Interest Based Learning

Over the last 2 days I've been observing how much my 9 yo learns on his own initiative.

Writing-Christian has spent a lot of time over the last few days writing a story called "Billy the Brave Cat and Friends". He also wrote 2 quizzes for us (he's been watching his brother make quizzes on facebook).

Drawing-He did a great job illustrating his story.

Spelling-Tonight he played spelling Turbo-Twist- a hand held spelling game.

Reading-After Sophie watched a Frog and Toad video, Christian got the book and read all the stories aloud.

Math-Today Christian did multiplication practice on his own using Math Turbo-Twist by Leap Frog. Christian is always doing mental math. His brothers are always blown away by how good he is.

History-Last night, before bed, Christian read a few pages in his DK Ultimate Lego book. He has read this book many times and it has a lot more in it than just info about Legos. There are short history blurbs throughout the book. He read me a small section on the Great Depression and proceeded to tell me that he knew all about the great depression, he had learned about it from a Charlie Brown American history video he had watched.

Geography-Tonight Christian played The Scrambled States of America board game with his brothers and I. Also, when Christian hears of a new country or place in the world, he gets out our World Geography Encyclopedia and finds it. Yesterday, he was looking up a country in South America.

Science-After watching the movie Kung Fu Panda recently, Christian developed an interest in learning about the praying mantis ( Mantis is a character from the story). Daddy helped him look up praying mantises on the Internet and they watched some Youtube videos. He asked me if they have exoskeletons or not-he and Sophie recently watched a video on insects. He wants to get a book about praying mantises the next time we go to the library.

At night in bed he's been reading a book about inventors. As I type this, Christian is telling his sister about Thomas Edison and Alexander Graham Bell. He just ran and got The Picture History of Great Inventors to read to Sophie.

As I look over what I've just written, I think it's amazing! Sometimes when I'm trying to teach him something that he has no interest in at the time, I wonder how much he is understanding and retaining. He has a hard time paying attention and will keep bringing up something else. But when he is interested in something, he finds books, videos, articles, or any other way he can learn about it, and tells everyone about it!