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I am looking to change the way we learn to a child directed system like some of you have found successful. My question is easy, or maybe not. How do you know what the kids are interested in if they don't tell you? My kids usually wait for me to give direction then run with it, they don't often show a distinct preference for one subject or another.
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thats what I'm doing too, I started getting more montessorri stuff, so they have to play with other things. But I'm still trying to get them to clean up. -
Give them 2 options.
It works for almost anything. As far as discipline, it works for a little while, then they learn to give you the answer you want, but for activities, it works great. Trust me, if they don't like the activities you are offering, they'll ask for something different. Never ask open- ended, like, "What do you want to play with?" Ask like, "Do you want to play with (option 1), or (option 2)?"Comment
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My activities usually start with a question from a child. For instance, right now we are learning about polar bears and arctic ice, as well as the effect of global warming. A child said to me " I saw on tv that the ice is melting and breaking. What happens to the Polar Bears when the ice goes away?" And then, It was on! We have watched videos from wwf, frozen big pans of ice - added polar animals and let the kids play with it while it melted and cracked, added books, puppets, etc. We have just begun, and will continue for awhile. Our last study was about bodies, a child told me "I wish I could go inside myself to see what I look like inside" WOW! Our study went on for several months and the children learned so much. Take your kids lead, listen to what they say, sit back and observe and listen to their conversations with each other......then grab onto something and go for it!Comment
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i'm still fairly new at this, but for me, ive noticed that you really have to listen. listen to how they play, what they talk about, how they interact with each other. observe what they play with, and how they play with it. my group is very young right now (all 2 and under), so they arent really asking the "questions" yet, like crystal described. but i see what they play with and seem to enjoy, and i take it from there. (they've been hooked on trains for 2 months now)
because they are still young, sometimes i'll put something out, just to see if it sparks an interest. for example, this week i put out a large cardboard box and painted it brown, thinking maybe it could be a bear den. but we'll see what it actually ends up, and it may go in an entirely new direction.
now with the SA, they do ask questions, and i build special "studies" for them. they are REALLY into snowboarding right now, so we are learning alot about that, and the winter olympics. (even though its not an olympic year). their topics seem to last a long time too, cause they're not here as much, and they do like to do other things as well. there's no school next week, so we are going to visit a ski shop. (i happen to not have any little ones next week either, so field trips here we come!!!!
) i'm not ready to take them skiing for real, too dangerous for me
but we have just as much fun snowboarding on a big hill at my inlaws house.
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I observe children and write down what they're talking about. Like on Tuesday they were all very interested in the change in weather (yay for 60 degrees!). So today we did a couple of activities about weather and we'll do more stuff next week.
Another thing my children have really been enjoying is the book Little Bunny Foo Foo, so earlier this week we made mud pies and acted out the the story (tore up brown construction paper to be the mud and put it in a bucket, then each child pretended to be the bunny while we all sang the song).
So, I just try to notice what they're into. That works well for preschool age group and younger. I've also done webbing with older preschool children (3.5-5) and school agers where I might notice something they're interested in (say, playing cats and dogs) and we together will draw out a web on paper and just talk about cats and dogs and what they know about them. That way it's easier to get at what exactly they are interested in.
With school agers you can observe them and have them tell you what they're interested in.Comment
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