Ignite Curiosity with Interest-Led Learning

Welcome to this episode of the super simple homeschool podcast where we help you find purpose in your homeschool, while keeping things super simple.  

I’m your host, Jenny Hedrick and today we are going to talk about interest-led learning and how it can help you keep your kids engaged with their studies while becoming lifelong learners. 

How We Learn

My husband and I are big fans of “YouTube University”.  Have you heard of this?  You can learn how to do anything you want just by finding a good YouTube video.   It’s great, right?  I mean, when I learned to crochet 20 years ago, I learned 2 stitches and used those stitches to make scarves, potholders, and blankets.  Basically, anything rectangle.  I didn’t know how to read patterns and the terminology was too confusing.  Someone had to show me the stitches for me to see how to do them.  This past fall, I found YouTube videos to teach me all kinds of stitches and how to do things like crochet in 3D!  I even made crochet turtles for my nieces and nephew for Christmas.  It was fun to learn!    

Have you done this?  Learned how to do something through YouTube or the internet?  What motivated you?  Was it because someone said you had to or because you wanted to learn it?   If you were motivated by your own interest in a topic, chances are you enjoyed learning about it and have a much better chance of remembering what you learned.  

The same is true for our kids!  Kids are inherently curious and if we can harness their interests, we can teach them how to learn like we do! 

Today, I’m going to share with you a type of learning that revolutionized our homeschool called Interest-led learning. 

Interest-Led Learning

Interest-led learning is the idea that we learn best when we are interested.  In homeschooling, this means allowing your child to explore their interests, follow rabbit trails, and deep dive into a subject until their curiosity is satisfied.  

I stumbled on interest-led learning a few years ago when I was scouring the internet for ways to help me keep my active boys engaged with school.  All they wanted to do was play video games, but dangling that carrot as an incentive to do school-work just made them rush through their work without giving it any real thought or effort. Additionally, it elevated video games as the end all, be all.  I was frustrated because I really wanted them to care about U.S. History- the revolution and the founding of our nation.  I wanted them to get excited learning about plants and animals in science.  But they just weren’t interested. 

My son, who would gripe and complain or find a million distractions during a 15 minute history lesson, but then would spend hours focused on drawing Minecraft characters or Pokemon.  

It was then that I found Funschooling Books by Thinking Tree.  They are themed notebooking journals for interest-led learning.  They are essentially guided research journals.  Instead of teaching kids what you want them to learn, you teach them HOW to learn and let them decide the topic. 

Let’s consider history.  An important subject, no doubt.  I kid you not, this was my least favorite subject all through elementary, high school and even college.  In fact, I barely passed my required college history course.  I remember trying to stay awake at my desk (and failing by-the-way), much more than I remember anything I read or was supposed to learn.  I think my final grade for that class was a D+.  Contrast that to the 4.0 I earned in graduate school, when I was only taking subjects that applied to my degree.  Why the difference?  Because I just wasn’t interested in history at the time.  

Guess what?  I love learning about history now.  I love reading historical fiction and researching the actual events.  I am fascinated by historical documentaries.  And because I am interested, I can remember what I’ve learned much easier!    

By teaching your kids HOW to learn, instead of WHAT to learn, you can give them the gift of exploring their interests and teach them to become lifelong learners. 

This also doesn’t have to be all or nothing!  You could choose to do this one day a week, one month of the year, or take a week each quarter.  This is a tool to help you explore some alternative learning ideas to keep things engaging for you and your kids.  

One year, every Friday we would do what I called “exploring interests”, where we would spend the whole school day learning about whatever was interesting to them at the time.  We would use library books, websites, and YouTube videos.  By providing high-quality resources, you can give your kids everything they need to pursue their interests. 

Igniting Curiosity with Strewing

As their parent and teacher, there are things you can do to help guide and facilitate this process. One way to facilitate interest-led learning is a technique called strewing.  Strewing is simply leaving things around for your kids to discover and explore.  It’s a way to introduce them to new activities, topics, and ideas. 

It could be leaving out a collection of library books or games on the kitchen table.  It could be craft supplies, a nature camera, or a bird feeder.  The sky is the limit.  Instead of telling your kids “This is what we are going to do today”, you leave things out to ignite curiosity and natural exploration.  You let them decide what they want to explore and HOW they want to use it.

Strewing has some basic principles:  The first is no expectations- you let them decide the direction they want to go.  You may want to do a study on rocks and minerals, but they choose an anatomy book.  Anatomy it is. 

Another principle is to let them explore what they are interested in, even if you don’t think it’s exactly “educational.”  You can make anything educational as we’ll see in just a minute. 

Lastly, allow them to keep exploring until their curiosity is satisfied.  If that takes a day, great- move on.  If it takes 4 years- so be it!  Don’t assume you know how long something will hold their interest.  Don’t do what I did- run out and try to find classes and resources for anything and everything they express interest in.  Now, we just read books, watch videos, and learn as much as we can first.  If they are still interested, then maybe we’ll look for a specific class on Outschool or through somebody local (depending on the topic).

For more on strewing, check out this article.

Incorporating Their Interests

Another way to encourage interest-led learning is to build your child’s learning around their interests.  For example, do they like Minecraft?  There are Minecraft STEM books that include a real-world science project and then an in-game counterpart build.  Write a Minecraft-themed story or comic book, create Minecraft-themed math to do (there’s so much math in Minecraft!), create a spelling list of Minecraft words, study all the different biomes that exist in Minecraft and what they are like in the real world, same with animals and elements… you get the idea! 

My son had lost interest in math.  But he was crazy about Minecraft.  That’s when I found a Math for Minecrafters Funschool Journal.  Both of my sons finished the WHOLE book in less than two weeks.  They loved it!  They begged to do math!  That was two years ago, and I recently gave my 6-year-old daughter the book who finished it in the same amount of time. 

How It works

So how EXACTLY do you do it? We combine interest-led learning with Notebooking, which we talked about in episode 3, but here’s an example.  Keeping with the Minecraft theme- say your son just learned about electrical circuits and then built a Redstone light sensor in Minecraft to apply the concept.  He takes out his notebook and draws a picture of what he built, or maybe prints a screenshot of it and pastes it in.  Then he writes a few sentences about what he learned, using correct sentence structure, spelling, and grammar.  If he struggles with writing he can dictate to you or the computer.  That’s notebooking in a nutshell.  Check out my complete guide to Notebooking for more. 

I know some of you are thinking, okay but what does this really look like in a day?  I mean, there has to be some structure, right?  Absolutely.  And you can structure your day however it works best for you and your kids.  We start with morning time, during or right after breakfast which includes our Bible study and catechism. Then we’ll do stations, where the kids rotate having time with me 1:1 for reading or math. 

We have some time for independent learning, in which the kids read or listen to their library books, watched pre-approved YouTube videos, and complete Notebook pages.  Some days during this time we work together, listening to our nature-based science podcast or our history audiobook.  Some days it flows well, other days are more chaotic.  Yet every day there is learning of one kind or another.

Getting Started

To get started with interest-led learning, start paying close attention to how your child spends their free time- it may give you some ideas of what interests to pursue or incorporate into their learning. 

Next, try strewing some different books, activities and games and see what catches their eye.  Start there.  Maybe you have a child who is really into outdoor adventures like hiking and camping.  Check out a few library books on survival skills, orienteering, and bushcraft.  Leave them on the coffee table with a compass and some twine.  Show some bushcraft videos on YouTube (select wisely lest you end up with holes in your back yard for underground shelters! Not that I know from experience).

Decide how you want to incorporate interest-led learning into your homeschool.  I shared how we explored interests on Fridays.  I’ve also let our boys choose the topic of their science curriculum for the year.  We also love to get out the Funschooling Journals in February when we are bored from cold weather and need to mix-up our routine a bit.

Remember, interest-led learning is just another tool that you can use however it works for you.  By teaching your kids HOW to learn and letting them explore their own interests, you’ll find them to be more engaged with what they are learning, resulting in a more enjoyable experience for everyone. 

Thanks for listening to this episode of the Super Simple Homeschool Podcast.  If you enjoyed this episode, would you share it with a friend?  Don’t forget to subscribe or follow so you never miss a future episode.