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amazon, blog, book recommendations, books, charlotte mason education, children, classical education, cool stuff, education, goodreads, homeschool blog, homeschool mom, homeschool resources, homeschooling, John Holt, John Taylor Gatto, leadership education, learning, Math, pam laricchia, pam sorooshian, parenting, pedagogy, Peter Gray, unschooling, writing
What I’ve been wanting to do for a while is put a list together of all of the books that I want to recommend offhand to people who are new to homeschool and not sure how or where to get their bearings. I am hoping that this blog post will serve that purpose. It is not by any means comprehensive in the general sense or with regard to me personally. When we first began to consider homeschooling back in 2012, I went on a reading spree. Surprisingly, I couldn’t find many books in the library nearest to us, so essentially I put a hold on every book I could find at various branches quite a distance from us, and then I read them all. The list that follows, then draws mostly from memory (which is fallible of course), and more heavily from my goodreads list! (Please note this is also why the formatting sucks, but I don’t have the time to make it pretty, just to get it out there 🙂 )
In the beginning I was hesitant to update all of the books I was reading on there for fear of judgment from friends and family. God forbid I out myself as a homeschool before I was ready. Now though, the cat has been out of the bag for several years, and I’m so glad that I was able to save that list!
One thing I wanted to add, is that when I was first starting out, I was yearning for informative and up to date homeschool blogs. These people must be out there! I thought. Entering our 6th year I now see the reality that homeschoolers are probably just to busy out there doing things to blog. Many of us do, however, frequent instagram (the waldorf accounts are particularly aesthetically pleasing). So I would highly recommend signing up on there if you would like a more vivid depiction of the oft asked question of beginners of, “but what do you DO all day?” I asked that question several times in various facebook forums “back in the day.” Here is one post I wrote for a friend’s blog on that topic: http://www.themomstreetjournal.com/freedom-matters-day-life-homeschool-lawyer/
This list is nowhere NEAR exhaustive. There are tons and tons of other authors, books, websites, blogs, and resources, so if you do not see something here that speaks to you, do not be disheartened. I just hope this can help give some direction to those interested in learning more! Additionally, in doing this I realized how many particular curriculum/books/resources might be helpful for the actual day to day doing. I sprinkled in some websites in this post for that reason, although upon further reflection they’re pretty out of place, oh well!
Classical Ed:
Unschool/Life Learning Books:
Pam is AMAZING, and I LOVE LOVE LOVE her podcast. It always makes me think critically about things and inspires me to be a better homeschool parent. It was from one of her episodes that I learnt of The Gardener and The Carpenter book. I highly highly recommend it if you’re into that sort of thing. Check it out here: Living Joyfully With Unschooling
Other:
The Gardener and the Carpenter: What the New Science of Child Development Tells Us About the Relationship Between Parents and Children Hardcover –
Einstein Never Used Flashcards: How Our Children Really Learn–and Why They Need to Play More and Memorize Less
by Roberta Michnick Golinkoff and Kathy Hirsh-Pasek
These series of books are amazing! They are vintage, so they are often in thrift stores or friends of the library. Very helpful for a snapshot of some things that MAY apply to your kid.
Thomas Jefferson Education/Leadership Education:
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DeMille, OliverWaldorf Books:
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Websites for Kids:
http://more.starfall.com/m/welcome/index/load.htm
https://allinonehomeschool.com/
Charlotte Mason:
http://amblesideonline.org/index.shtml
Waldorf:
The Christopherus Waldorf Curriculum Overview for Homeschoolers
The Waldorf Homeschool Handbook by Donna Ashton (I haven’t actually read this one yet, but I have it on my shelf.
Chirsopherus Homeschool, Waldorf Essentials, and Earth Schooling are the three most “legit” in terms of what is out there for homeschoolers that I have limited experience with. I have also seen praise for Lavender’s Blue and Wild Onions (may be just a blog). Oak Meadow is also Waldorf ish, but does not follow the typical Waldorf format of main lessons, and rather eschew’s the model for common core alignment (or so I have heard.
Feel free to leave me a comment if you enjoyed the list or if you have a question!
See Also:
https://homeschoolingforlawyers.com/2015/07/15/homeschooling-kindergarten/
