No matter what kind of homeschool method you most align with, you can learn and glean from everyone.
Around this time of year, when spring springs, robins flutter to find bugs, and sprouts shoot from the earth, I feel compelled to leave the bookwork on the table and head outside with the kids.
I grab the fabric bag filled with drawing pencils, art books, nature journals, and classical poetry, head to the pond, take a nature walk, and then study scat, birds, and leaves. We watch to see what’s alive, we’ll draw it, and discuss it. We’ll sit with snacks and someone will read a piece of poetry, and we might even write and share a haiku.
One of my favourite ways to embrace this seasonal shift and nature’s invitation outdoors is to embrace project-based homeschooling with Lori Pickert. By April or May, I transition into a project-based homeschool.
We make sure to do a little math still every day, create an afternoon space to continue our quiet reading, and then enjoy loads of time to pursue our projects.
What projects you ask?
Too many projects to count. There could have been…
- Birdhouse building.
- Free painting on canvases.
- Goat barn building.
- Learning to play guitar.
- Building a telescope (a cardboard telescope;)
- Designing a house (alongside me when I was planning our homestead build).
- Gardening: sewing, weeding, composting, worm farming, chicken raising, goat husbandry.
- Working to get the online chess score higher.
- Auditing a Coursera class on human anatomy.
- Editing, producing, and recording a YouTube channel.
- Writing and recording a history podcast channel.
What projects might your kids be interested in or say they’d like to pursue in the future?
What can we learn from the book, Project-Based Homeschooling with Lori Pickert?
I share these lessons on Project-Based Homeschooling with Lori Pickert…
This book is officially my go-to answer for the oft-repeated question: “What curriculum should I use?” (especially when first-year homeschoolers want to know where to start).
It’s also my official go-to answer book for “principles for how to DO homeschool”.
Why? you ask (especially when there are so many help homeschool books out there that are even your Homeschool Mama Reading List?)
Because it gives you a practical step-by-step approach to lead kids into project-based homeschooling, pursuing their interests, being motivated, and caring about learning interesting things. (The author even clearly incorporates diagrams and photos to help us understand the practicalities).
Lesson #1: Kids need a whole lotta space and freedom.
“Children are curious, creative, and filled with questions and ideas. They are capable of driving their own learning. They don’t need to be taught how to learn, but they do need the freedom to learn.”
Project Based Homeschooling by Lori Pickert
We homeschool families bring our children home, yet tend to overfill our days with activities and learning opportunities; however, we sometimes deprive our kids of solitude.
We sometimes discourage them from pursuing learning their way.
We’ve been taught that learning interesting things, even necessary things, requires a teacher.
We can get out of our kids’ way and let them learn on their terms.
They are capable of driving their learning.
I wouldn’t have believed it, because I was as steeped in the conventional educational tea as everyone else has been, but after nearly two decades assisting my four kiddos on their learning journeys, I learned that kids come into the world as independent learning operators.
Certainly we parents act as facilitators. We can even be teachers of concepts and introducers of interesting thoughts and ideas, but we don’t need to assume the role that kids can’t learn without a teacher.
Lesson #2: Project-based homeschooling enables kids to go deep down their rabbit trails.
“The point of project-based homeschooling is to provide a rich, nurturing environment where children can pursue their interests, explore topics deeply, and develop a broad range of skills over time.”
Project Based Homeschooling with Lori Pickert
If one of our goals as homeschool families is to enable our children to live a life of meaning and purpose, we need to teach them how to FLOW in their lives.
Project-based homeschooling does that.
Project-based homeschooling enables kids to go deep down their rabbit trails. The point of project-based homeschooling is to provide a rich, nurturing environment where children can pursue their interests, explore topics deeply, and develop a broad range of skills over time.
If one of our goals as homeschool families is to enable our children to live a life of meaning and purpose, we need to teach them how to flow in their lives.
Project-based homeschooling does just that. It helps us go deep down our rabbit trails.
When a parent honours the interest of their child, then the child learns that what they’re doing matters.
If a parent recognizes exploration, for the sake of exploration, helps the child learn, the child can learn logic and critical thinking the good old-fashioned way: through observation.
If a child is interested in a particular topic that child can learn many things far beyond the specific topic she’s studying.
One year, my daughter did a deep dive into Titanic.
She created a lap book of all the things she studied.
- There were diagrams and discussions.
- There were discussions on physics concepts.
- And discussions about what precipitated the reasons for the Titanic sinking.
- There was a discussion on the historical figures and who the relevant characters were on the Titanic.
- And a discussion on the technology later created to explore the sunk Titanic.
- There was discussion on the creation of the technology that allowed people to tolerate a dive that deep.
There were loads and loads and loads of rabbit trails. It was a rich, nurturing environment, and a diving board into an ocean of learning into just one topic alone.
Lesson #3: Project-based homeschooling equips us, and our kids, to live purposeful lives.
“The process of pursuing one’s interests and passions is valuable for its own sake. It develops skills, builds confidence, and fosters a lifelong love of learning.”
Project Based Homeschooling with Lori Pickert
If someone told you. that you needed to learn about the Earth’s biomes, their characteristics, and where each biome is located in the world, how would you feel?
Would you perhaps ask why you needed to learn these things? Or maybe you’d be delighted to do a deep dive into the Earth’s biomes.
When we adults prescribe learning activities for our kids (activities that our kids don’t care about), our kids may fall in line and do what they’re asked.
But will they learn?
Or, of course, we may also have kids who won’t fall in line and do what they’re asked.
Either way, we might want to consider why we’re requiring them to learn particular things.
Can kids learn in their own time? Can their learning efforts be meaningful to them?
Are we okay with that?
We certainly can enable it as we are living independently and taking on the role of home educators.
I encourage you to consider incorporating activities that your kids enjoy. Because their interests and passions are valuable for their own sake. And we want them to live purposeful lives.
Lesson #4: We more clearly learn our role as mothers when we pursue project-based homeschooling.
“The role of the parent is not to dictate what a child should learn, but to support and facilitate their exploration and discovery. Parents act as guides, mentors, and collaborators in their child’s learning journey.”
Project Based Homeschooling with Lori Pickert
Project-based homeschooling is a method that teaches parents how to be in their homeschool child’s world.
The parent discovers that children learn despite them.
Parents discover that children learn because that’s what children do: they learn.
When the parent pursues a project-based homeschool, he or she learns.
The child is even eager to learn: not necessarily what the parent wants that child to learn; however, when left to their own time, children pursue learning.
Therefore, with project-based homeschooling, parents learn their role as guides, mentors, collaborators, and facilitators for their children. Parents also play the role of teachers at times too.
Lesson #5: Curiosity, creativity, and learning are the measures of success in project-based homeschooling.
“Success in project-based homeschooling isn’t measured by grades or test scores, but by the growth, development, and happiness of the child. It’s about nurturing their innate curiosity, creativity, and love of learning.”
Project Based Homeschooling with Lori Pickert
If there is anything most frequently repeated in the homeschool community, it is that homeschool moms would love their children to grow up with a love for learning.
And yet despite homeschool families having loads of time to facilitate solitude and exploration, we tend to sit our kids down at the kitchen table to force-feed their baby beaks like mama birds.
We have all the time and the world to live intentionally, yet we create more lesson plans, research more curriculum, pursue learning opportunities, and discover gaps in our education that we seek to fulfill in our children’s education.
So, we give our kids resources and learning opportunities that we didn’t have, so we overfill their days and ours.
Many homeschool families don’t grade and test. But many do.
Project-based homeschooling encourages us to use the child’s growth and development as an individualized rubric for his or her assessment.
Project-based homeschooling with Lori Pickert encourages us to focus on our child’s growth, development and happiness. And aren’t we all, whether child or adult most happy when we follow our innate curiosities, flow in our creativities, and pursue learning on our terms?
Lesson #5: Broad learning across disciplines is inevitable and natural when project-based learning.
“Encourage children to pursue their interests deeply, to ask questions, seek answers, and make connections across different subjects and disciplines.”
Project Based Homeschooling with Lori Pickert
Conventional education typically assumes teachers teach students. Teachers offer students knowledge. So that they can “learn”.
However, if knowledge is being transmitted from one person to the next, where is the opportunity for new knowledge and innovation?
If people aren’t allowed to ask questions, be curious, and discover new things, then new things won’t be discovered.
Conventional educational approaches assert that learning occurs when knowledge is transmitted. But perhaps this is a limiting approach to education. Perhaps children could be encouraged to pursue their interests deeply and to ask more questions, to seek answers, not yet answered.
New knowledge and innovation occur because people ask questions.
Lesson #6: Project-based homeschooling with Lori Pickert clarifies the value of mistakes and failure.
“Embrace the messiness of learning. Projects may not always go as planned, and that’s okay. Mistakes and failures are opportunities for growth and learning.”
Project Based Homeschooling with Lori Pickert
Thomas A. Edison famously once said, “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work”. (He was referring to the development of the light bulb).
“Failure is the universe’s way of saying plot twist. It’s not a stop sign. It’s a detour sign. Pointing towards a new route. Every time something doesn’t work out, you’ve just discovered another way not to do it. It’s a process of elimination but with more fireworks. Failure is the strictest teacher you’ll ever have. It doesn’t hand out easy A’s but its lessons are priceless. Each mistake, each blunder, each oops moment is a class in the School of Hard Knocks and the diploma: your eventual success“. —ABC Quotes at http://www.medium.com.
Project-based homeschooling with Lori Pickert embraces the messiness of learning.
Lesson #7: Risks, experimentation, and expression are the goals of the project-based homeschool.
“Create a supportive environment where children feel free to take risks, experiment, and express themselves without fear of judgment or criticism.”
Project Based Homeschooling with Lori Pickert
Probably the biggest benefit to project-based homeschooling is that children get to pursue their curiosities without the judgment of others.
Parents are pleased when their child finds a passion for cooking, ballet positions, flower pressing, wood whittling, or animal husbandry.
Therefore, conventional education may or may not validate these interests. Certainly, individual children, your children’s peers, may not validate your children’s interests.
Homeschooled kids who follow their curiosities have parents who validate their curiosities without criticism.
Incorporating project-based homeschooling, as advocated by Lori Pickert, fosters a nurturing environment where children’s curiosity, creativity, and love of learning are celebrated.
Parents empower their children to pursue their interests deeply and live purposefully by encouraging exploration and embracing mistakes as opportunities for growth.
Through this approach, children develop valuable skills and the confidence to take risks, experiment, and express themselves freely.
“Remember that learning is a lifelong journey. Encourage children to continue pursuing their interests and passions, even beyond their homeschooling years.”
Project Based Homeschooling with Lori Pickert
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Teresa Wiedrick
I help overwhelmed homeschool mamas shed what’s not working in their homeschool & life, so they can show up authentically, purposefully, and confidently in their homeschool & life.
