Project-based Homeschooling

Until recently, I didn't know that our kind of ideal homeschooling had a name. About a year ago, I came across Lori Pickert's book, Project-Based Homeschooling, and as I read, I think I heard angels sing and felt a light shine down from above. Until then, I had called us eclectic homeschoolers or relaxed homeschoolers. Both of those are still true, but in our hearts, we are project-based homeschoolers.

Our children have always been passionate about their interests, and I've always considered my job as a mama is to help facilitate these passions. Sometimes that means buying lots of art or building materials, sometimes that means sitting at countless hours of sporting events or violin rehearsals, and sometimes that means quietly biting my fingernails as my child spends his 10,000th hour on Minecraft. I always bristle when someone refers to me as a "teacher." Sure, I help them learn to read, write, and do algebra, but that is just the stuff we have to do so the kids have the skills to find and do the things they love.

Project-based homeschooling is about giving kids time, materials, and support to follow their own interests. It's about letting them choose work that is meaningful to them, and allowing them the space to pursue it. Yes, we still spend a small portion of our day continuing to work on skills that we consider necessary, like reading and math, but we make sure to budget plenty of free time for passions.

What does that look like in our house? Well, we're a very busy family. When you have kids that know what they want to do, it's hard to ever say no when interesting opportunities come up. But, this year, we've tried harder to strike a balance between interests pursued out in the community and time to be at home for deeper study and projects. Typically, we spend an hour or two in the morning working on academic skills, then the rest of the day is for projects. The kids still have classes, lessons, and teams they're on, but the kids have chosen the activities that have the most value to them.

Ava, 15, after having a very intense academic year last year, has made a very conscious choice to step back and retool her schedule to allow time for things she loves. She is taking her first community college class, studying American Sign Language, which she has been pursuing at home now for a year or so. She is also seriously involved in violin and takes weekly lessons but decided to take this year off from the city's youth orchestra. She is using that time to step up her composition classes and is working on writing a symphony to be submitted to the local Young Composer's competition. Music is a main passion for her, so she spends free time learning to play guitar, listening to and reading about music, working a local youth radio show, and blogging. You can find her blog here: http://musicdroughtrelief.weebly.com/ . She is also very interested in psychology, and enjoys reading and learning as much as she can.

 Rhys, 12, has been obsessed with sports ever since he was old enough to throw a ball. He spends his free time reading about sports, watching games and highlights, practicing sports, talking about, and writing about sports. He has kept up a blog since 2012, writing about sports: http://heytheresportsfanatic.blogspot.com/ . He has recently taken an interest in Minecraft and spends a lot of time playing with his brother. He likes to dabble in lots of other things, like drama (he's playing Romeo in an adaptation of Romeo and Juliet soon), cooking, and baking. He, like the rest of us, is a Harry Potter-aholic.

Griffin, 9, loves all things screen-related. He plays lots of different video games, but he always goes back to Minecraft. It has taken a lot of time for me to accept video games as his passion (and, truthfully, I still worry some days), but when I look at the things he has learned from Minecraft it helps assuage my fears. He makes the most amazing things (working rollercoasters, haunted houses, etc), and I can thank Minecraft for his sudden reading fluency. It's no surprise that Minecraft is right up his alley, because he's a natural born maker. He has always enjoyed stapling, taping, cutting, folding, gluing, and nailing things. He loves to build and has endless ideas for engineering new creations. Youtube is a huge resource for him, and he has learned so much from science, engineering, and video game videos he finds there. He also enjoys skateboarding and gymnastics.

Here, on this blog, I plan to share our days as a relaxed, eclectic, loosey-goosey, project-based homeschooling family. I hope you enjoy it.