 Hey everybody, welcome to the Blockway. I'm Jessica, and today's video is gonna be all about child-led learning. A few weeks ago, I shared a child-led rabbit trail that we went down with you guys in my Instagram and Facebook stories and then asked if you had any questions. And so many of you had such fantastic questions that I decided that this needed a permanent place on my YouTube channel and my blog. And so that's what we're going to be doing today is making a permanent place for child-led learning. Kind of a hub, if you will. So we are going to be talking about what child-led learning is, how we use it or incorporate it in our homeschool, and then my top two tips for using it in your homeschool. So what is child-led learning? Child-led learning is also commonly referred to as interest-led learning following the child's lead or sometimes even delight-driven education. And they all mean kind of what they sound like they mean. They all just mean following your child's lead, using their interests to drive what you're gonna learn about. And it's really that simple. And even though it is that simple, it doesn't always mean that it works as simply as it sounds because there's a lot of questions that come with that. Well, what if my child's never interested in the important things? When I say child-led learning, I don't necessarily mean that you have to let your child lead everything. That falls closer to unschool, although I will say that a lot of people who are child-led learners tend to be a little unschool-y. But what I do in our homeschool is that I have goals that I set for language arts and math because those are important to me. I wanna make sure that she is using and learning where she needs to be in those. And then pretty much her interests lead everything else. So not that I would not follow her lead in language arts or math. Like if she woke up tomorrow obsessed with fractions, we would obviously follow that lead in that interest as far as it took us. But for the most part, her child-led learning, her interest, drive everything outside of math and language arts. We use something a little more structured for that. I keep up a little more structure for that. And then that's what we do for everything else. And because of that, that means that we have to be kind of flexible in our homeschool. So yes, I write our own homeschool curriculum and yes, I write plans for that, but I'm not ever so tied to it that I won't take a day off to follow her lead. So I could say, oh, this is what I wanna do today. But if she wakes up with some crazy desire to do something else, I allow for the flexibility in the white space in our day to drop whatever I might have had planned and follow what she wants. The reasoning for that is over the years, it has been proven to me time and time and time again, as I have allowed myself to do that, that interest-led learning or child-led learning leads to a much deeper and richer learning than if I forced learning. If I was to say, okay, we're gonna learn about, I don't know, China tomorrow and she's not interested in it, she'll learn about it because she's not going to fight me on that. But if I waited, let's say six months until she's interested in it, it's a whole different, it's just a whole different, a whole different Paul of Wacks, if you will. It's a different dynamic. It's just so much richer and deeper and more meaningful to her if she's interested in it. Now, does that mean that everything we learn is something she's interested in? No. Because I still have things that I have created knowing her well enough to know that she will like it, she may not love it, but she will like it and we will do those. And then when she presents something that she's interested in, I put all of my plans on the back burner and follow her lead as far as it takes us. When it's done and there's nothing else for me to pick up one at that moment, then we revert back to my plans. So that is kind of how it works in our homeschool. And I'm gonna give you a very black and white example of that because sometimes it's hard to kind of understand. So the week that I'm talking about when I shared on Instagram, we were studying dinosaurs, paleontology and fossils. Mary Ann and we had this whole kind of like study going. And we did that on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Friday I had plans for us to continue on that, but instead she woke up and there were a ton of vultures in our yard. They had, our trash had been ripped into and strolled everywhere, so there was a ton of vultures in our yard. And she had questions. It started simply with, you know, what is a group of vultures called? And then it just kind of went from there. So on Friday, we ended up spending the entire day following her trail, if you will, of interest revolving around vultures. And then when, you know, we were kind of done at the end of the day, we had our weekend and then Monday, we went right back to my plans of us finishing up our dinosaur, fossil, paleontology and Mary Ann and unit study. And it's not that she wasn't interested in that because she was interested in that. She's the one, the whole reason I wrote the Mary Ann and unit study was because she wanted to learn more about dinosaurs. So she was interested in that, but her interest in vultures was a priority and was more important to her in that moment on that day. Now I could have easily answered her first question, blew off the rest of them and gone right back to what I had planned for us to do. And she probably wouldn't have known any difference in that. But because I followed her lead, so many things came up and we learned so much from that that there is now going to be this, you know, this thing that she's never gonna forget because when you learn things, when you're interested, when you're invested in it, you don't forget those things. So that's kind of how it looks in our homeschool. I have plans, I kind of go by the plans for the most part and when it presents itself, I follow that lead as far as it takes us and then I revert back to whatever my previous plans were. So flexibility is key when you are trying to do child blood and interest love learning. It really needs to be flexible to allow for you to be able to do that. But please hear me when I say that that flexibility and being able to do that is always, always, always worth it. I have never, not once, regretted following her lead ever. And following her lead is a whole lot like the books if you give a mouse a cookie because, A turns into B turns into C and somehow before you know it, you're all the way at Z and it's just become this big snowball effect and it's fantastic and you never know where you're gonna end up at. So it's always worth it because you could learn so much more than you thought you could. You could learn more concepts than you thought you may even end up learning what you were bridging gonna learn in the first place which for us we did kind of end up there because more we learned about vultures, the more we learned about their relationship to dinosaurs, the more we learned about prehistoric and it kind of did all come back to the same thing we were originally gonna learn about anyway. So there's a lot of times that can even happen. So take the time to do it because it's always, always worth it. Okay, so now what are my top two tips for incorporating child learning into your homeschool? These are actually my top two don't do these tips but let me give them to you anyway. Tip number one, don't ask your child what they're interested in or what they wanna learn about because they're going to either, A, look to you like a deer in a headlight because this is probably something you've never done and they're like, I don't know what I wanna learn. Don't you just tell me what I'm supposed to learn? Because that's probably how your homeschool has worked up to this point. And so they don't know how to answer that question or B, they're like, I don't know because let's be honest, that you just put them on the spot. I mean, I'm in my 30s and when I get asked what I want for dinner, my answer is I don't know. So asking again what they wanna learn about or what they're interested in, of course they're gonna tell you they don't know. Instead of asking them, do something like pay attention to their interest? Are they gravitating towards something more frequently? Are they talking about something very excitedly about it? Like they're really excited when they talk to you about something specific. Or you can also try strewing. Strewing is a great way to try out new interests to see if they're interested in it, if they like it, if they don't like it. And that's just simply leaving things out. Just leaving things around, leave a few books, leave an activity set or a kid or something that you think they might be interested in, something you think they may like and see what happens. No pressure, no obligations, just see if they pick it up. If they do, then you know you're on the right track. So keep strewing and keep presenting things along that same line of topics. If they are not interested in it at all, try something else. See what else they might be interested in. Another tip is to try really hard not to assume that a topic that they're interested in is not worth exploring because it is. Not every topic has to be uber educational in order to be worth it to explore. Just because one person's interested in vultures, which please just understand that was not my idea of how I wanted to spend our day, doesn't mean that another person's interest in, oh, let's say Minecraft or video games can't be just as educational as another. So try really hard not to devalue your child's interest because as parents, we tend to do that. I mean, if our child is interested in PNR or Mozart, we are all over that. But video games and Minecraft, eh, not so much. But that's our, that's a problem with us, not with our child. So we just need to value that, find value in it and find a way to follow their lead. Even if that means you playing with them, which in case you haven't tried to play Minecraft, I did because I wasn't valuing Emily's interest in that in the past. It's a lot harder than you think and requires a ton of logic. So just take my word for it, don't devalue that. But get down to their level and share their interests with them. See why they're interested in it and then figure out how you can follow that. So that is my first tip, is don't ask them what they're interested in. Pay attention, try screwing, and then just make sure you're not devaluing their interest because it's really easy to say, oh, they're not interested in anything when they are, it's just not what you would deem as an educational interest. So just try not to do that. My second tip is don't overcomplicate it. Don't overcomplicate it. I'm saying that again because I even myself need to hear this. We as homeschool moms, there's something about all the books and all the resources and all the games and all the things like we can't help it, it's who we are. So when our child shows an interest, especially if it's an interest that we too are excited about or that we're excited they're showing an interest in, we are like on the library, database, checking out every book that they have on that interest and we're on Amazon and we're on Pinterest and we're getting all of this stuff. And then by the time we've got all this stuff, our kid's not interested in anymore or we've taken all the fun out of it, you don't need all of that. I'm not saying you don't need anything. Well, really you don't need anything but you don't need all of that stuff. What you need is to just let your effort meet their interests. And by that, I'm gonna give you an example because what I mean by that is if they're a little bit interested, then you put forth a little bit of effort. If they're a lot interested, then you can put forth a lot of effort. So for example, when Emily was interested in vultures that day, she simply asked me, mom, what is the name of a group of vultures? That's a little interested, right? My solution to that was to come inside and say this, Alexa, what is the name of a group of vultures? Vultures collective nouns are wake, kettle and committee. So that was Emily's answer. Wake, kettle and committee. That is the name of a group of vultures. Now, the next thing she did was say, huh, wonder what the name of the mom and the dad and the baby are. So we Googled it. And then it was, hmm, I'd like to know more about their anatomy. So I found a printable. But if her interest had stopped at mom, what is the group of them called, then my effort would have stopped. That would have been the end of it. I would not have kept going and going. Now I might have picked up a vulture book. Next time I was at the library and maybe screwed it, see if she was interested again, but I wouldn't have just immediately dropped everything I was doing to put together, you know, like this huge vulture study. Your effort should meet their interest. Because if it doesn't, if you go and you get all of the resources and you make your child wait basically until they're no longer interested, what's gonna happen is they're not gonna be interested. You're gonna have invested all of this time in money and then you're not going to want to do this anymore because eventually you're gonna feel like, well, we just can't be child-blood learners. I just can't follow their lead. Their interest in my putting it, it just doesn't work. And you're gonna find yourself getting more and more frustrated because you're spending all of this time and effort and money and it doesn't seem like it's worth it. But it is. If your effort meets their interest, it is worth it. Just remember that. And then my last kind of pro tip for you is if you want to be child-blood learners, the number one thing, there's two things, but the number one thing that I suggest that you do in your homeschool is answer their questions. It is literally that simple. If you answer their questions, if you take the time to stop and answer their questions, Google them, ask your smart devices, look it up, you know, look up a video on YouTube, find the information wherever it comes from. If you answer their questions in our homeschool anyway, that is where 99% of the child-led learning and the interest-led learning happens is simply by starting by answering a question. The second thing that I want you to know along that same lines is the only thing that you need outside of following their interests and answering their questions is an internet connection. You don't need anything else. You don't need a ton of stuff. I mean, yeah, stuff is nice and you guys know I love my stuff, but an internet connection will give you everything that you need to follow your child's interest because that gives you the ability to Google it, watch a YouTube video on it to find out more information. I mean, it's really nice. Encyclopedia would be great too, but you don't have to have that. I mean, we have a few encyclopedias that we love and I have taught Emily how to use them so that now it's shifting from me having to follow her lead so much as her being able to also follow her own lead because she can now ask our own smart devices and Google herself and use their encyclopedia. So yes, those are some things that are great, but if you have an internet connection and you are willing to follow your child, to pay attention, to answer their questions and connect to the internet, that's all you really need to be a child blood learner to follow your kid's leads, to see where their interests take you and to have those fantastic days where you end up down a rabbit trail learning more than you ever thought possible. Now tell me, because I would love to know, do you incorporate child blood learning into your home school? Do you follow your child's interests or are you strictly like, nope, we are gonna learn what I say where we're gonna learn and that's just how it is. I would love to know. So please tell me in the comments down below. Is child blood learning something you do or is it totally not for you?