It basically depends on three things: Your comfort level. Time. And money.

When I started homeschooling my two kids in 1993, there was a dizzying array of homeschool materials and methods. Traditional homeschooling. Eclectic homeschooling. And then there was Unschooling. Which to choose? USing sounded exciting, but it wasn't familiar. It didn't 'look like school'. Being a public school/PTA veteran, but not a teacher by profession, I couldn't wrap my mind around taking such a big leap. Many of us can't when we're first starting out.

So, we began traditional homeschooling using a curriculum. I borrowed books, I bought books, I purchased the usual list of school supplies along with the unusual arsenal of teacher supplies (i.e.: grade books, chalk, chalkboard). Even with all my borrowing, I spent $700.

It quickly became apparent that using a prepackaged curriculum had its pros and cons. The biggest pro: I didn't have to wonder what to teach. The curriculum designer had already done that for me. The largest cons: Dealing with the blizzard of paperwork each day.

- Grading papers while making dinner.
- Calculating percentages into letter grades, and entering them into grade books in between bites of dinner.
- Reading, not only the kids' book reports, but the books themselves, as we cleaned up. (I couldn't grade their reports if I hadn't read the books first.)
- Checking the lesson plans for the next day. Making sure I had the assigned extra-curricular books on hand, and if not, make a run to the library while my family watched TV or played cards.

Within 6 weeks, I was exhausted. Nobody in the house was happy, either. But, I'd just spent all that money! We HAD to make this work! I couldn't see that the comfort level was there, but the time and money parts weren't fitting us. I wouldn't give up traditional HSing for another 3 months.

Finally, I said okay, okay, we'll try unschooling. Everybody took a deep breath (well, I did, anyway) and we started in. Boy, what a change! Unschooling suited all three -- our comfort level, our time together, and our (by now) sad excuse for a budget. But, how does USing work, exactly? First, let me mention some great books that explain it better than I:

The Unschooling Handbook by Mary Griffith. The Teenage Liberation Handbook by Grace Llewellyn. Learning All the Time by John Holt. (anything by John Holt is recommended)

Okay, how it works: Unschooling is letting your kids lead the way. Following their interests. For example, you know how they pop up with questions all day long? Like, "Why is the sky blue?" Mine asked this, and I answered (truthfully), "I don't really know. How can we find out, do you think?" They answered, "The library!" and so off to the library we went.

We spent hours searching, and found everything from storybooks, to books on the earth's atmosphere (waay over their heads, but what cool pictures!), cloud formations, cloud seeding, NASA, which led to books on Voyager, Mars, the history of flight, and movies such as Starman, 2001, and The Right Stuff. They had many discussions with the reference librarian and with their dad, the engineer. We also went to air shows, took tours of old biplanes, visited the planetarium, and wrote/illustrated a wacky book about space travel and aliens. (Nope, it never got published. Heehee. I WISH!)

The rest of the 'school year' cost me $141. Unschooling interests stem from the things you see every day, so it's not as expensive. And, we learned to find the best deals on admission costs, etc., which is another great learning-from-life skill. You and I do it everyday. We're doing it right now. Which is why we're both on ebay. :-)

So, sit back with your family and discuss comfort, time and money. Choose what seems the best fit. Not everybody homeschools (or unschools) the exact, same way. That's the beauty of it; it's tailormade to each individual. And, above all, don't worry if your first choice doesn't work forever! Just learn from it, back up and try another learning path. That's the norm in the home education world.

Have fun!