2Corin57- Interest-led Learning

I admit, this is a new change for our family. While we have always been pretty interest-led/unschooling for science, history, applying this approach to the 3Rs has been new for us this year.  A quick bit of history:

The last couple/few years we’ve basically been a blend of traditional/CM. Prior to that we were strictly traditional (aka school in a box, lol). Last year was our 5th year of homeschooling (teaching a 9 & 6 year old), and we burned out BADLY. We had definitely reached the “checklist” phase that was spoken of in the other thread.  It was bad enough that we quit all lessons in May, and just completely deschooled the rest of the spring/all summer.

By August, I figured we’d had enough of a break and could pick up and carry on as we had been. Wrong. It’s a long story but it ended badly, and after 2 weeks I threw my hands up in the air and said enough is enough, and we went 100% unschooling.  For the last 7-8 weeks, we have been unschooling, gradually working to add in some light 3Rs.  So, it’s a work in progress, but man, the difference it has made already is astounding. So, this is what we’ve figured out so far:

I’m intrigued with interest-led learning but how do you set it up….Especially with early readers and/or non-readers?

For reading, honestly, I am just following my daughter’s lead (my oldest is already reading).  I tried teaching her at 5 – she was not interested, so I gave up after a month. I tried teaching her last year (grade 1), for about half the year. It really didn’t go well. She could blend CVC okay, but lessons were a chore, she had no enjoyment, no desire etc… So we dropped that in May when we stopped all lessons. We tried picking it back up in August and it was a disaster. And I decided to just back off and wait until she was ready, until she had the desire to learn. And it has been amazing – as soon as I removed “reading lessons”, her desire to read exploded.

Back when we were doing reading lessons, she would do well to get through a 10 minute phonics lesson and maybe 5-10 minutes of reading. She hated it. She put so much pressure on herself and struggled so much with mistakes (she also happens to have high functioning Autism). It was killing any interest she had in reading.

Now? We do NO reading lessons at all. I solely follow her lead. And what I have discovered is that when I back off and leave it up to her, she loves to read. And so, without any prompting from me, she is now bringing me book after book every day, wanting to “practice reading”. She is choosing the books SHE wants, that interest her. Right now what she is typically choosing is her Harriette Treadwell Primer, the second Christian Light reader, Eclectic McGuffey Primer, and the Dr. Seuss early readers (The Cat in the Hat, Green Eggs, Fox in Socks etc) and an assortment of the level 1 Step into Reading books. She is choosing to challenge herself on ever expanding her abilities, instead of me always being the one to “force her”.

Basically all we do, is sit down and read together. She reads as much as possible. When she comes to a word she doesn’t know, I help her break it down, teach her the new part if necessary (ex. “ay” says A), and she continues on.

She loves copywork, so I will often ask her if she would like to copy a sentence after from the story. I let her choose whatever sentence she wants. She copies it and reads it back to me. If she wants to she does it, if she doesn’t, then I don’t force it.

Sometimes, when we learn a new sound (like “ay”), we’ll do a word family activity. We have a set of Melissa and Doug alphabet stampers, and she will “stamp” out the word families. So, she’ll try to come up with words like hay, say, pay etc… I put no requirements on her – she does as much or as little as she wants. Often, when given the freedom, she will exceed what I might have asked. Because it’s her choice and it’s fun.

Her reading has absolutely exploded in the 7-8 weeks we’ve been doing this. Not necessarily speeding forward, though she is definitely moving forward, but what I really notice is a depth to her learning. She is enjoying it more, she’s reading with beautiful tone and inflection, she likes to practice her stories over and over until she can read them fluently, and then LOVES to read to others. One night at supper, she sat and read to us for an HOUR. This is the girl who two months ago, would barely read for 5-10 minutes.

The key is – I do not require it at all. I work with her on her terms, when she comes to me. That might be at 9:00 am, or 7:00 pm.

For my oldest (10), that’s easy. He loves to read. So, he reads hours every day. I typically let him read whatever he chooses, but for “school”, I do have a set list of literature I want him to work through for the year, so I show him his options and he chooses the book he wants, currently reading My Side of the Mountain. He typically reads a chapter or two a day out of that. I have him give me a narration after.

I like your learning-hours of 9-11 but what does that look like in detail (not including basics bc I have that already)?

Haha, that was actually just an example. Honestly, to answer this means more giving you an overview of our day, as often, things just happen here or there. So, typically what we do looks more like this: we have a “Morning Basket” where, over breakfast, we read our daily devotional, do some speech work, our memory work (typically a hymn or poem or prayer), and then reading time, where we all take turns reading to each other. So my daughter will read a book or two that she’s working on, my son might read a chapter from a book he likes, or a storybook, and I rotate through books on artists, composers, classic storybooks, seasonal stories, fables, tales etc…  Morning Basket lasts probably 45 minutes, and typically starts around 8:30.

We then clean up the kitchen, get dressed etc… So then we come back and do “Learning Time”. We start with their “formal” work, which consists of CLE Math for both, and CLE Language Arts for my son (which was his choice, he wanted a workbook language arts program despite my desire for him to use a CM approach). The math only takes my daughter about 10-15 minutes, and the two subjects take my son about 30 minutes.

Then, we have our “Prairie Primer” time. We’re loosely doing the Prairie Primer. Basically, we are reading a chapter daily and we “narrate” (basically just talk about) what we read. And then, I let them look through the list of activities for that chapter and see if there are any activities they want to do. Sometimes we just read. Other days they have several activities they want to do, so we follow the rabbit trails 🙂  Today my son looked up scythes and drew a picture of them and wrote a little blurb about what they were used for. My daughter wanted to write about the life cycle of a butterfly (she dictated to me what she wanted to say, I wrote it out, and then she copied it in her journal), and drew a photo.  We have made butter, baked bread, done an experiment with pond water, built a model Conestoga wagon, watched Little House on the Prairie (the old TV show episodes), sang historical songs etc…  This “Prairie Primer Time” might take 15 minutes, it might take an hour or more depending what we do!

Now, that’s Monday through Thursday. On Friday, we don’t do any formal work at all, and instead enjoy “Basket Day”.  These are baskets I put together with a variety of learning activities, books etc…  and they pick and choose what they want to do. I honestly don’t put requirements such as “spend “x” amount of time in the baskets, do “x” amount of things… basically just “do something from each basket”, and sometimes not even that depending on what they get involved in.  Once again, I find the less requirements that are placed on them, the more freedom I give them – the more they want to do, driven by their own interest.

So, for the baskets, we have a Language Arts basket with things like Mad Libs, Story Cubes, Story Starters, journals for writing stories, note cards and envelopes for writing pen pal letters, a game called Rhyme Out, poetry books that can be read etc…

Our Math basket has math games like Math War! (we have sets for all four processes), Shut the Box, I Sea 10!, logic games, dice (we play a dice games that include adding/subtracting up to 10,000), cuisenaire rods, pattern blocks and math books like Bedtime Math, Primrose, Mathematicians are People, and currently The Number Devil. We also have many more board games that count as math-enrichment, that don’t fit in the basket  so they’re in our games cupboard.

We also have an “Everything Else” basket, that contains living books about various topics they’ve expressed an interest in – which currently includes frogs, electricity, mythical creatures, dogs, horses etc… So they can read (or be read to) about those topics. We talk about what they’ve learned, they might draw a picture about what they read, or my son might even add a written narration. (We have journals in this box as well for this purpose). My son might ask to go online to look up/research about something. They might ask to do an experiment or activity etc (we currently have a frog waiting to be dissected). It also contains Art activity books, so perhaps they will choose to do an art or craft etc… Our Nature Journals are in here as well, so they might choose to do a nature walk etc…

M-F, after Learning and/or Basket time is done, the rest of the morning is theirs. They go play etc…

We have lunch,  and over lunch I’ll read aloud to them. Again, it might be a variety, but typically a chapter from a family read aloud. Currently we’re reading Story of the World. We often talk about what we read (I prefer to just allow natural conversation to happen, rather than say, “Tell me…”).

After lunch we do our daily chores.

After that, once again, the afternoon is theirs to do what they want.

Even before the switch over, we were pretty relaxed in that we often took off on adventures based on whims and urges 🙂 We love to visit the art gallery and library, and do so typically every other week. We go to concerts and plays, the local historical re-enactment village, science and historical museums, planetariums, aquariums, nature preserves, zoos etc… Once a month the kids attend a day program at our local Waldorf school, which is focused on Nature and Art.  We’re planning a field trip to a large hydro dam in the next month, to feed my son’s interest in learning about electricity.

We have also been known to pack up and take off golfing, skiing/snowboarding, go off on a nature exploration etc…

My personal belief is that I really feel that kids are fine to be totally interest-led in the early years for everything, with gradually increasing requirements. My son, being in grade 5, I do “require” the 3Rs. But, I gave him 100% choice in what he used, because forcing him to use resources/materials that he does not enjoy, is not going to result in a good quality of learning. I forced him through CM Language Arts for a couple years. I tried it again this year, because I love it. But, it didn’t work for my son.  My daughter does CLE Math, because she absolutely adores math, and wanted a workbook so she could “do her math facts”.  I don’t require it though – if she wants to do a lesson that day great, if not, great. Some days she does 2 or 3, lol.

I have 5 dc (11 – 9mos) and if we went with all of their interests I feel like my head will start spinning trying to juggle all of it. I want to offer some independence but, again, without reading I lose them to just playing (which they get plenty of).

It’s easier for me since I only have two children. But even that said – honestly, it’s basically just a matter of going to the library and picking out books for them to read and talking about them. Perhaps the occasional activity. That said, you could also maybe do a family brainstorm session each month, and just pick a topic that you all like to focus on for that month – one history, one science. Or even one topic per week.

I love the Prairie Primer because it has been a great way for me to have some ideas right at my finger tips, but still allows them to follow their interests. Each chapter typically has several different activity ideas, so it’s so easy to find something that interests each person.

My daughter is a very driven learner, when it’s on her terms (basically when she has freedom) and honestly 100% unschooling works beautifully for her. I try to add in CM elements. My son, not as much. He is not as driven as she is, and does need a little more “prodding” in certain areas, which is another reason why I do require the 3Rs for him.

It’s a work in progress, but so far, it’s working great, and learning has become so much more relaxed and enjoyable for everyone. They’re enjoying learning in a way they never have before, and consequently learning more than they ever did before. Even their behavior has improved.

mrsmccardell – You might also be encouraged by a quick read of The Unhurried Homeschooler by Durenda Wilson.  Trips to the library or bookstore/thrift store are good to pick up books that interest them.  You can follow with related activities, videos and field trips.  For reading lessons, we used Explode the Code workbooks along with easy reader books like Step Into Reading, I Can Read, etc. that interested them.  Sometimes we would take turns reading the book together.  Copywork can come from whatever they are reading.

2corin57 – I like your basket day.  It is similar to a game day.  We have had these in the past, but really should have more.  I would like for us to play games more.  They are really great for learning: combining math and language skills with critical thinking skills, problem-solving, paying attention, etc.

We had burn out a few years ago.  I’m not sure if I have totally recovered, but we found joy in learning again through Five in a Row, which is literature-rich unit studies similar to Prairie Primer.  There is some freedom to follow interests in each unit.  We use CM methods with it though.