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I'm curious. How would you describe your homeschooling to someone else? I love the idea of a classical education. I love the idea of unschooling. I try to mesh the two. My kids have tons of say in what we do. I on the other hand am adamant about grammar and math. The rest we work together on. I consider crocheting, painting, nature walks, reading (whatever she wants) all part of our school day. I was wondering how rigid or how flexible you all are.

I would call myself a classically eclectic unschooler....

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I think it's in my siggy.   

We're eclectic, relaxed, Charlotte Masony, bits and pieces of classical (I like the 4-year history rotation, though we'll likely stretch it to 6 instead...) unschooly in some ways...

It really is nice not having to fit any mold!

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I know what you mean. That box we're sometimes expect to fit into gets a little tight now and again. 

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We are classical, Eclectic, Traditional, and Charlotte Mason all wrapped up and held together with duct tape.    I do some classical parts (like the 4 year history rotation, and notebooking/narratives), Eclectic because I pull together bits and pieces of things I like and cut out the stuff I don't,  Traditional because some things (like math) can really only be done one way, and Charlotte Mason because I really love living books instead of boring textbooks.  The duct tape is our glue(because we all know duct tape can fix anything) that holds it all together.

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LOL Love it!!

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Completely eclectic in the way I pick and choose my curriculum and Traditional in the way that we do our studies as far as on a fairly strict schedule.  I would say that I am Classic as well because I want to make sure that the great arts are included in my children's learning. 

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We're pretty eclectic. 

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We are a combination of Classical and Charlottle Mason.

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I love this. I wish everyone was as supportive as the homeschool community. We all have a common goal, yet different ways we achieve that goal. Oh if only the world world would learn this lesson. Tolerance, love, and nonjudgemental support. 

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Agreed.  My husband likes to say "You can learn a lot from kids and homeschoolers if you only take the time." 

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Rose, I agree with a lot of what you're saying...

I think there's a huge place in schooling for interest-led and comfort-based learning... activities that they choose and get into and push themselves for the self gratification.

I also love the thorough nature of the classical method.  I love doing the cycles and all of that.

I also am beginning to see the merit in a literature-based core because I'm thinking about how I'm going to keep both of my older kiddos interested and my littlest as involved as a baby can be.  (He's already into EVERYthing... I think reading time would be good for us all!)

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Radish ,
Yes, I love literature based! We used Sonlight for one year and because of that it drew me to realize I could do my own thing and be eclectic! Now I love Classsical for history, but do without the rote memorization, charlotte mason is my favorite and I lean towards that for Science and arts and crafts and just spending time outdoors, incorporating our garden, and housekeeping into what we are learning... For literature I just take books that go along with what we are studying and read them along side our daily school work. I schedule 30 minutes of reading each day for my son or read alouds, and plan on doing morning reading time with my little girls and then my baby as well!

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We are classical, Eclectic, Traditional, and Charlotte Mason all wrapped up and held together with duct tape.    I do some classical parts (like the 4 year history rotation, and notebooking/narratives), Eclectic because I pull together bits and pieces of things I like and cut out the stuff I don't,  Traditional because some things (like math) can really only be done one way, and Charlotte Mason because I really love living books instead of boring textbooks.  The duct tape is our glue(because we all know duct tape can fix anything) that holds it all together.

Wow!! You described us perfectly!! :-)

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I'm waaay to early in my journey to say. I dont follow any philosophies, I go with my own gut instinct and opinions about what will help me achieve my goals in educating my students. I want them to all be STRONG and capable readers, so I push reading, reading, and more reading until they can read fluently.

My main focus for the first x number of months is on reading fluency and gradual writing ability. Math is next, and I dont really put much stock in "grades" or "levels" I go by my students abilities and progress rates.

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I am traditional. I guess it is the wanna be teacher in me.LOL