Personal Interest Projects are a way to inspire your child to read, research, write and present material to a group. The project can be anything they are interested in from nerf guns to military operations to barbies or history. Every time a project is undertaken a world of learning opens up and skills are learned. No pressuring your child to study has to happen when they are free to dive into something they are already interested in.
Along with learning about something they are interested in, our family rewards this effort with marbles that can purchase things in the home. We have a treat bin with marble prices and t.v. time can be purchased. This keeps motivation high and each facet of the presentation is paid more attention to in the process.
I have made a screencast of the process of choosing an interest to focus on and how to reward the efforts when the presentation is ready. You can view that HERE.
You can download a copy of these lists from my Etsy shop https://www.etsy.com/shop/InTheGardenOfEatin
or you can take the idea and roll with it yourself. :)
We have loved doing these projects and the kids' Grandparents and loved ones have loved them too because they can keep up on what the kids are interested in and doing. It's awesome:)
I have been thinking about and being prompted to share how our home school schedule and systems work for our family. If they are working for us, then it will probably work for someone else too, right?
I am the mother of 5 boys ages 7 to 16 and we have a system that works well for us. Actually, it works AMAZING for us. We get introduced to lots of different topics and we get to go into depth on things that spark our interests. It is self-led and very leadership oriented. This sheet is the Family Learning one and we also have sheets for the individual that I will be blogging about later.
I learned how to do a screencast and made a video about using the Family Learning Sheet that keeps me on track for learning and family fun each week. I didn't want to just show the page and have you wonder about how to use it. The software keeps my screencasts to 5 minutes so I couldn't go into as much detail as I wanted, but it gives you a good idea and then I can answer questions as they come up.
Click Here to watch the Screencast.
I have the sheet available for download at my Etsy shop https://www.etsy.com/shop/InTheGardenOfEatin . Feel free to make your own sheet if you like to do that sort of thing, or go download the one I already made. :)
Happy Home Schooling!
Elisa
