Delight directed learning: Trains!

It's interesting to look back over our 10 years of homeschooling and note the evolution of our methods, materials, and philosophies.  Like most newbies, I think I was a bit heavy handed with the kids at the start and tried to replicate school at home rather than creating a homeschool.   There's a huge difference.

Somewhere in the middle years I considered the whole "unschooling" thing and decided I couldn't do it.  But  I do love the idea of delight directed learning, which, in my mind, means that the student gets to study what they find interesting (but not at the expense of what  I find to be necessary).

Happily, it feels like I've found some middle ground where there are some expectations about what must be covered and some flexibility over what my kids WANT to cover.  For example, my 7th grader just finished up her Latin course, and rather than continue with Latin, she has chosen to study Portuguese using DuoLingo.  This spurred a flurry of language learning in her siblings as well.  My 5th grader wants to learn French and has voluntarily spend HOURS doing so.  The second grader is doing Spanish and loving it. She is rattling off all kinds of new vocabulary and phrases.  I am happy that they have chosen these topics for themselves.  They are quenching their own thirst for knowledge.

My youngest two, ages 2 and 5-months, will benefit greatly from these years of experience.  Already I am happy to indulge my 2-yo in her delight directed learning, which at this point, consists mainly of coloring, singing, and trains!  Yep. Trains. Not just Thomas, but all things Trains!  She wants to color trains, watch trains, build trains, build train tracks, collect trains, and of course ride trains. 

When a sweet couple at our church offered to host our family in their home so that we could all enjoy their model train collection, we jumped at the chance!  What a great way to dive deeper into our train "studies" (infatuation??) and enjoy time as a family too.



See that smile?  This is a child doing something she loves!  Our friends had dedicated an entire shed to their train hobby!  So fun.



All of us enjoyed the detail, the true-to-life nature of the trains, and even the coal-scented smoke that filled the air.



They also had some indoor trains set up for us.  There's our conductor with his hat!  We learned about the different kinds of currents used to move the trains, the way the wars affected the materials trains were made from, and some cool train trivia. (sorry, I don't store trivia in my brain for long...)



Huge thank you to this sweet couple for sharing their hobby with us!



Oh, and let's not forget the very cool zipline in their back yard that we got to try out!  "Kids" of all sizes enjoyed that ride!  And I really do need to get the recipe for the delicious cookies they fed us. Oh my, they were so good.


Near our home there is a park with a kiddie train that circles the park every 15 minutes or so.  We thought it would be another great opportunity to let our sweet train-loving girl enjoy her passion.

   

Cheers to delight directed learning and creating family memories!