Abigail's turn

A couple of weeks ago I highlighted Laura in a post.  This week it is Abigail's turn.

Our homeschooling experience has been one of trial and error, success and not so much success, changes in approach, changes in what we find important, etc. Much like all aspects of parenting, as we go along we tweak the way we do things. What may work really well for some children, doesn't work so well for another.

One thing that we have done that has proven to be very successful with our older children is to make them very responsible for their schoolwork.  When we plan for the year, we consult with them about what they would like to learn and talk with them about different curriculum choices. We decide what their year is going to look like, I order their books and put together a lesson plan for them. Then, I set them loose with it. As they have progressed through their school years, we have tried to not just feed them facts, but have tried to teach them how to learn and where to get information. We've done a lot of visiting around the table at meal time to help them learn to be interested in a lot of different topics. (Todd does a great job of presenting things to talk about and is a natural teacher). When questions come up, we look things up, find educational videos, check books out of the library, etc.

Anyway, for the past few weeks I have been noticing how much Abigail has really taken ownership of her learning. Just a couple of little examples: She and I were playing a game similar to Scrabble. I was moving letters around and using an online Scrabble word list trying to make some letters into words. I was happy to just make a word that fit into the spaces - she wanted to know what the words meant, and proceeded to look up their definitions. Today, she read a book that I had ordered from the library for Heidi (it was an interestingly written book told by pictures and words - The Invention of Hugo Cabret) When she was done with it, she went to the computer and looked up the author and the history behind the book. I love that she doesn't just learn to get through what I've assigned her. (She's not the only one of the kids who does this, several of them have cultivated a real love for learning.)