Lessons are set up in a format that centers around experiences vs traditional subject-based learning. 

This is because I strongly believe that hitting all the senses with a wide variety of activities is the way to spark that fire of interest for learning. For ALL kids. All ages, all learning styles.

Kids couldn’t really care less about seeing lessons divided by traditional subjects, unless it’s to help them avoid the subjects they hate!

So instead of separating my lessons into sections for history, science, and math, etc …Instead I have sections by EXPERIENCE:

• Read 
• Write
• Watch
• Listen
• Play
• Create
  and in some courses:
• Investigate
• Solve

Now, WITHIN these experiences are mixed many of those traditional subjects that we homeschool parents concern ourselves with. So they are still there! They are intertwined in everything!

I take a topic, be it a season of The Amazing Race or The Gold Rush or a person in history…and I find resources and create activities around these topics that hit all those experiences listed above, as much as possible. And while I am filling in these lessons, I am also keeping in the back of my mind those traditional subjects to ensure that I also am bringing in enough of them to really give the lessons the full enrichment quality that I am wanting to create.

Learn more about my version of Experience-Based Learning here.

I create courses with this phrase in mind: “Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.” 

I don’t believe that children are here for us to pour info into. That is not true learning. I think many of us, including homeschoolers, forget this, or have a misguided belief about this due to our culture’s very strong emphasis on pail-filling “education”. I still struggle with this constantly!

But through my courses, I am seeking to ignite and follow those sparks, which are oh-so-much-MORE important than volumes of facts learned. 

One spark of interest can lead to weeks, months, YEARS of pursuing learning in ways that shoveling of facts at a child will never, ever accomplish.

I like this mom’s take on what she calls “Spark Schooling”.

It is because of my desire to follow the child’s interest that I do NOT require anything in my courses. There are no required assignments or tests or quizzes or papers to write. I give them a choice in all activities. There are some activities that I may ask them to please do FIRST, and I explain why it will mean so much more if they do…but I want the child to do an activity because it has sparked her or his interest, not because it’s on a list of required assignments. 

Children are guided through how to find the answers to questions that arise as they work through activities and are exposed to multiple safe, helpful online tools for research.