| So you are intrigued by the concepts of project-led | | | | how small animals can become wonderful heroes in |
| learning for your child? What would a year's set of | | | | story. We will get a booklet that teaches her how to |
| projects look like for a particular student? I will share | | | | sketch animals. Her goal will be to write children's |
| with you the layout that my twelve-year-old daughter | | | | stories about animals, particularly rabbits. She will |
| presented me with and that I worked together in the | | | | create her own sketches of her story animals. She will |
| project-led learning model. This will be her seventh | | | | draw and write from her experiences with her own |
| grade year. | | | | rabbits. She will publish her children's stories with |
| First, her choices. | | | | sketches on the Internet, including on She will offer |
| Natural - raising rabbits in the back yard; Physical - play | | | | copies of her children's books for sale as part of her |
| little league baseball; Scientific - particular interesting kits | | | | business-based learning. |
| from Pitsco; Mathematical/Logical - designing and | | | | You should have seen the lights shine in her eyes |
| building toothpick bridges; Technological - robotics kits; | | | | when I shared this plan with her. |
| Literary - write short stories; Vocational - learn | | | | I then grouped together the Scientific, Technological, |
| woodworking skills; Artistic - learn to draw sketches; | | | | and Mathematical projects into a series of robotics kits, |
| Social - a country of the world project; Spiritual - go on | | | | electrical kits, and toothpick bridge kits from Pitsco with |
| a missions trip. | | | | a focus on engineering and design. |
| (Because I am the writer of Micro-Business for | | | | In addition, she will go out for little league baseball in the |
| Teenagers, she will be starting her own business on a | | | | spring. I have woodworking tools and am a |
| smaller basis as four of her fourteen projects. That | | | | woodworker, so I will teach her to make beautiful |
| leaves her with one choice from each of the ten | | | | wooden boxes. She will do the country project, but we |
| categories.) | | | | will find a girl her age in that particular country for a |
| This is her list, now I have molded it together into | | | | pen pal relationship. Because a missions trip may or |
| working relationships with adjustments that fit the | | | | may not work for an eleven-year-old, I will include her |
| reality of our family situation. | | | | in a through-the-Old-Testament devotions that I will |
| I grouped together Natural, Literary, and Artistic into this | | | | give to my whole family. If some sort of missions trip |
| layout. We will build a rabbit coup in the back yard and | | | | could work out - you bet. In addition, she will most likely |
| pick a rare and unusual breed of rabbit to buy. We will | | | | continue with her violin lessons. |
| purchase 2 or 3 rabbits for her to care for. Before she | | | | All of these projects will include study along with the |
| gets the rabbits, she will study what they need and | | | | active parts. She will be making photo-journals of her |
| how to care for them. Meanwhile, she will study the life | | | | work, some of which will be published online. |
| of Beatrix Potter and her animal stories. She will pay | | | | She will certainly learn more from this coming year's |
| close attention to Beatrix Potter's sketches and style | | | | schooling than she ever could chained to a desk doing |
| of writing. She will also read Watership Down, to see | | | | busy-work seven hours a day. |