How To Use Delight-Directed Learning To Make Homeschooling Fun
One of the biggest benefits of homeschooling is the ability to implement delight-directed learning practices. Delight-directed learning can help reduce stress and burnout for homeschool families. It helps promote creativity and curiously among learners and is a great way to help motivate kids to learn on their own.
What Is Delight-Directed Learning?
Delight-direct learning is just as it states – learning about topics that delight the student. Unit studies, thematic units. lapbooking and project-based learning are great ways to easily implement delight-directed learning into your homeschool schedule.
You can choose to center all of your subjects (math, ELA, science, history, art) around your chosen topic or simply dive into the topic and not focus on specific subjects.
The key is to allow your student to lead the conversation. Putting them in the driver’s seat and giving them permission to research, dig deep and investigate their interests is what delight-direct learning is all about.
Delight-direct learning can also be referred to as student-led learning, self-study, or passion-driven learning. It’s practiced by homeschoolers, unschoolers and implemented by some colleges and universities. Giving the student the option to study the topics they desire helps create more focused and engaged students.
Can you imagine taking an entire week to indulge your kid’s love of dinosaurs by studying nothing but velociraptors? Fully immersing your kids in topics that they love and are naturally curious about is the beauty of delight-directed learning.
Benefits of Delight-Direct Learning for Homeschoolers
Homeschooling provides a lot of flexibility as far as scheduling, curriculum, and learning styles. Delight-directed learning just expands on that flexibility by giving the student the ability to have more control over their education.
Students who are given the choice of their topic of study are more engaged in their learning. They tend to retain more information and pursue additional research on their own.
Delight-direct learning is a great way to help kids develop a natural love for learning and knowledge. It helps build a fire when there’s a spark of interest in a certain topic.
When To Use Delight-Directed Learning
Kick-Off The Homeschool Year
Learners are more engaged in their studies when they are in charge of their learning. Start off your school year by planning to allow your child to choose the topic and drive their education for the first few days or weeks. This will keep them engaged and excited about learning. Plus, it will pave the way for an awesome homeschool year.
Help Avoid Burnout
Delight-direct learning can be used to help avoid homeschool burnout for both kids and parents.
Alternating your regular curriculum with periods of delight-directed learning can help break up the monotony of crossing off checklists and complete workbook pages. Implement a few delight-directed learning periods throughout your homeschool year to keep everyone from feeling overwhelmed.
When I decide we need a break from the book, we turn to student-led learning. There are so many ways you can implement delight-direct learning with little to no prep on the parent’s end. This gives me a much-needed break! Be sure to read below for suggestions on the tools I use.
Career Guidance and Exploration
Middle school and high school level students benefit greatly from the addition of delight-directed learning to their schedules. This student-led format allows them to explore different fields of study and career options. This career planning is important in preparing homeschoolers to enter the workforce or continue their education after high school.
This is a great way for students to dabble in different career areas and decide if they’d like to further pursue those options. Find a mentor for your child in the area they are currently interested in and allow them to interview or shadow them as part of their delight-direct learning.
Passion-Driven Electives
Add a homeschool elective to your schedule by allowing your child to choose a class or study that follows one of their passions.
For example, designing and sewing clothes for her American Doll might be something your daughter really enjoys doing. You can easily turn this passion into a homeschool elective. Provide her with new patterns, find a video or online class that teaches sewing basics or more advanced techniques, encourage her to design clothes from a certain time period or country.
You’ll find that the more you encourage (not schedule or force) them to follow their passions and expand on their hobbies, there will be lots of rabbit trails for you to follow.
How to Schedule Delight-Directed Learning
There are many ways you can schedule or implement delight-direct learning into your homeschool routine.
Follow an Unschooling Method
Unschooling is a popular homeschooling method that encompasses delight-direct learning. Unschoolers do not follow any type of curriculum and allow the kids to pursue learning on their own terms.
Alternate Delight-Directed Learning with Curriculum
You may alternate student-led periods of learning with your formal curriculum. This helps break up the dullness if using a boxed curriculum. Adding in these periods can help keep kids excited about school.
You can also pair unit studies or projects with your boxed curriculum to expand on topics. We like to complete unit studies on specific animals, countries, or other topics that pair well with our curriculum.
Summer School
My girls do NOT want to do school over the summer. However, I find that we continue to school year-round by using summer as our period of delight-direct learning.
Provide lots of summertime options for delight-directed learning by planning field trips, summer camps, and free learn tools.
Tools for Delight-Directed Learning
Unit Studies
One of the best ways to immerse your homeschool in a certain topic is by diving into a unit study. Unit studies are essentially choosing a topic and focusing all of your subjects around that topic for a specific period of time.
Unit studies can last a few days, a few weeks, or even several months, depending on how in-depth you’d like your study.
You can implement unit studies periodically throughout your school year. Use them to complement or expand on your regular homeschool curriculum. It’s also possible to use unit studies for an entire school year with lots of planning and prep work.
Creating a free or inexpensive unit study can be done on your own. Gather resources such as library books, YouTube videos, documentaries, and other online resources. This does take some time to plan and execute. However, once gathered you can save this study to use again and again.
There are also many resources for prepaid unit studies on pretty much any topic you can think of.
Here are some of our favorite websites to find or purchase unit studies:
Lapbooking
Lapbooking pairs nicely with unit studies. Lapbooks are usually created using a file folder. The folder is transformed into an interactive book or poster. Using mini books, pockets, and other interactive informational media, the folder is filled with information on your chosen topic. Lapbooks are fun to revisit for weeks or months following your lesson, making them great to store on your bookshelf.
Outschool
You can use platforms such as Outschool to find classes and virtual clubs that pertain to your chosen topics. We have taken many Outschool classes to pair with our girls’ current interests including:
- Veterinarian
- Sword fighting (medieval study)
- Interior design
- Songwriting
Take one-time classes that match up with your child’s interests or find a class that’s offered over the course of a few weeks. This is a great way to implement passion-driven learning without having to do the lessons and planning yourself!
Summary of Delight-Directed Learning
Overall, delight-directed learning is a great practice to introduce to your homeschoolers. Kids love getting to decide what they learn and parents will love the motivation and drive it brings out in their kids.
Consider adding child-led learning into your homeschool schedule and see what positive results you receive. I think you’ll find it adds fun, creativity and a much needed break!
