One of my favorite reasons for homeschooling is freedom. Even if you have strict homeschool laws in your state, there is so much freedom to be found in the homeschool journey. I love taking advantage of this by allowing my kids the freedom to pursue their own interests through independent learning projects. This is what really sets homeschool apart from regular school. This is how we can raise independent learners who will continue discovering, exploring, inventing, and creating as adults.
Although some homeschoolers do recreate public school at home, most embrace the freedoms that come with educating our own kids. One of those freedoms is being able to customize our children’s education in a way encourages self-directed, independent learning.
We want our kids to be able and willing to continue their learning experiences far beyond high school. In fact, our goal is to raise life-long learners. Allowing them to pursue topics of interest during their homeschool days puts them on this path to an ongoing culture of learning through adulthood.
Raise Independent Learners in Every Homeschool Style
Self-directed projects can often look a bit like unschooling, which can make those of us who prefer a more structured approach to homeschooling a bit nervous. Younger kids especially love to jump between multiple projects. They rarely even complete something before getting distracted by a new obsession. That’s okay.
You can still fit these projects into a structured homeschool approach. In fact, you may just come to see a few of their projects as more important than what you had planned for the day or week. It has a funny way of working out like that every now and then!
Want to learn more about how to nurture independent, self-directed learning in your homeschool?
Check out the rest of my post over on Bookshark’s Blog. Enjoy!
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