While educating my own children, I never really thought much about what some homeschooling families call "child-led" learning, which may or may not have anything to do with "un-schooling". To me, those phrases concocted images of a child being left pretty much on his own, playing all day, and not really learning much of anything. I educated my children in a fairly traditional way, much along the ways of your typical public school classroom. The main exception was that I chose my own curriculum which focused on conservative values, capitalism, and divine creation - a good thing, but, at first, I did not give much thought to what each individual child was interested in. My initial mindset was that THIS is what my child is supposed to learn at this particular grade level, and so, THAT is what I'll be teaching!
Of course, as time went on, I realized that if a child was not interested in something, it will be very difficult to get him or her to learn from it. I also began to understand that what works well for one child, may not work well for another. I discovered that while we must cover all the basic subjects required by law, we can focus less on the boring stuff, and study more intently what interests the child. My young (4 year old) grandson is already making his preferences known!
My grandson is a very intelligent, very active, "hands-on" little guy. He's not much into "paper and pencil" work. He is very interested in anything having to do with machines, construction, tools, science, cooking, sewing, biology, experimentation, history, etc. He does not like learning his A-B-Cs or 1-2-3s. So, to teach those subjects, I must incorporate interesting info about an animal or a special person or object, and add an internet video or craft project to get my grandson to remember the letter or number.
Lately, my grandson has been enjoying watching the cartoon "Rescue Heroes". He will sometimes wear a cape and mask and become a super hero. Other times he will dress in his "scrubs" and play with his doctor kit. Recently, in class, we studied about our major internal organs and "dissected" a "human" body (science kit) that I had purchased from Walmart. He absolutely loved that! (There are pictures of my grandson doing this activity here on my blog.) Recently, we discussed dialing 9-1-1 in an emergency, and talked about what constituted an "emergency" - Pappaw falling off of the roof, for example! (A few days before this discussion, my husband had been up on the roof, cleaning off sticks and leaves, and my grandson had been afraid that he might fall off.) Boy, did my grandson's eyes light up after learning what to do in an emergency! I'm beginning to fear that the cops or an ambulance may just show up at my door any day now! Ha! Ha!
Earlier, this week, my grandson came across a First-Aid book that I have. It has many pictures and shows how to do various types of First-Aid procedures on children.
My grandson's interest was stirred by these pages:
He brought me the book and asked me to read it to him. I explained that this book showed what to do in emergencies; for example, what to do if a child had broken his arm. My grandson said, "I want to do that. I want a broke arm!" lol! The next day, my grandson took this book to his Pappaw and asked him to read it to him.
Okay, I've gotten the hint! It looks like I'm going to have to teach this 4 year old kid how to do First-Aid!
I think that now I finally understand the concept of "Child-led Learning".
