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Delight Driven Homeschool is a term I recently heard from a friend of mine. Some people may call it Interest Driven Homeschool or Child Directed Homeschool. Basically, the idea it taking a the interests of the child and basing school around that. My personality is a little too Type A, I think to do this for anything more than a couple of subjects. However, I can totally see this working with unit studies.
For example, let's say your child wants to learn about birds. That opens up a variety of things. A quick Google search for "bird theme unit study" will bring up several options to choose from.
Science - birds, nature study, bird watching, flight, resistance, air lift, etc.
History - the history of flight
Art - see famous bird art here.
Hands on - model planes, rockets
Character - The nurturing some birds give and then laziness of others.
Literature - excellent bird stories such as those on this list
Check the Homeschool Resources Bundle sale for other items that would fit your child's interest.
Once your child chooses a topic - Trains, Light, Tigers, Ocean - (the list can go on and on) - just go to your local library and pick up all the books you can find on that topic. Your kids will soak it up. Be sure to include some hands on activities and maybe a dvd. Multi-sensory schooling is very impactful when it comes to retention.
Other things to consider when doing Delight Driven Homeschool:
- Consider a Charlotte Mason approach
- Don't forget online options
- Use your library!
- Incorporate Character studies whenever possible
- Take a favorite book or movie and use it as the catalyst for a unit study. For Example, Girls of American History uses American Girl books for their unit study spine and Historical Stories of Survival uses the I Survived book series.