Why Should You Do Project Based Learning?
Project based learning has so many wonderful benefits that can’t be as easily achieved with more traditional approached to learning. Children develop greater problem solving skills, and become great critical thinkers.
Project based learning gives children the opportunity to use their knowledge and apply it to a real life situation. Children learn best when they have context to what they are learning.
This type of learning often leads to children developing new found interests, hobbies and talents. It increases their exposure to what is on offer in the world.
Children who undertake project based learning, learn resilience, perseverance and dedication. In a world of instant gratification it is important to offer our children the opportunity to experience delayed gratification. When a project takes a significant amount of time to yield a result it teaches our children that hard work pays off and it gratifying.
Ideas For Project Based Learning
Plant a Garden
Gardening requires a learned set of skills. The dedication that it requires to produce a bountiful harvest it impressive.
Depending on the age of your child you could have them build a small raised garden in the backyard in which to work in. There are many different ways to garden so there will be a good amount of research to be done. There are many fantastic YouTube channels and books that can help here.
Learn a Musical Instrument
You don’t just have to go and pay a music teacher to learn an instrument. The wonders of the internet never cease to amaze me. There are fantastic online programs to learn guitar, piano and many others. I can definitely recommend Hoffman Academy for piano lessons. This is what my children currently use and it has been brilliant. If I were to have four children in $30 each piano lessons each week we would be eating beans and rice for life! Hoffman academy is perfectly fine for early learners. If they want to go on to be a concert pianist then you probably want to get proper lessons but for the average grade schooler it will be perfect.
Once they get a handle on their instrument they can then begin to start writing their own music and lyrics.
My seven year old has been teaching himself how to play the guitar via YouTube. He is actually getting pretty good and has had zero input from me or his dad.
Write a Book
I always wanted to write a book as a child. Every year it would be my new years resolution. I am yet to come through on that one but I still think it is a great project for a child or teen. There are amazing online communities of youth writers to connect with. These are people who support each other, reading each others work and offering feedback and encouragement.
It is very easy to self publish and ebook these days. Once you have self published you can put it up on amazon and make a few dollars…or more from it. This is a perfect long term project.
Libraries and bookstores will often have visiting authors who hold classes or Q and A’s that you can take your child to so that they can become inspired and learn different aspects related to being an author.
A children’s book would also require artwork which is a whole other project in and of itself. Perhaps it could be a sibling collaboration?!
Building Projects
This is the perfect project for those kids that love to get busy with their hands. Not every child is going to learn from just reading a textbook and answering questions. Building projects help put what they learn in a classroom into context. Math begins to come alive as they start to measure and cut. When the numbers have a purpose they make so much more sense.
You could get your child to build a dog house, bed, desk, raised garden, wagon, or even set them to work on a project that you need doing around the house. The sky’s the limit! My parents had us kids redo the deck one summer.
Cake Decorating
This is my five year old’s project at the moment. She is an incredible decorator and has worked hard to perfect her skill. She will spend hours each week scrolling through Pinterest and watching YouTube videos on how to create different effects and hone her skills.
She was devastated last month when she broke her arm and couldn’t pipe her icing anymore.
Cake decorating is a skill that could lead into business opportunities. Honestly this is something that we need to look at because there is only so much cake one family can eat!
Create a Movie
Making movies is always fun to do for kids. There are so many different ways to take this project. They could lean more towards a documentary or create a movie with a script and actors…usually recuriting their siblings and neighbourhood kids.
They will learn so many skills such as editing, camera work, how not to work with kids or animals, interviewing skills and script writing.
Once the movie is complete they can then organise a screening for family and friends. It will be a great excuse to have a bit of a party and celebrate the amazing work and dedication that your child has devoted to the project.
Design a Computer Game or App
This would be a fun project for those tech minded kids. There are so many tutorials available to teach you how to go about this. It is definitely a project that will take a decent amount of time and will require constant attention in perfecting it.
Sewing
This is another one of my daughter’s projects. We have a basic sewing machine which is perfect for her little projects. At the moment she is working on a quilt. She has made a basic skirt and pillows. These are easy project for the littlest children because they are just straight lines. I like sewing projects because you can get that immediate satisfaction but the project can just continue on with more and more difficult projects as their skill level increases. You could also turn this into a business especially for older children. You will be surprised how much money you can make on Esty selling cute little baby bibs and burp cloths!
Work the Stock Market
I wish I had learnt about this when I was much younger! Your child can learn all there is to learn about how the stock market works. They will learn how and when to buy and sell shares. Will they do day trading or a longer investment?
There are many programs that you can use that allow you to invest in a simulated stock market game. This means that students can get a good grasp on how to invest their money before they do it with the real thing.
Once they have mastered the simulated experience, perhaps the next year give them a few hundred to invest and see what they can make of it. Once the year ends they can keep the profit they made and return to you, your initial investment.
Nothing motivates kids like money does! This would be a wise investment in their future financial health. Life skills such as this are so important to learn while they are young. Not everything can be learnt from a book. I love how you can use a simulated stock market before you play with real money! I don’t know how confident I would be handle over money to a inexperiences 15 year old!
Photography
There is so much more to photography than just point and shoot. It’s a whole other language. You can have you child find a course to enrol in or search out YouTube videos and websites that teach you how to work their magic with that camera.
There are so many online and real life communities for budding photographers to gain support and constructive advice how their work. Community colleges often run night classes for students interested in photography too.
At the end of the school year it would be exciting to put together a gallery night where you child can display all their work from the year. Family and friends would love to join in, in celebrating your child’s work.
Create a Website
Let your child design and run website based on something they are interested in. Websites or blogs are fantastic for creative expression and writing practice. There is so much more that goes into running a website than just writing. They can work at integrating internet marketing, SEO, design, and photography.
To make a website successful requires time, effort and dedication but it can be incredibly rewarding for the owner. If there is the right amount of dedication involved and commitment it can turn into a very financially successful business also. I can highly recommend the guys from Income School as a fantastic place to start. They have a wealth of information and instructions on how to build up a website on their YouTube channel for free. If you want a step by step how to guide with daily actions and tutorials I would recommend investing in their paid course called Project 24.
How to Integrate Project Based Learning into Your Homeschool
There are many ways to do this but I will explain how we do it. I dedicate three afternoons a week to project work. This means that our core subjects are done by lunch. After lunch the kids spend a few hours working on their projects. At the moment this means that one of my kids is working on robotics and the other one is cooking up a storm in the kitchen. We also reserve Friday’s for project work if we don’t have any other commitments or outings planned.
