Project Based Homeschooling

I just finished reading Project-Based Homeschooling: Mentoring Self-Directed Learners by Lori Pickert. There were a lot of things I really liked about this book, a lot of things I wish she would have given more examples of, or gone into greater depth about, and a few things that I thought were just plain impossible for someone who had more than two children.

I already do a lot of project-based learning in my homeschool. I like projects. I like hands on. I like having something to show for your time and effort when your through. I want everyone to be able to see and touch and do and make the things we're learning about. I think that makes learning exciting.

What drew me to this book, was the self-directed part of the title. Up until this point, I have mostly been the one to decide what kinds of projects we're going to do, and on what topics. I've always tried to steer in the direction of what my kids are interested in, but I've always been the one controlling the project. I don't think that's necessarily bad. But I have been wanting to let the kids take more of the reins, and really be able to get into what their interests are, and have them come up with the ideas of how to explore the way they learn about those interest.

One of the ideas she suggests to facilitate this self-directed learning, is giving each kid their own space. This is something I've had on my  mind recently anyway. Because I've started to notice that none of the kids (but especially Lincoln) have a space of their own. If Lincoln is working on something, whether it be a drawing, a Lego creation, an experiment of some sort, or whatever; if he doesn't finish it in one sitting, it's pretty much as the mercy of his younger siblings. He keeps bringing me things that he isn't done with yet, that he wants to work on later, and trying to get me to put them on the kitchen cabinets or on the computer desk, so the younger kids can't reach them. I can't handle having his piles (along with all the other sorts of piles we already have) all over the kitchen and office space. So, I'm constantly telling him that he needs to find a safe place for it that isn't downstairs. Do you know where the things end up? On my bed. Ya. So, I'm realizing that the poor child doesn't have a safe space of his own, and that I need to provide one.

Pickert's idea of a work space though, is way more than I can provide. She says that you need to keep all kinds of art supplies and building materials close at hand, and easily accessible. You need to display everything they're working on, so it's constantly in view, so they'll be motivated, and remember their ideas. And I see her point. I get what she's saying. But it can't be done at my house. #1 I don't have enough space to devote that much space to each child separately. (Because if they're self-directed, chances are they'll be going in four completely different directions, right?) #2 I can't keep "all-kinds" of art supplies, including paint, markers, clay, scissors, glue... you name it, in a space that is easily accessible. Mostly because of hurricane Oliver. And a little bit because I still don't trust Adelia to be unsupervised with markers, paints, or scissors.

But even though I can't make Pickert's ideal work at my house, I do think I can tweak it a bit to make something similar at my house that will work for us.

One thing I've been working on for a couple of weeks, is rearranging, reorganizing, and revamping my school room. I've thrown a TON of stuff away. I had Aaron build me more shelves in the closet. I've bought lots of little organizing containers, trying to create a place for everything so everything can be in it's place. Because I've had more shelf space in the closet, I was able to get rid of our art supply cabinet. And I moved one of the toy drawer towers into Adelia's room and put all the girly toys in it. That freed up the south wall. Then I bought a desk at IKEA that is long enough to comfortably seat two (Lincoln and Ivan), and high enough that Ollie can't reach it. It has two drawers in it, one for Lincoln and one for Ivan, for them to use as their personal space. At IKEA I also bought a cube shelf, that is separated into 4 smaller cubes. I will give each child a cube, with a bin in it to hold their school books. That will free up a lot of space on the preschool table, and then Adelia (and Ollie when he gets old enough) will be able to have the smaller preschool table as their "space". When I get it all put back together I'll take pictures so you can see what I'm talking about. But for now you'll just have to use your imagination.

Pickert's other big point in the book, is that the project be directed by the child. HE decides what topic he wants to study, and he decides how to study it. As the adult, my role is to be a mentor and facilitator, I take notes, and pictures, and document the child's ideas and goals and questions for them,  but I am not to require anything of the child. If the child gets stuck, I can ask if they want me to suggest ideas, but I shouldn't make them do any one thing or other. It reminds me a little bit of un-schooling. And I don't mind that at all, but I couldn't have that be my ENTIRE school philosophy. But I do think it has value, and I do think it's good for kids to learn how to be self-directed and self-motivated. (Obviously, or I wouldn't have picked up the book in the first place.)

I decided to give this method a try. Like I already said, I can't run an entire school day this way, but I decided that we could devote the 30 minutes before quiet time to this idea, and call it "Project Time". The idea being that if they wanted to spend longer than 30 minutes on it, they've got all of quiet time to do it.

Our first act was to go to the library. I asked the kids what they wanted to learn about, and then we tried to find books on the subjects. Lincoln wanted robots. Ivan picked scorpions, and Adelia picked fairies. When we got home, I tried to encourage them to spend time learning about their topics. And I quickly discovered that it is VERY time consuming to try and follow the lead of three kids, and write down all their ideas, and get them all the materials they ask for, and (for the non-readers) read their books to them, and take care of a toddle, all at the same time. Phew! I was exhausted. Ivan and Adelia soon got bored and went off to play together. And I put Ollie down for a nap.

After that I felt like I was able to focus on Lincoln and help him make progress. He didn't know where to start, so I suggested that he might want to make a list of all the things he wanted to know about robots. I wrote the list as he dictated it. We also wrote down ideas of where he could learn the answers to his questions. He decided to read his library books. One of which was a How to Build a Robot out of Legos, book. He decided he didn't want to make a model of a robot out of Legos, he wanted to make a real robot that would actually move. Then he decided it would be even cooler to build a real robot that could do his math for him.

This is where I wish the book would have gone into a little bit detail on how a child might go through all the possible different kinds of projects. In the books, Pickert seems to think that the child will be very artistic in their exploration of topic. She says they'll want to draw two dimensional picture of their topic, then paint it, and then move on to clay sculptures, and 3D models made out of cardboard, etc. She does not say what to do if you're child is not interested in the artsy part in any way, shape, or form, and wants to cut right to the chase of building an actual robot, with wires and a motor, etc.

How to handle this? I don't want to crush his dreams of building a real robot. I like him to think big, that's good. But how to convince him that there is a LOT he needs to learn before he'll be able to make a working robot on his own, and that the kind of robot he has in mind is super complex and super expensive. Like thousands of dollars expensive.

He decided that he needed different books to learn how to put the parts of a robot together. So we got online on amazon to look at robot books. We found a few that looked kid friendly and ordered them. Once they arrived he read them, and noticed the word circuit popping up everywhere. The next afternoon, he built the outside of a robot, from cardboard, and then got out his snap circuit set and did project 1-100, to see if any of those circuits would be the right one to make his robot work.

He didn't find a circuit that would make his robot move. But he had a lot of fun with it anyway. There is one you can build that when you clap, a light will flash and a siren will sound. He put that circuit inside his cardboard robot, and had fun clapping and making it light up and play a sound.

Linc played with the snap circuits for a couple days in a row, making the projects in the book over and over again, until he got tired of them. Then he tried inventing his own combination of circuits, and that kept him busy for awhile.

After that he went back to his robot books. He read something about programming a robot on the computer, and decided that he needed to spend more time on Scratch (a website the teaches programming to kids using a graphical drag and drop interface. The pieces are puzzle-like and can be fit together on the screen.), that he needed to learn how to type better, and that he needed to practice his spelling so that he would know how to spell the commands he wanted to type to his robot. That kept him busy for another week or so.

Next he wanted to find some videos online that would show him how to make a robot motor. I was going to kid friendly, so I checked my usual science resources first, but Magic School Bus and Bill Nye the Science Guy had nothing to offer us. But we did find an episode about robots in the Popular Mechanics For Kids series, (which you can watch for free on Prime), and it ended up being absolutely perfect. They showed all kind of different robots, and what they are used for, and how they are made. They talked about how they were expensive, and took a lot of work to build. But then they also showed some very simple robots that you could build at home, and listed off all the materials needed to make one. Lincoln was very excited to copy down the shopping list, and pester us about getting the supplies for days on end.

This is where it got a bit iffy for me. I know less than nothing about real live circuits, capacitors, power sources, resistors, and soldering irons. And I have zero interest in the putting together or taking apart of electrical things.

Husband to the rescue! Thank goodness for Aaron, and his ability to do just about anything. :) He took over. He and Lincoln went to Radio Shack (Lincoln's new favorite store....seriously, who is this child?) and got a few parts. And the spent a Saturday morning together building a "Sun-bug" robot. Lincoln did most of the soldering, and Aaron mostly verbally directed him.

 

Once they got it all together, it actually didn't work like it was supposed to. The LED light blinked, but the bug didn't move. Lincoln got to use Aaron's multi-meter to measure the voltage, and they came to the conclusion that they needed bigger capacitors and a motor that needed less voltage to turn on. So, even though it wasn't a huge success, I still feel like Lincoln learned a lot about the process, and that sometimes things don't work out first try, and you have to go back and try again and again. He's still excited to try again. So that's good.

This week he's been working on a way to display what he's learned about robots so far. He's got a drawing of a capacitor that he's working on. And we've printed up some pictures. He's thinking he wants to put it all together on a poster board, so he can show everyone that comes over to the house. :)

And that's been our experience with Project-Based Homeschooling so far. Ha! Trust Lincoln to pick something hard, and so far out of my realm of knowledge. But, he knows what he likes, and I'm glad we've been able to muddle through this trial run. I don't think he's quite ready to be done with robots yet. I'm interested slash scared to see what else he comes up with. Hopefully Aaron can keep up with him, because Linc passed me up a long time ago.