorf education responds. We are shown how Waldorf teachers must, through their own inner capacities and awareness, learn to recognize and meet each new stage of development in children as they unfold new capacities on every level of their being.

This collection is the clearest introduction to the ideas of Waldorf education currently available. "Rhythms of Learning" contains Steiner's most important lectures on teaching and child development. It is an excellent resource for everyone interested in taking education successfully into the 21st century.

Maria Montessori: Her Life and Work
Maria Montessori is important background reading for parents considering Montessori education for their children, as well as for those training to become Montessori teachers. The first woman to win a degree as a Doctor of Medicine in Italy in 1896, Maria Montessori's mission to improve children's education began in the slums of Rome in 1907, and continued throughout her lifetime. Her insights into the minds of children led her to develop prepared environments and other tools and devices that have come to characterize Montessori education today. Her influence in other countries has been profound and many of her teaching methods have been adopted by educators generally. Part biography and part exposition of her ideas, this engaging book reveals through her letters and personal diaries Maria Montessori's humility and delight in the success of her educational experiments and is an ideal introduction to the principals and practices of the greatest educational pioneer of the 20th century.
The new introduction to Maria Montessori: Her Life and Work by Lee Havis, executive director of the International Montessori Society, discusses the changes that have taken place in Montessori education within recent years.
An updated appendix of Montessori periodicals, courses, societies, films, and teaching materials.
A revised bibliography of books by and about Maria Montessori.
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