School at home versus homeschooling.

So, school at home and homeschooling, aren't those exactly the same thing?  Well, I guess yes and no.  When I say "school at home" I do have a different mental image than I do when I speak of homeschooling (although this may just be me.  :-P).  With 'school at home' the picture that comes into my mind is the family getting up early, eating breakfast, and then switching into school mode, where mom is the teacher and the kids are sitting and doing schoolwork for 6 hours, then switching back into home mode.   With homeschooling, it's a lifestyle and schooling is done at the family's convenience (within reason) not getting up earlier than normal and doing lessons in a relaxed way.  I came home one day to find my daughter lying on the couch in a ray of sunshine doing her math lesson.  This is what I think of when I think of homeschooling.  Also, science experiments in the kitchen and the backyard, watching DVDs together and discussing them, reading books together, playing games, going to the library, doing art, reading or hearing about things and immediately going to look them up because we want to know about them.  It's a family lifestyle now.  I am sure going to miss it in 5 years when we are done.

Addenda:  ;De pointed out that they do school at home and it got me to thinking.  I realize that I sounded kind of critical of this way of doing things and really, I don't mean to be critical.  I only meant to say it's not our method.  The point of this post should have been that you can do homeschooling any old way you want and if school at home works better for your family then choose that way and if lying on the couch works better, then do that.  The wonderful-est part of homeschooling is the flexibility.  Some families need more structure than ours does.  Our family would drive other people crazy with our procrastinating (actually we drive each other crazy with that too) and with sometimes the school-work not being done until bedtime!  So structure, no structure or somewhere in the middle --- you get to choose!