Parents who are deeply invested in their children's education can be hard on themselves and their kids. When exhausted parents are living the day-to-day grind, it can seem impossible to muster enough energy to make learning fun or interesting. Author Julie Bogart distills decades of experience - homeschooling her five now grown children, developing curricula, and training homeschooling families around the world - to teach parents how to make education an exciting, even enchanting, experience for their kids, whether they're in elementary or high school.

As parents, we dream of creating a magical childhood for our kids, yet it can be so easy to slip into autopilot. Ainsley Arment-- a mother of five, founder of the thriving community Wild + Free, and bestselling author-- is no stranger to the barrage of decisions, opportunities, and daily tasks that each day brings. But what Ainsley has discovered is that the magic of life isn’t found in the hustle and bustle of constant activity but in the intentional ordinary decisions of our days.

In a compelling narrative that introduces historical and contemporary research on self-directed education, Unschooled also spotlights how a diverse group of individuals and organizations are evolving an old schooling model of education. These innovators challenge the myth that children need to be taught in order to learn.

We want our kids to have the best education, but less-than-ideal school environments and concern about our kids' specific needs have parents uncertain about traditional schooling. A trusted homeschool expert with 25 years of experience homeschooling her own eight children, Durenda Wilson offers a better way and promises that you already have what it takes to give your child a healthy, successful future. In The Four-Hour School Day, she unpacks the lifelong advantages of home education, both for the health of your family and your child's future.

Many homeschool parents have a long-term relationship with self-doubt. "Did I make the right decision?" "Could someone else do this better?" "Am I robbing my kids of something by not sending them to 'regular school'?" What if there's a better way? Not a three-step technique or a shiny, new curriculum but a change in perspective that transforms the way you plan, teach, and homeschool?

Those who have made the decision to homeschool their children have done so out of great love for them and a desire to provide them an excellent education in the context of a warm, enriching home. Yet so many parents (mainly mothers) who have taken up this challenge find the enterprise often full of stress, worry, and anxiety.

At a time when online media has created a virtual firehose of information and opinions, parents and teachers worry how students will interpret what they read and see. Amid the noise, it has become increasingly important to examine different perspectives with both curiosity and discernment. But how do parents teach these skills to their children? Drawing on more than 20 years’ experience homeschooling and developing curricula, Julie Bogart offers practical tools to help children at every stage of development to grow in their ability to explore the world around them.

In Free to Learn, developmental psychologist Peter Gray argues that our children, if free to pursue their own interests through play, will not only learn all they need to know but will do so with energy and passion. Children come into this world burning to learn, equipped with the curiosity, playfulness, and sociability to direct their own education. Yet we have squelched such instincts in a school model originally developed to indoctrinate, not to promote intellectual growth.

Thirty years in New York City's public schools led John Gatto to the sad conclusion that compulsory schooling does little but teach young people to follow orders like cogs in an industrial machine. With over 100,000 copies in print since its original publication in 2002, this book is collection of essays and speeches and includes a describes the wide-spread impact of the book and Gatto's "guerrilla teaching". John Gatto was a teacher in New York City's public schools for over 30 years and was a New York State Teacher of the Year.

A Wall Street Journal writer’s conversation-changing look at how reading aloud makes adults and children smarter, happier, healthier, more successful, and more closely attached, even as technology pulls in the other direction.

In Hold On to Your Kids, Dr. Neufeld and Dr. Maté explore the phenomenon of peer orientation: the troubling tendency of children and youth to look to their peers for direction—for a sense of right and wrong, for values, identity and codes of behavior. But peer orientation undermines family cohesion, poisons the school atmosphere, and fosters an aggressively hostile and sexualized youth culture. It provides a powerful explanation for schoolyard bullying and youth violence; it is an escalating trend that has never been adequately described or contested.

The stories we read--and the conversations we have about them--help shape family traditions, create lifelong memories, and become part of our legacy. Reading aloud not only has the power to change a family—it has the power to change the world. But we all know that connecting deeply with our families can be difficult in our busy, technology-driven society. Reading aloud is one of the best ways to be fully present with our children, even after they can read themselves, but it isn't always easy to do.

Throw off the shackles of formal schooling and embark upon a rich journey of self-directed, life-long learning After over 100 years of mandatory schooling in the U.S., literacy rates have dropped, families are fragmented, learning "disabilities" are skyrocketing, and children and youth are increasingly disaffected. Thirty years of teaching in the public school system led John Taylor Gatto to the sad conclusion that compulsory governmental schooling is to blame, accomplishing little but to teach young people to follow orders like cogs in an industrial machine.

Every parent and teacher wants to give his or her children the best education possible. They hope that the teaching they provide is a joyful adventure, a celebration of life, and preparation for living. But sadly, most education today falls short of this goal. For the Children's Sake imagines what education can be based on a Christian understanding of the meaning of life and what it means to be human—a child, a parent, a teacher.

If you are considering the unschooling path for your child or know someone who is, this is the best book to get you started; in fact, this book was made specifically for you, the parent who is on the fence regarding this philosophy and method of education.