Delight based projects are an excellent way to add fun and learning into your days. Delight directed learning also helps fosters a love of learning in your children. It lets your children take control of their learning and choose to explore ideas that they are interested in.
Delight based projects take this learning one step further by then encouraging your child to design a project based on what they are learning. It helps them develop skills to stay creative, be self-starters, and grow confidence in their ability to set goals and accomplish them. I want to share with you these delight directed student planners I created so that you can use them as a tool to help your children plan their own delight directed projects.
Student Project Planners
The first page you will find in either planner, is a cover for your student’s binder. Your child can add their name to the top of the sheet. This way as they complete their projects they will have a place to store all their work. By the end of the year, this binder will also be a nice keepsake of all the projects your child worked on.
The next page provides a place for your child to keep a list of all the things they want to learn about. Anytime your child is interested in a subject or has the desire to learn more about something, jot it down on this sheet. This way your child will always have a list of thing they want to study to pick from.
After they have chosen a topic, they can use the questions I have page to make a mind map of all the things they are hoping to learn about their topic. In the middle bubble, they can write their learning topic. Then use the rest of the page to write, draw or illustrate in any other way the questions they have. I love to see all the interesting question my children have about each topic because they are often questions I would never think to ask.
I love to see all the interesting question my children have about each topic because they are often questions I would never think to ask.
When I do delight based projects with my kids I only give them a few guidelines. I ask them to learn about something they want and then to create a “project” to present to our family at the end of two weeks.
This calendar is a way for them to help themselves schedule any tasks they need to. Which helps them complete their projects when they were asked to. If you want to focus on a topic for more than two weeks, you can simply print more than one calendar page.
The resource page provides a place your child can keep track of what resources they have and would like to use. Depending on your child’s age they might not write these down. It’s also perfectly okay to just grab books off the library shelf.
The what I am learning pages and notes pages are just a place for your child to write down anything they feel inspired to. If they have an interesting fact they learned that they want to remember or a diagram they want to sketch out these blank pages provides space to do that.
At some point as your child is learning, they will probably start to get ideas of what they want to do for their project. This page will help them keep track of all those great project ideas.
I almost hesitate to use the word project because I feel like lots of times as adults, we think of a poster board or power point but this can be anything that will present the information they have learned. I’ll share some projects my kids have chosen just to give you an idea of how different they can be.
When my daughter learned about tornados her project was leading our family in a practice tornado drill. For her human body project, she traced her body onto paper and made a diagram of all the organs in her body. When she was learning about simple machines she had my husband help her make a zip line out of K’xex. Really, your childs imagination should be the only limit on their project.
After they have gathered their project ideas, they will probably be ready to choose one. This sheet gives a place for them to write down any ideas they have about their project.
Don’t worry about what your child decides to do for their project. What is most important is that they feel like their project is their own. Avoid making suggestions and guiding your child’s project. Let this be their own thing.
Once, my son (4) chose to learn about horses. For his project, he basically just pranced around our living room for a few minutes. But you know what, he still learned a ton about horses and he was proud of the “project” he presented and that’s what really matters.
If your child is older and their project is more complex, they may want to list the steps they will need to do to create their project. This page will help them break their project down into smaller more manageable steps.
If your child is a visual learner they may appreciate having a place to sketch out their design for their project. The project sketch place provides the perfect place to do so.
I hope that this planning pack will be a great asset to you and your child as they create their own delight based projects. Remember that the pages in this packet are used to help your child as they plan and create their project. Don’t feel the need to require them to complete all the pages or any if they don’t find it helpful.
Feel free to download either color of the project planner by clicking the text below. Enjoy!
This is so awesome! My kids & I are excited to try this! I’m thinking it’s a much more fun approach to a unit study than what we tried last year.
Do you use this as your basis for homeschool, or is this just one small part for your family?
Also, do you have any sort of chart or system for tracking what topics they’ve studied, projects they’ve done, or what they’ve learned from them?
Thanks!
I started doing these projects with my kiddos last year in place of our science and history curriculum that wasn’t working out for us. I was tired of trying to get them to enjoy learning the curriculum I had chosen for them and wanted to spark a love of learning in them. All I could think to do was to try to give them more choice in what they learned and how they learned it. Thankfully, it worked out 🙂
We do these projects in addition to more formal curriculum. In the mornings, we do math, reading, l.a, spelling and scriptures. It usually only takes about 1 1/2 hours then we break till lunch. After lunch we MFW adventures but that doesn’t take very long either. So we finish our formal day in early afternoon this gives them plenty of time to work on their projects or do anything else they want.
I haven’t tracked what topics they do, but it might be a good idea to keep a list. I do usually take pictures of their projects or sometimes video their presentations but mostly just because I’m proud of what they come up with.
Another fun idea would be to keep a scrapbook of different projects they do. Maybe with a picture and a paragraph about what they did and learned. Then at the end of the year you would have a nice portfolio of your work. If you come up with a good idea I would love to hear. Good luck with your studies! I hope your kids have a great time learning!