Bring on the Projects!

While we do a great deal that is educational in our homeschool, it generally falls into two categories: incredibly planned out lessons, complete with syllabus, or totally spontaneous. Given the differing learning styles of my children, this has worked for the most part.

But we have one major focus that brings a third, and my favorite style, to the forefront: project focused learning for our educational fairs. At our co-op, we are having a huge edcuational extravaganza on Friday night, combining a traditional science fair , social studies fair (with history, government, and geography) and an arts & crafts fair. This event was been on the calendar since September, and even has its' own committee! Many of the teacher give student participation high priority, so the buzz this last month at co-op has been high. Even better is that I managed to get one of the parents who works for Lehigh University to bring a travelling planetarium, sponsered by NASA, to give a nice live-feed planetarium show to the kids while finally tabulation takes place.

The kids had all fall to ponder ideas for both science and social science portions of the fair. BuzzBoy decided to focus on researching alternative energy sources for his science fair display. He had a lot of ideas for history, but finally decided that he was most fascinated with the "real" causes of the Civil War, choosing that for both his research project and display.

Honey Girl , a fan of the show "Storm Chasers" , decided that she wanted to do her research project on tornadoes. She also wanted to create a display for last year's geography research paper, "Tattoo Around the Globe." And, since she was doing a big research project on Van Gogh for her art history class, she opted to go a step further with it to enter.

So, in January, both kids started working on research papers for their various subjects. I don't know a proper term for it, but I like to think of it as project-focused learning. They infuse themselves in the subject...through the internet, books, and magazines. They search through netflix for more info and we visit museums and research labs online. Honey completed a paper on both tornadoes and Van Gogh in early February. (Buzz, on the other hand, assured me he had it covered.)

The first time we did this, I showed them step by step how to dig deep into a subject. NOw, they take off on their own, often calling me in to share new and interesting discoveries. HoneyGirl did some searching on the internet early on, and found the plans for this amazing tornado box. She and KingBee spent time building it over the holiday break, where she proudly did the measuring and ruined her favorite pair of jeans with wood stain. KingBee thankfully decided it was be to use the circular saw for her.
We will be doing a lot of dry runs with it this week, to get it working as she hopes it will. Tomorrow, she will be creating a display on fold-out display board about tornadoes to complete the visual.

Buzz will be finishing his research papers this week on both subjects, and creating display boards for the fair. He had found some plans for building samples too, but never got around to doing anything with them this year. But at 16, I'm not nagging. As it is, he is frustrated enough with himself for procrastinating on the research papers three weeks late!

Honey also had an idea to add a hands-on portion to her Van Gogh research paper. We had unearthed a gift she had been given last year while organizing the craft closet, Shrink Art Jewelry. She had the idea to take five or six of Van Gogh's works and trace them onto the shrinky dink paper, then color them and shrink down. She is going to make a charm bracelet that after displaying at the fair, will be a gift for me. Her social studies display should be rather quick, since she did all the research last year. She is hoping to master the art of henna tattooing in three days, so that she can give small ones to the people who visit her display.

I am forever amazed at how much both kids learn through their projects. It is perfect for mid-winter, when we would be all but beating our heads from the tedium of traditional studies. The culmination at the fair seems to recharge them for the rest of the year as well, which is very nice.

I promised that I will take lots of pictures Friday night for sharing!