In addition to being an accredited private school, HoneyFern offers curriculum consulting and design for homeschoolers. Homeschooling your own child can be difficult, and sometimes it helps to have some support with the curriculum. It helps to first understand the different types of homeschooling available:
Traditional Homeschooling: Traditional homeschooling is also considered to be more like school-at-home; this type of homeschooling generally utilizes a set curriculum that mirrors what a student might experience at a brick-and-mortar school. This type of homeschooling can also incorporate many of the new online schooling options, or parents might employ a tutor to supplement lessons completed at home.
Unschooling: At the other end of the spectrum is unschooling; unschooling’s emphasis is on child-led and directed learning, 100%. The Natural Child Project follows the work and ideas of John Holt, who believed that children were naturally inclined to learn, an inclination that is generally removed by the institution of school. An unschooling parent would have a day as varied and unique as their student; instead of assigning tasks and designing projects, the unschooled student follows their own path, and the learning coach/parent provides them opportunity, guidance when needed and access to resources. Unschooling is education through life experience.
Eclectic homeschooling: Somewhere in the middle of the two extremes above is eclectic homeschooling, an approach that remains child-led but adds in more structured elements for parts of the day. An eclectic homeschooler might take a child’s interests and locate resources and lessons that structure a unit around those interests; for example, if a student is interested in horses, an eclectic curriculum might incorporate science through the study of anatomy and physiology of the horse, history through the use of horses in warfare or the importance of horses in the development of America, literature and writing through a wide variety of fiction and non-fiction books on horses and physical education through riding lessons; these lessons can be designed at any level, from elementary school through college At the heart of the study is the student, but there is some structure to the curriculum that still allows for digressions, field trips and new ideas.
HoneyFern focuses on the eclectic homeschooler with interdisciplinary, thematic curriculum that is connected to real-world subjects and the student’s own interests. We specialize in working with gifted and twice-exceptional students through middle school and beyond and can design a curriculum around the Common Core Standards to increase its portability across the country. If you are a homeschooler looking for a year-long scope-and-sequence of instruction with resources and weblinks, a College Board-approved AP class or just a mini-unit or evaluation of the curriculum you are planning, HoneyFern can help.
Additionally, HoneyFern offers part-time instruction to students local to Marietta, Georgia. Students at HoneyFern study a curriculum designed for them and delivered on a five-acre farm in Marietta, Georgia. As we grow, HoneyFern will expand its offerings to add more experiential aspects of education!