What about Delight-Directed Learning in High School?

Entering the world of homeschooling high school can bring extra work and stress to a mom. There are more obligations to fulfill when you have to make sure your child has enough credits and is getting through all the material they need to receive those credits. So how could there be room for delight-directed learning? How can your teen take time to study what he or she really loves when there are certain requirements to get a diploma?

Delightful learning can happen in high school. It is just a matter of looking for opportunities to creatively follow your teen's interests. Here are a few ideas on how to incorporate delight-directed learning into the high school years...

Join me over at Ben and Me as I discuss how to incorporate "delightful learning" into homeschooling the high school years.

Delight-Directed Learning {A New Series}

{Affiliate links used.}

Have you ever heard of delight-directed learning? Basically, it is a way to help your kids learn without realizing they are doing the hard work of learning. It means running with a topic that truly interests them and diving deep into it. Over our years of homeschooling we have used delight-directed learning mostly in the form of unit studies. It was during these times that my boys came alive and were eager to learn more. While there will always be subjects my boys struggle with {like math}, delight-directed learning can help keep them curious about the world and retain that love of learning.

My friend, Marcy, over at Ben and Me is doing a month-long series on how to use direct-delighted learning in July. You can hop over here to see what each day's topic will be. Marcy will have several contributors to these posts {including myself} so you will get to hear from different homeschooling moms and how they incorporate unit studies, rabbit trails, and "delightful" learning into their days with their kids. There will be posts on using curriculum as a jumping off point, gaps in learning, the book basket technique and so much more!

If you are interested, Marcy has also created a planner for this type of learning. Last month I had a chance to go through it and review all the great pages and information she provides. If you are interested in purchasing Delightful Planning, just click here!

I can't wait to read all the posts in this series! How about you? Are you interested in incorporating a bit of delightful learning this coming school year?

Delightful Planning: A Unit Study Planner

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When my boys were younger we did unit studies for most of their learning. I truly think unit studies are the best way to go. Even in my home-based business of teaching Spanish to elementary kids I create three to four unit studies to do in Spanish with them each year. We have studied pumpkins, insects, polar animals and so much more all in Spanish. Marcy over at Ben and Me uses unit studies and delight-directed learning to homeschool her son and has recently created a planner to help other homeschool moms create unit studies for their kids.

What is delight-directed learning? It is allowing your child to learn about a topic that interests him or her. It is a time to dive deep into what ignites their imagination and minds. It creates excitement for learning instead of drudgery.

Delightful Planning includes several pages of explanation on the following topics:

• What is delight-directed learning?
• How do I set up a unit study?
• How can I plan field trips that fit my unit study?
• Can I use the concept of delight-directed learning with multiple children?
• How can I use unit studies in high school?
• What is the "Fun School Jar" method of schooling and how do I do it?

The e-book also has several planning pages for you to use in order to set up your unit studies:

• Brainstorming pages 
• Monthly and Weekly calendars
• Supply list
• Reading log
• Book report pages
• Learning journal pages
• Field trip idea pages
• "Rabbit Trail" study page
• Fun School Jar idea pages

There is a TON of resources packed into this book! The introductory price for Delightful Learning is only $5.95!  I am planning on using it to help me set up my Spanish unit studies and a few delight-directed units with my youngest son this school year. Such an awesome resource if you are wanting to do unit studies with your kids!

Hispanic Culture with Picture Books

I LOVE children's picture books. When my boys were younger it was the way I taught them using books based unit studies from Five in a Row and Homeschool Share. My boys are now teens, and picture books have fallen by the wayside for us. However, I teach Spanish to homeschoolers and public school kids in the afternoon and use a plethora of picture books to teach them. Homeschool Share has a blog, and they are featuring my post on teaching Hispanic culture with picture books. Not only do I share a list of picture books {all in English}, but there are also unit studies {free from Homeschool Share} to go with the books. 

To read the complete post, click here.

Looking Back: Our Favorite Homeschool Curricula

We are by no means done with our homeschooling journey, but with my oldest we are getting to the end as he will be a junior in the fall.  Here is a look at some of the curricula that we have enjoyed and learned the most from...

Our homeschooling journey started with Five in a Row when the boys were in early elementary.  Of all the products that we have used this has been my favorite.  My fondest memories come from FIAR.  There were so many neat activities and precious learning experiences that we had. Basically, Five in a Row is a literature-based curriculum.  For one week you read the same picture book, like The Duchess Bakes a Cake
or How to Make an Apple Pie and See the World and pull a lesson from five different subjects based on the book.  Each week there are lessons in language arts, social studies, science, art, and applied math.  My boys gained so much knowledge about the world through these lessons.  The lessons are gentle, yet deep and are memories in the making!  Starting at 3rd or 4th grade we moved from FIAR to other programs for history (Biblioplan) and science (Apologia).  See below for information...

Another similar resource (that is FREE!) are the lessons and lapbooks at Homeschool Share. There are unit studies at Homeschool Share that are similar to Five in a Row.  There are also numerous lapbooks.  We used several units and lapbooks from here and loved all of them!

For math we used Math-U-See and Teaching Textbooks. We used Math-U-See in the younger years.  I loved the hands-on approach and the way of teaching place value.  This year my oldest will use their Stewardship program which deals with personal finance.  Honestly, though, for the high school years I prefer Teaching Textbooks.  This program can mainly be done on the computer. The beauty of it is that every single problem, yes, every single one is done step by step for the student.  So as your child is working through his or her lesson and misses a problem he/she can go back a review the problem. Teaching Textbooks also grades their work.  Since I am very weak in math I felt like this was the way to go when we got to higher levels.

Apologia has awesome programs for both elementary and high school levels. The elementary levels are engaging and fun.  There is also a notebook that you can buy to help review the concepts they have learned. The notebooks include crosswords and notebooking pages with mini-books. My youngest son did every single one of the elementary books and loved them!  The high school levels are rigorous and challenging.  I love that creationism is explored along with why evolution doesn't work based on what we know of the world.

Biblioplan is what we used at the elementary level for history. Biblioplan is a four year program which you can cycle through a couple of times if you homeschool all the way through. It incorporates "spines" (history texts) like Story of the World, Usborne history books, etc. and literature to read as you go through the centuries.  We didn't use the other aspects of the program except for doing maps. I love that we could use literature to cover history!

We used Notgrass for high school history (world and American).  I liked that there were review questions and quizzes and tests to keep my son focused on the material. Literature is also incorporated into the program (although we did literature separately). There is also a book with original documents and speeches that your student can read. Notgrass comes from a Christian perspective which I appreciated.

For writing we used Institute for Excellence in Writing. I loved this program because it teaches good outlining skills and how to dress up your writing.  This is basically the only writing program that we used.  The only problem?  After using it for several years with both boys we got kind of bored with the system.  However, even with that, this is the BEST program out there that I have seen for writing simply because it teaches how to make your writing interesting.

We used Progeny Press and Teaching the Classics from Center for Lit. for teaching literature.  Teaching the Classics is a manual for the parent that teaches how to discuss literature with your student.  Invaluable!!!  I love the list of questions that can be used for any book at the end of the manual.  We used Progeny Press for some of the books that we read.  These are literature guides that come from a Christian perspective. I loved using these when we came to books that have hard topics in them like To Kill a Mockingbird.

So what have you used in your homeschool?

State Notebooking Pages

The following is a notebook page that I made up so that my boys can explore each state in the union.  I am going to have them use World Atlas to complete the pages.  The box at the top is for the name of the state.  Let me know if you have any questions.

US States Note Booking Pages

Shakespeare....here we come!

We are going to start learning about Shakespeare this year (since we are doing the Middle Ages, Renaissance and the Reformation, Shakespeare fits into that time period).  Last year we studied ancient history so I thought we would start with Shakespeare's play Julius Caesar. It seems like a nice bridge between ancient history and the  Middle Ages.  Many of the women on the FIAR boards that I have gone to for years for homeschooling advice suggested that Shakespeare's play are meant to be watched and not read.  So we are going to start by watching and then reading them (my oldest maybe the only one that will read them at this point).  I have been warned that you need to preview any DVD of Shakespeare's plays...there can be inappropriate stuff in some of them.  This year my goal is to cover at least three plays.  We will see how far we get.  Here are some resources that I have found for teaching Shakespeare.


















Here are some other resources...

Sharing Shakespeare with Students  I recently bought this e-book from Currclick.  There is a lot of information in this.  It covers ALL the plays that Shakespeare wrote...giving summaries and background information. Here's a free e-book from the same author.

Free Teacher Guides for several of the plays!

Notebooking pages

More info

Update on Chúcaro-Argentina Unit

We have been working on our unit on Argentina based on the book, Chúcaro.  We have been using Study Starters as notebooking pages for our study.  I am loving these pages!  Here are a few of the things we have done...

Country Info Pages

The regions of Argentina

The Grasslands of Argentina and other areas of the world

The Ombú tree of the Pampas of Argentina

Resources for Studying Argentina

So in December we are embarking on studying Argentina through the book Chúcaro.  There is a unit for the book Chúcaro here.

Here are some other resources that we may use.  I wanted to collect them in one spot so that if anyone was ever interested in doing a unit on Argentina they could use them!

I love the "Choose-a-Country" lapbook available at Homeschool Share. We may use this as we work through Argetina.

Here is another unit on Argentina from the lady at Homeschool in the Woods.

General information about Argentina

Maps of Argentina

Christmas in Argentina from "Christmas Around the World" unit and lapbook-you will have to scroll to find Argentina.

Study Starters-We are going to use these pages as we go through our unit.  They are really cool and cheap!

Here are some units for younger kids: On the Pampas, Gauchada

What's in Store for December?

I am currently working on getting our December plans together for school.

We will be doing some different things for December this year...I have decided that we are going to be taking a break from our history (Ancients) and our science (Zoology) for the month of December.  This year we are going to do a unit study on Argentina based on the book, Chúcaro.  You can find the study here. I wrote this study so that I could do it with my kids. I have been to Argentina three times and love it there! I want the boys to have an appreciation of other countries.  So many times South America and Africa get left out in the dark so to speak when studying about the world. We recently did a study on Malawi, and now I thought it would be a great idea to focus on Argentina.

I am also planning on doing some fun projects in December related to Christmas.  Here are some of the ideas I am toying with...

I have wanted for a long time to make some of the treats from Bakerella...maybe some reindeer or Christmas trees.

We might do our 3-D snowflakes again this year and Minty Snowmen.

We always read one of the following stories each year for Advent...we have just voted on which one we are going to do (we have read them all so we decided to vote to see which one we will repeat this year). And we have decided to do Tabitha!

Stay tuned for updates as we get closer to December.  I am hoping to compile all we do with Chúcaro and put it on the blog in case there are others who want to do this study.

Alaska Unit Study

Alaska is 50 years old this year! Fifty years of statehood! This would be a great time to learn a bit more about the 49th state. Here are some resources to do a unit study on Alaska....

Alaska Unit Study

The Iditarod and Alaska

More AK study ideas

Baby in a Basket (Literature unit study)

The Year of Miss Agnes (Literature unit study)

Salmon unit study/lapbook

Polar animals lapbook

Alaska turns 50 timeline

Alaska flag activities

Alaska Kids

South America Unit Study

South America (along with Africa) tends to be studied less than say Europe or Asia in the elementary years. Here are some great resources if you want your kids to learn more about South America. Most of the ones at the top of the list are free.

Gauchada (Literature unit on Argentina)
On the Pampas (Unit on Argentina)
The Great Kapok Tree (Unit study and lapbook on Brazil)
Tonight is Carnaval (Unit set in Peru)
Continent Pages (There is a South America page)
Argentina Unit Study (Done by Homeschool in the Woods)
Brazil Unit
Sloth Lapbook
Flags of South America
Animals of South America
Geography of South America
South America Lapbook (In the Hands of a Child)
Mayans, Aztecs, and Incas lapbook (The Incas were the Indians of South America)

Earthquake Lapbooks

Here are some pictures of our earthquake lapbooks. We went over concepts like magnitude, the Ring of Fire, faults, P waves and S waves. You can find the lapbook components on Homeschool Share. Here is Noah's lapbook...Here is Zach's...Here is the magnitude chart we did...Here is part of Zach's lapbook...a Bible story about an earthquake...

Top Three Earthquakes

Which three quakes are the strongest ones ever recorded? We are going to go over the three strongest quakes today and find on the map where they occured. We will read some more books on quakes and work on our lapbooks.

Here are the three strongest quakes....

The Great Chilean Earthquake (9.5)-occured in 1960 off the southcentral coast of Chile and caused a tsunami in the Pacific. Here's a map of the area affected.

The Indian Ocean Earthquake (9.3)- occured on December 26, 2004 off the west coast of Sumatra.The Great Alaskan Earthquake (9.2)- Also called the Good Friday Quake because it occured on Good Friday, March 27, 1964.

Earthquake Videos

Today we started our earthquake unit. We read a little about the San Francisco quake in 1906. We also worked on some vocabulary related to earthquakes (see the earthquake lapbook link in the previous post). We then went to You Tube and found footage for several different famous earthquakes and their aftermath:

The 1906 San Francisco earthquake - 7.7 on the Richter scale

The Good Friday earthquake in Alaska - 9.2 on the Richter scale

The 1960 earthquake in Chile - 9.5, strongest earthquake ever recorded

The above is footage of San Francisco after the quake.

Earthquake Mini-Unit

We live near the Ring of Fire. So for the past couple of days we have been experiencing some earthquakes. See here for a little more information. This is the first time that Noah remembers feeling an earthquake even though we had a major one (you will need to scroll down to see some pictures of the damage) when he was little. So I thought this would be a good time to do a mini-study on earthquakes since it just happened. First of all, we will be doing an earthquake lapbook that you can get free from Homeschool Share. There are also some lapbook components on earthquakes in the Volcano Lapbook at Homeschool Share. We are also going to use the following books...

Here are some animations of vocabulary related to earthquakes.

I will try to keep you posted on the unit as it progresses!