x-post: Logistics of following rabbit trails

[elegantlion]

I like rabbit trails, deviating in the schedule, and the discussions and learning that follow.

 

However, I'm fighting my personality in the logistics. Yesterday ds and I took an easy to do some clean up and errands. Then he asked to watch some videos on the history of aviation. Great! We spent 2 hours watching. Nice rabbit trail in history. However, we're doing Asian history this year, no where near what we watched yesterday.

 

This is one of my first experiences with deviating so far away from the schedule. We do history 3x/week. So on Wednesday do I go back to what was planned for history this week or do we sit down and watch move videos (there's about 5 more hours in the set)? My son is compliant about doing things and doesn't always vocalize that he'd rather do something else. I'm trying to get better at recognizing these opportunities.

 

So if you deviate like this, do you allow the interest to run its course and scrap the schedule? Try to do both? My challenge with both is that we are already at his peak number of hours and his free time is more devoted to other interests.

[regentrude]

I'll try to balance these things. To me, the purpose of education is not to compartmentalize and "do Asian history" this year and not learn about other interesting things. Yes, I have a plan what we focus on - but if my DC get side tracked, I let them explore.

With DS who is not in high school yet, he gets to study whatever he wants. We started out with Earth science, came to the ocean and are now doing a detour through marine biology. I would feel bad telling him "you can't study this because I had planned we study geology"- I want to foster his curiosity.

With DD who is accumulating high school credit, I just make sure she does enough in the focus field for which I award her credit (for her, Ancient history). If she, however, feels the urge to explore Renaissance Art, she may. Either it will turn out that she accumulates enough work on the subject to make it the next focus (and design a course for it), or she just spends time on it. I have only scheduled five credits for DD, which leaves plenty of time for her to explore rabbit trails. We evaluate periodically if we got lost in too many rabbit trails and did not do enough work on the focus subjects- and then readjust focus.

[elegantlion]

I'll try to balance these things. To me, the purpose of education is not to compartmentalize and "do Asian history" this year and not learn about other interesting things. Yes, I have a plan what we focus on - but if my DC get side tracked, I let them explore.

With DS who is not in high school yet, he gets to study whatever he wants. We started out with Earth science, came to the ocean and are now doing a detour through marine biology. I would feel bad telling him "you can't study this because I had planned we study geology"- I want to foster his curiosity.

With DD who is accumulating high school credit, I just make sure she does enough in the focus field for which I award her credit (for her, Ancient history). If she, however, feels the urge to explore Renaissance Art, she may. Either it will turn out that she accumulates enough work on the subject to make it the next focus (and design a course for it), or she just spends time on it. I have only scheduled five credits for DD, which leaves plenty of time for her to explore rabbit trails. We evaluate periodically if we got lost in too many rabbit trails and did not do enough work on the focus subjects- and then readjust focus.

 

Thank you. My natural inclination is to just add it on to the schedule instead of substituting. We're fighting a lot of temporary external issues that gives us a set amount of focus each day. Balance, balance, balance, thank you for the reminder.

[Guest TheBugsMom]

What I am doing with my dd (5yrs) this year will be similar with what I do with my son next year (who will be in 9th). I make a list of key people/places/ events I want studied for the time period and make sure these get studied. From the study on these events and people I know rabbit trails will be followed and more might be found out. I also don't think every event/person we study will lead to a rabbit trail. I made sure the amount of time needed to study the list of events/people will not be a complete school year because I know rabbit trails will come up. If for some reason we need more time, then we will just work until we finish our list and our rabbit trails. I plan on schooling year round for High School and if needed take 5 yrs to do it.

[Nan in Mass]

I tend to let the interest run its course. I look at what we should have been doing (if it is a textbook) and catch back up by just-reading the important bits. If it is math, I make it up. I have a bunch of subjects that have no deadlines, and those get skipped to make room for the rabbit trails. Basically, it takes forever to do anything and we seldom finish anything, which is somewhat frustrating at times. On the other hand, my children's education is their education and is this is one way for them to control it. If all else fails, we do it as summer reading. Mine always have a fair amount of catch-up work to do anyway, because of travelling, so if I add a bit of catch-up due to rabbit trails, it generally isn't noticable. I don't want it to seem like rabbit trails are a bad thing. I am constantly readjusting. Rabbit trails work best with TWTM stuff, which seems to accommodate them better than anything else I've run across.

 

-Nan

[elegantlion]

What I am doing with my dd (5yrs) this year will be similar with what I do with my son next year (who will be in 9th). I make a list of key people/places/ events I want studied for the time period and make sure these get studied. From the study on these events and people I know rabbit trails will be followed and more might be found out. I also don't think every event/person we study will lead to a rabbit trail. I made sure the amount of time needed to study the list of events/people will not be a complete school year because I know rabbit trails will come up. If for some reason we need more time, then we will just work until we finish our list and our rabbit trails. I plan on schooling year round for High School and if needed take 5 yrs to do it.

 

Yes, I think planning was part of my issue. We started school late this year and I planned history in detail, probably too much in hindsight. The aviation is a long standing interest that pops up every once in a while, starting at age 7 when he proclaimed he wanted to fly jets and land on aircraft carriers. :001_huh:

 

My future plans have included lots of free time to pursue in the scope of those subjects. I shouldn't panic if those trails lead us down what I thought was a different path. If we were in the Wizard of Oz I'd be all set to go down the yellow brick road, ds would want to go down the red brick (probably Lego brick) road and I'd be scrambling behind trying to make new plan in his wake.

 

I tend to let the interest run its course. I look at what we should have been doing (if it is a textbook) and catch back up by just-reading the important bits. If it is math, I make it up. I have a bunch of subjects that have no deadlines, and those get skipped to make room for the rabbit trails. Basically, it takes forever to do anything and we seldom finish anything, which is somewhat frustrating at times. On the other hand, my children's education is their education and is this is one way for them to control it. If all else fails, we do it as summer reading. Mine always have a fair amount of catch-up work to do anyway, because of travelling, so if I add a bit of catch-up due to rabbit trails, it generally isn't noticable. I don't want it to seem like rabbit trails are a bad thing. I am constantly readjusting. Rabbit trails work best with TWTM stuff, which seems to accommodate them better than anything else I've run across.

 

-Nan

 

It's nice to hear about the seldom finishing, that's one of my character flaws I've been trying to improve, so I tend to hyper focus on the need to stick to a plan. You're right I'm not truly that invested into finishing Asian History, but I am committed to finishing his education. I need to probably take a chill pill and refocus on the overall goal.

 

Deep breath, balance, go out and look at the sky...:chillpill:

[Guest]

I'll try to balance these things. To me, the purpose of education is not to compartmentalize and "do Asian history" this year and not learn about other interesting things. Yes, I have a plan what we focus on - but if my DC get side tracked, I let them explore.

With DS who is not in high school yet, he gets to study whatever he wants. We started out with Earth science, came to the ocean and are now doing a detour through marine biology. I would feel bad telling him "you can't study this because I had planned we study geology"- I want to foster his curiosity.

With DD who is accumulating high school credit, I just make sure she does enough in the focus field for which I award her credit (for her, Ancient history). If she, however, feels the urge to explore Renaissance Art, she may. Either it will turn out that she accumulates enough work on the subject to make it the next focus (and design a course for it), or she just spends time on it. I have only scheduled five credits for DD, which leaves plenty of time for her to explore rabbit trails. We evaluate periodically if we got lost in too many rabbit trails and did not do enough work on the focus subjects- and then readjust focus.

 

:iagree: most heartily with all this, which is wonderfully said. I'm just having some trouble actually carrying it out without massive feelings of anxiety.

 

On the other hand, dd has such strong feelings about what she wants to learn that there's no way I could rigidly enforce something I'd planned out; nor would I want to. I swear dd has a brain setting labeled "sieve" that she can turn off and on when she chooses. So I can teach the most brilliant, carefully planned lessons, but if she's not interested I may as well not have bothered. It will turn out she already knows much of it anyway, as she seems besides the "sieve" or "drain" setting to have one other setting, which is "osmosis." Sometimes I swear it's like she's learning from the air around her.

[Corraleno]

I'll try to balance these things. To me, the purpose of education is not to compartmentalize and "do Asian history" this year and not learn about other interesting things. Yes, I have a plan what we focus on - but if my DC get side tracked, I let them explore.

I tend to let the interest run its course.

:iagree:

I've found (the hard way) that it's much better to let DS follow his interests than try to set them aside, or rush him through them to get back to "our regularly scheduled programming."

 

And this is why:

 

I swear dd has a brain setting labeled "sieve" that she can turn off and on when she chooses. So I can teach the most brilliant, carefully planned lessons, but if she's not interested I may as well not have bothered. It will turn out she already knows much of it anyway, as she seems besides the "sieve" or "drain" setting to have one other setting, which is "osmosis." Sometimes I swear it's like she's learning from the air around her.

This cracks me up, because DS has the exact same two settings. Last year, when I was trying to pound stuff into him with textbooks, his brain was set on sieve pretty much all year. :glare: OTOH, he picked up all kinds of amazing things by osmosis, and I have no idea where he learned most of it. :confused:

 

I'm already having to redo a lot of my planned schedule for this year because I just found out that I've been hired to completely redesign a small museum of paleontology. It will involve doing all the research and writing, designing the graphics and exhibits, ordering the panels and cases, overseeing the installation, writing/designing/printing the brochures and educational materials, etc. So DS is going to be doing an unexpected/unscheduled Museum Studies course this year! He did a lot of paleo last year on his own, so I was going to take a break from it this year and push through Ancient & Medieval history, plus cover some physics & chemistry (which tends to get neglected around here in favor of biology & geology). But because of this job, and the fact that we'll need to be on-site a lot this year, I'm thinking it makes more sense to just let this year focus on bio/geo/paleo again, and push the chem & physics to next year. And considering DS's obsession with all things Greek, we may not even make it to the Middle Ages this year! But he's really enjoying it and learning so much more than he did last year, that it really seems like this is what works for him and I need to just go with it.

 

Jackie

[Nan in Mass]

We're seive-brained here. That is part of how I wound up homeschooling the way I did - I could spend all our time reviewing so as to not lose the old information, or I could go on to new information and not worry too much about the hopeless job of not losing the old stuff - another balance point, but one I pushed rather far towards new material/skills rather than memorize/review.

 

About the endless ancients... I comfort myself that they are more likely to learn modern history and literature later on in life. My husband and father read history for fun.

 

What a cool project, your museum job!

 

-Nan

[Corraleno]

What a cool project, your museum job!

It's a crazy amount of work and not much pay, but the main reason I took it is because DS has wanted to work in a museum since he was little — when other kids were building castles and fire stations with their blocks, he was building museums. I took him to the Natural History Museum in London when he was 5, and he spent weeks afterwards "redesigning" their exhibits, lol. So I figured this was a rare opportunity for him to see the whole process from start to finish. Not to mention all the extra dig time he can have while I'm on site. Right now he thinks I'm the coolest mama in the history of the world. :D

 

Jackie

[elegantlion]

Your museum job does sound very cool. What an awesome opportunity. We've had a few sieve moments lately. Fortunately it was after watching the aviation videos where he shared from his knowledge about all the weaponry we saw during the video. I was packing a few books from history that we used a few years ago. I asked ds if he remembered using them. Nope, not a thing.

 

I reminded dh this is why I need a large reference library. Our local system is small and fairly pathetic and I want to have resources on hand.

[Nan in Mass]

: )

I agree with your son. He is a lucky child. You are obviously well matched.

 

I always found it amusing to take my bunch to the MFA. The youngest was obsessed with Egypt. The middle one wanted to see the Greek section. And the oldest spent his time trying to figure out how the security cameras worked and being amazed at how beautiful the doors were. (They are beautiful - huge panes of glass with a pin top and bottom slightly in from the edge. Very cool. I always wished I could tell whoever designed them that somebody, at least, noticed and appreciated them in more than a background sort of way.)

-Nan

[Guest]

Jackie, that is the coolest thing EVER. I hope you'll have time to keep us all updated, both on what you're doing and how your son is participating and what he finds most interesting about it all. Dd used to make doll museums, museums of objects her dad brought home from his travels, and on one memorable occasion when she was three, a bandaid (used) and toilet paper (thankfully, unused) museum. I found it under her bed.

[Corraleno]

I reminded dh this is why I need a large reference library. Our local system is small and fairly pathetic and I want to have resources on hand.

:iagree:

I think a good reference library is really important when we take this approach to homeschooling. DS is studying classical warfare & weaponry on his own, and following all the little rabbit trails that leads into; having enough references on hand so that he's able to look up pretty much anything he thinks of, as soon as he thinks of it, maintains momentum and leads to further bunny trails and connections. If he had to write down his questions, then try to find resources in our local library, then wait for me to find time to take him downtown to the big library, etc., too many of those trails would go cold, the questions would go unanswered, and the connections wouldn't be made.

 

Last night we watched the new Attenborough documentary, "First Life," and I constantly had to hit "pause" because DS was adding to the commentary, explaining various Cambrian creatures in more depth, describing other key paleo sites not mentioned, etc. ALL of that was self-taught. He's always had access to lots of documentaries and paleo books at all levels (he even had college level books when he was a toddler; he couldn't read them but he looked at the pictures and asked questions). He can still describe, in great detail, things he saw in documentaries he watched when he was 5 or 6. I don't know what I was thinking last year when I tried to totally circumvent the way he learns and force him into a standard (strictly structured, textbook based) educational box. It was about as effective as deciding that my dog will just have to be a cat from now on!

 

Jackie

[Corraleno]

Dd used to make doll museums, museums of objects her dad brought home from his travels, and on one memorable occasion when she was three, a bandaid (used) and toilet paper (thankfully, unused) museum. I found it under her bed.

:lol: Aren't these kids interesting? For all the stress and hassle, I wouldn't trade my quirky kids for anything. They're truly two of the most interesting people I've ever met in my life; they've expanded my horizons so much and made my life so much richer. (I only think about boarding school once or twice a month. :tongue_smilie: )

 

Jackie

[Nan in Mass]

I guess we all have to try the cat-dog thing. Sigh. At least you tried it fairly young. Are you a Calvin and Hobbs fan? Once, when I was reading the comic, I had a revelation. You probably already know this, and so did I, in theory, but I couldn't really see how it worked. It had to do with Calvin and bubble gum. that series made me realize that often times the childhood things that one does, like learn every magic trick one can find or every yoyo trick or everything about dinosaurs, are practice for doing something similar as a grownup, and that it doesn't really matter what one does it with as a child; what matters is that one does it. Totally obvious, I know, but there is a difference between knowing it and feeling it. What your son is doing is going to stand him in good stead, no matter what he does ultimately. It would be hard to improve on what he is doing, actually. Add to it, perhaps, but improve on it? Probably not. It is even something that he can do as an adult, not something like bubble gum.

Nothing like reinventing the wheel, hunh? I discovered that childhood hobbies are important. Sigh.

: )

-Nan

Edited October 27, 2010 by Nan in Mass

[elegantlion]

:iagree:

I think a good reference library is really important when we take this approach to homeschooling. DS is studying classical warfare & weaponry on his own, and following all the little rabbit trails that leads into; having enough references on hand so that he's able to look up pretty much anything he thinks of, as soon as he thinks of it, maintains momentum and leads to further bunny trails and connections. If he had to write down his questions, then try to find resources in our local library, then wait for me to find time to take him downtown to the big library, etc., too many of those trails would go cold, the questions would go unanswered, and the connections wouldn't be made.

 

 

Jackie

 

Can you recommend a good resource for non-modern weaponry? Something with lot of pictures. Are the DK books, like Warrior, good? We seem to have plenty of books on Civil War and up.

 

:lol: Aren't these kids interesting? For all the stress and hassle, I wouldn't trade my quirky kids for anything. They're truly two of the most interesting people I've ever met in my life; they've expanded my horizons so much and made my life so much richer. (I only think about boarding school once or twice a month. :tongue_smilie: )

 

Jackie

 

:iagree:I really thought when we started this journey it would look very different. I'm glad it's not the way I initially envisioned.

[Ester Maria]

So if you deviate like this, do you allow the interest to run its course and scrap the schedule? Try to do both? My challenge with both is that we are already at his peak number of hours and his free time is more devoted to other interests.

Formal schooling =/= the totality of all learning. I'm one of those that separate the two even in the homeschooling setting, where many people take the opposite approach, by somehow integrating all - or most - of the house learning. I don't do that, we have "school" and we have "non-school" learning, as well as some grey areas where some school hours can be used for going slightly off-school.

 

Do I "allow" the interests to run their course? Absolutely. In your free time.

 

Is there a way to tie them to "school"? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. I tend to give a lot of liberty with regards to essay topics, for example. Essays are, by default, written on something you know slightly more about than what's covered as a part of "school", i.e. they by default involve some independent research. So, it makes a lot of sense to me that a child who found some aspect of what we're learning about can expand on it in their free time and then tie to school by choosing to write their essay on that particular topic.

 

My children are ALWAYS welcome to learn more, explore more, be it on their own, in chevruta with me, with somebody else, however they wish. However, there is a certain scheme I adhere to and while I plan in advance that SOME deviation will occur at some point (I always add some 10% of the hours per subject for unproductive days, the need to catch up or clear up on something, etc., so I group deviations out of interest there too), of course that most of deviations from the scheme end up in free time learning as the basic contents we're going through are not a subject to (a lot of) modifications once agreed upon and made.

[Corraleno]

Can you recommend a good resource for non-modern weaponry? Something with lot of pictures. Are the DK books, like Warrior, good? We seem to have plenty of books on Civil War and up.

Warrior is great, and very well illustrated. I also like that it covers non-Western cultures, like Japanese Samurai, Maori, Inca, Mongols, etc. For classical warfare, DS really likes Warfare in the Classical World, although it's not as well illustrated or modern looking as Warrior. It was originally published in the UK in 1980 and has a rather dated look with a LOT of text (3 columns/page), but the information is very detailed and yet still accessible to a 12 yo. It covers things like the structure of ships and naval tactics which don't get a lot of coverage in other books, and includes very detailed explanations and illustrations of the specific tactics used in many well-known battles. Another book that has great illustrations of specific battles is Battles That Changed History. I picked this up at Borders in the Bargain Books section where they often have reprints of "coffee table books" previously published in the UK or Australia. It seems to be hard to find (not on Amazon), but I linked to a copy on Alibris. Important battles are illustrated in beautiful full-color 2-page spreads, and it includes lots of large, full color illustrations of the battles in paintings and sculpture of the time, as well as line drawings of various warriors, arms, weapons, etc. Great book if you can get ahold of a copy! If your DS is interested in siege engines, Ancient and Medieval Siege Weapons is a really well-researched, but still accessible, text. Most of the illustrations are B&W, but there is a section of color illustrations in the center of the book that are really terrific and show the various weapons in use. And on the off chance that you don't already have it, The Art of the Catapult: Build Greek Ballistae, Roman Onagers, English Trebuchets, and More Ancient Artillery is a must.

 

ETA: I didn't like DK's Arms & Armor book, which I returned to Amazon. Too little text or useful information. The Warrior book, although also published by DK, is not one of the "Eyewitness" series books; it's much meatier (360 pp) and more like a very well-illustrated textbook.

 

Jackie

Edited October 27, 2010 by Corraleno

[elegantlion]

Formal schooling =/= the totality of all learning. I'm one of those that separate the two even in the homeschooling setting, where many people take the opposite approach, by somehow integrating all - or most - of the house learning. I don't do that, we have "school" and we have "non-school" learning, as well as some grey areas where some school hours can be used for going slightly off-school.

 

Do I "allow" the interests to run their course? Absolutely. In your free time.

 

 

Thank you, I appreciate your insight. I read your posts and always envision a wonderful atmosphere of learning and discovery in your home.

 

My son does have some varied interests that he pursues in his free time, however most of them fall into those grey areas. I wish he was a student who would pick an academic topic and explore on his own. I'm fighting a few objections including some that are my fault, some genetic, some household atmosphere, and some discipline issues. In our first few years of homeschooling I smothered his love of learning. It's taken us a few years for it to return and I'm ever cautious about not letting the flickering flame die. My fear, based upon some past experiences, is that if I tell him to do it on his own time, he would never finish.

 

We have core subjects that are required, non-negotiable. Although history is required, I'm feeling better about allowing some variation.

 

Warrior is great, and very well illustrated. I also like that it covers non-Western cultures, like Japanese Samurai, Maori, Inca, Mongols, etc. For classical warfare, DS really likes Warfare in the Classical World, although it's not as well illustrated or modern looking as Warrior. It was originally published in the UK in 1980 and has a rather dated look with a LOT of text (3 columns/page), but the information is very detailed and yet still accessible to a 12 yo. It covers things like the structure of ships and naval tactics which don't get a lot of coverage in other books, and includes very detailed explanations and illustrations of the specific tactics used in many well-known battles. Another book that has great illustrations of specific battles is Battles That Changed History. I picked this up at Borders in the Bargain Books section where they often have reprints of "coffee table books" previously published in the UK or Australia. It seems to be hard to find (not on Amazon), but I linked to a copy on Alibris. Important battles are illustrated in beautiful full-color 2-page spreads, and it includes lots of large, full color illustrations of the battles in paintings and sculpture of the time, as well as line drawings of various warriors, arms, weapons, etc. Great book if you can get ahold of a copy! If your DS is interested in siege engines, Ancient and Medieval Siege Weapons is a really well-researched, but still accessible, text. Most of the illustrations are B&W, but there is a section of color illustrations in the center of the book that are really terrific and show the various weapons in use. And on the off chance that you don't already have it, The Art of the Catapult: Build Greek Ballistae, Roman Onagers, English Trebuchets, and More Ancient Artillery is a must.

 

ETA: I didn't like DK's Arms & Armor book, which I returned to Amazon. Too little text or useful information. The Warrior book, although also published by DK, is not one of the "Eyewitness" series books; it's much meatier (360 pp) and more like a very well-illustrated textbook.

 

Jackie

 

Thank you. I have the DK Visual History book, which I love. I'm glad to hear the Warrior book is in that vein. I'll look into the other suggestions.

[swimmermom3]

:iagree:

I've found (the hard way) that it's much better to let DS follow his interests than try to set them aside, or rush him through them to get back to "our regularly scheduled programming."

 

And this is why:

 

 

This cracks me up, because DS has the exact same two settings. Last year, when I was trying to pound stuff into him with textbooks, his brain was set on sieve pretty much all year. :glare: OTOH, he picked up all kinds of amazing things by osmosis, and I have no idea where he learned most of it. :confused:

 

I'm already having to redo a lot of my planned schedule for this year because I just found out that I've been hired to completely redesign a small museum of paleontology. It will involve doing all the research and writing, designing the graphics and exhibits, ordering the panels and cases, overseeing the installation, writing/designing/printing the brochures and educational materials, etc. So DS is going to be doing an unexpected/unscheduled Museum Studies course this year! He did a lot of paleo last year on his own, so I was going to take a break from it this year and push through Ancient & Medieval history, plus cover some physics & chemistry (which tends to get neglected around here in favor of biology & geology). But because of this job, and the fact that we'll need to be on-site a lot this year, I'm thinking it makes more sense to just let this year focus on bio/geo/paleo again, and push the chem & physics to next year. And considering DS's obsession with all things Greek, we may not even make it to the Middle Ages this year! But he's really enjoying it and learning so much more than he did last year, that it really seems like this is what works for him and I need to just go with it.

 

Jackie

 

Jackie, I just now found this. What an amazing opportunity for both you and your son. Please do keep us posted on what you are doing and how it is advancing.