What is Delight-Directed Homeschooling?
Delight-directed homeschooling can be a remedy for mid-winter burnout, but it can also be an all-the-time homeschooling style. It is a method of education that allows your children to explore what they love and work at a flexible pace, ebbing and flowing with each new bunny trail.
To those thinking along the lines of traditional schooling (ie, government schools), it may seem that the student isn’t really learning anything, but not only will your student be learning…they’ll be learning far more than you could have imagined! It’s about depth…not breadth. The topics can vary through the year, jumping around, or they can stay fairly focused.
Delight-directed schooling is very similar to the unit study method, but tends to go even deeper than a typical unit study. Let your student be the guide!
Learning through Literature
Literature studies are so much more FUN! As an added bonus, because they incorporate knowledge through relating to a character and / or story, your students are apt to retain more once the year ends.
What are living books, and how can you use them to make your homeschool shine? Get all the tips & tricks in Using Living Books to Homeschool.
Novel studies can be used to cover concepts from language arts and history to science and math. It’s been our students’ preferred learning method for years, and we’ve created well over one hundred of them! Here are just a few of the odd topics that cropped up as a result of their delight-directed learning…
- Fever 1793 + Epidemics in World History
- Willa of the Wood + Basic Foraging
- Shouting at the Rain + Severe Weather
- Nick & Tesla + Nikola Tesla / Electricity
- The Golem & the Jinni + Kabbalah unit
- Charlie Hernandez + Hispanic Mythology
- The Watsons Go to Birmingham & Civil Rights
- My Side of the Mountain & Wilderness Survival
- Serafina and the Splintered Heart & Writing a Ghost Story
- Island of the Blue Dolphins & Introduction to Sailing
- Finding Langston & the Poetry of Langston Hughes
- Motel of the Mysteries & Archaeology
- Caroline’s Comet & Astronomy
- Writing Fantasy with the Hobbit
- Crime and Punishment & Free Will vs Determinism
- Charlie Thorne and the Last Equation & Albert Einstein
Audiobooks
Some students learn better through audio, rather than reading. Audiobooks are a fantastic way to incorporate literature unit studies, without taxing struggling readers to frustration. Which is not to say that you shouldn’t keep working on reading, but sometimes a work-around is in order…
Specialized Topics
When students are REALLY into a topic, they’ll even begin to educate you. You never know what you’re going to be learning each day as a homeschooling parent! These bundles help dive into some very specific interests…
- The Hobbit (because who doesn’t love Tolkien?!)
- Science at the Movies
- Traditional Crafts & Trades
- Learning about the Traditional Holidays
- …or the History Behind those Holidays
- World Mythology, beyond the typical Greek & Roman
- Writing Fantasy & Fiction
- ….and understanding the elements of writing
- Judaism & Jewish Holidays
- France for Francophiles
- Shakespeare’s Era & Plays
- History of Rock & Roll
- Hands-on Learning — ten different options
- Puzzles, Ciphers, and Enigmas
In-depth Classes
The classes at Sparks Academy utilize literature, videos, and student interaction to study science, language arts, history, geography, character, writing, and literary concepts. This online co-op includes weekly student interaction in the private classroom forum. Learn more here.
Try-It-Out Deals
- Save $10 on the Craftsman Crate subscription box. This is the box that teaches you real-world, hands-on craftsman skills and has inspired my boys in so many ways!
- Grab an Online Unit Study from Techie Homeschool Mom to incorporate tech into your learning! Use code YVIEFIELD to save 10%
- Sign up to receive this semester-long FREE course for high school students on the subject of Psychology.
- Try 2 weeks of The Homeschool Garden morning time absolutely F-R-E-E!
- Notebooking Pages are a flexible way to explore ANY topic. Try them out FREE here.
