Delight-Directed Learning With Allison
Meet Allison, fellow homeschooling mom! You can reach out to her with questions or follow along with her homeschooling and homestead life on Instagram @faithfullittlefarmhouse.
Introduce Yourself.
Hello, I’m Allison. A follower of Christ, blessed Wife to the man of my prayers, Mommy to four girls who are my absolute joy, and crazy chicken lady! Seriously- I don’t even know how many chickens I currently have! How I would describe our family is basically “Little Women” meets “Little House on the Prairie” with all these girls running around our Kansas farm and it is a complete blast!
What attracted you to homeschooling?
I was homeschooled from the 3rd grade on and homeschooling was something I always knew I was going to do with my children. I have an undeniable conviction that we as parents are to be the educators and caretakers of our children that we have been blessed with. I prayed for them and God blessed me with them, so I believe it is solely my duty to take charge of their education and train them up in Him. After all they are not really mine, but His. He has just entrusted them to me for a time. Because of this, homeschooling to me is about more than mere academics. It is about making sure first and foremost God is honored in all things in every way. I know they will not get an education that points to God in all things anywhere else. Ultimately it is about raising my girls to know Christ and God’s absolute authority and truth. Deuteronomy 6:6-9 Proverbs 22:6
What is delight-directed learning and how would you describe your philosophy of education?
My philosophy isn’t anything deep. Simply put, learning should be FUN! It doesn’t have to be super strict and structured and it certainly doesn’t have to be picture perfect pretty- though there is nothing wrong with either of those if that is what works for you! However, what learning should be is… fun! This is where delight-directed learning comes in. I love letting my girls delight in learning what they want to learn about, when they want to learn it. That makes them so excited all the time and they haven’t been burnt out being forced to learn a subject they aren’t interested in. Once a love for learning is instilled and research skills are taught, they will be unstoppable!
What does delight-directed learning look like on a day to day basis in your homeschool?
For the season we are in right now our days are based off my girls interests. It’s not that I have given them the option to structure how the day is going to go, but rather I try to pay attention to their interests and structure our learning in a way I know they will love. For example, they love music so we start our day off with “morning music time.” It’s a great time to sing and learn hymns and start our day off worshiping the Lord. It just puts everyone in a great mood. Then once breakfast and farm chores are done and baby sister goes down for a nap, we do family reading time (which they also love) that has been doubling as our history time and they love to color pictures related to what we are reading together while I read to them.
Then we do our our book work which is Math and Language Arts. We follow curriculums for this.
Science is a major interest and we basically do it all the time. We are constantly learning and talking about whatever interests them and they come to me all the time asking to look things up. Their Daddy also loves to get involved and do projects and experiments with them which is their absolute favorite! He is the best Daddy.
What does delight-directed teaching look like?
The way I teach my girls is by learning right beside them! I always like to tell my girls I love learning with them and that I will never be done learning, just like they will never be done learning. I let them pick a topic, which can be quite hard for them to decide what they want to learn about next, and we will just dive into it! They are filled with questions so we explore all. the. questions! Our favorite way to learn is to read everything we can find about the topic they chose then look up videos on YouTube about it. They get so excited already knowing what the videos are talking about and watching it really helps it to sink in. Then we go out into the world to see and observe it for real, be it space and finding the north star by themselves, or caterpillars, or frogs! Never ending things to learn even if they want to circle back to something. As they get older I’m sure we will dive into text books more strictly as I will welcome the structure and order, but for now while they are younger this approach has been wonderful.
If a homeschool mom wanted to weave delight-directed learning into her homeschool, what advice would you give?
My advice would be don’t be afraid and try it out! It can be scary at first going off a strict curriculum into wide open freedom if you haven’t done it before, but once you do, the possibilities are endless and amazing. There is nothing better than seeing your child truly seeking answers and seeing the wonder in their eyes as they understand something they wanted to know more about. One more thing I would say is to not limit them either. Just because we might not go through a text book in order page by page, doesn’t mean we don’t use them! We actually love textbooks and have them in all levels for science and history. Even though my oldest daughter is 8 years old, her favorite science textbook to learn from is a high school level biology book and will read it all by herself! Learning shouldn’t have grades or levels. When they are ready to move on, move on. If kids need more time, take more time! This goes for all subjects in my opinion.
Tell about your homeschool room.
I believe our whole home and the whole world is our learning space but we love our little school nook! When we moved in our home I knew I wanted an entire chalkboard wall and with my Husband’s help, my dream came true. We love to use it for science drawings and my girls, yet again, get SO excited when they pick out a new subject to learn because they know new pictures and facts will be on there. Then just comes the pressure for me to deliver it for them! They are always so sweet and tell me I do an awesome job. Again, it was important to me to make a cool space where it is visually appealing and something they have fun with, and they do. They know that is their room and they do all sorts of crafts and projects in there as well as just play! Creating that space for them and being their Mama and teacher is so fun for me and simply the best thing I could have ever dreamed to be.
Allison’s Favorite Resources
Using God’s word to quickly address any situation for training.
Anything from Answers in Genesis, especially Dinosaurs!
Generations. Biblical worldview resources.
Also their Podcast App: Generations with Vision.
Reach Out to Allison
You can reach out to her with questions or follow along with her homeschooling and homestead life on Instagram @faithfullittlefarmhouse. If this interview encouraged you, leave a comment to let her know how her story helped you!
