Project-Led Learning

Project-Led Learning is a different and novel approach to education during the middle years of a child's life. Rather than sit at a desk doing busy-work, the child learns about the world he or she lives in by doing things that are interesting and relevant to the child.

If you are looking for something active for your 11 to 14 year-old child, something that combines real learning with making things and fixing things and growing things, then continue reading.

YGuide Academy is developing a full project-led learning approach to these middle years. Get in on the excitement and learn with us.

This is what I am doing with my own children.

If you are intrigued by the concept and would like our assistance in helping you develop a project-led educational program for your middle school child, then please, send us an email. [I will never use your email for any other purpose than this private communication.]

Note: I write these guides towards the mind and abilities of an 8th grade student. If you would like to use the Project Guides for a child younger than 7th grade, or older than 9th grade, feel free to do so. To purchase the completed guides: Individual Project Guides For Sale

Project-Led Learning: What Is It?

In the past, age twelve was a special time in a child’s life. At that age a child exploreed the work world of his or her heritage. The twelve-year-old learned the real work of adulthood, by being apprenticed to some trade and shouldering real responsibilities.

Younger children usually love school and learning, but by age twelve, children become bored and tired of sitting at a desk seven hours a day, going back over the same subjects dressed in a new textbook all over again. It can be argued that of all the years a child spends in school, the least amount of real learning takes place in the 7th and 8th grades. A twelve-year-old child and a school desk were never meant to be together.

How should a twelve-year-old learn?

By doing things, by fixing things, by growing things, by raising things, by building things, by creating, by nurturing, by running and shouting. By doing things that add value to the world and are important to the people in his or her life.

A Better Way
YGuide Academy offers a different way to learn for eleven to fourteen-year-old students. This answer is a set of projects that directs the middle school student to explore the real world in interesting and active ways. The result is a much greater involvement by the child in his or her own learning, greatly reducing the need for supervision during the high school years and the subsequent costs of education to the parents.

Project-led learning bridges from the structured elementary years to the character-driven high school years. It turns the junior high years from a time of boredom and frustration into a time of wonder and excitement. It is not a time of playing; much will be expected of the junior high student. Those privileged students who get this chance to do projects will look back on their junior high years as the most significant in all their years of school.

Project-Led Learning: How Does It Work?
Students following the model of Project-Led Learning do no (or very few) regular academic courses. Their academics come as necessary building blocks in a series of projects they do.

For each school year, the student chooses 10 projects. (Fewer if the child is under 12.) He or she spends around 100 hours on each project (some will occupy more time). Because of the nature of some projects, the school year can include the entire twelve months of the calendar year.

Some projects are completed within a several-week period, others extend over the entire year, (animal husbandry, for instance). The student is engaged in no more than four projects at one time. Before starting another project, the student completes at least one of those four projects.

The students select their projects from ten Project Categories. At least one project from each category should be selected.

The student can connect projects in a series of similar things. For example, say a student selects “growing an herb garden” under the Natural category. Then, the student extends that interest into the Science category, by studying both the physical botany of herbs and the chemical make-up of the oils obtained from herbs (both could make one project). Finally, the student chooses to make an oil distillery either for the Technology project or even the Vocational project.

With a variety of projects the student receives a broad view of the possibilities that life offers. Every project selected should be one the student believes he or she is really interested in. Even in categories that the student deems less interesting, a project could be devised that truly interests the student.

The ten basic categories will not be changed. However, each category may be interpreted very broadly as to what could be included. The projects listed beneath each category are suggestions only. Any project that could conceivably fall under the category and that can fulfill the project requirements will be considered for acceptance.

Project-Led Learning: Project Categories
(suggested possibilities)

Natural

• Take care of an animal (could include a 4-H project).
• Study wild plants or animals of the local region.
• Mark off an area in the back yard and woods and study the ecology of all life found in that area.
• Plant and tend a garden.
• Plant, tend, and gather herbs.

Physical

• Learn and play football.
• Learn and play basketball.
• Learn and play baseball.
• Learn swimming.
• Learn and play golf.
• Learn a style of dance.

Scientific

• Purchase a science kit and do experiments (chemistry, geology, etc.).
• Obtain a telescope and learn astronomy.
• Purchase a microscope and learn about cell structure and one-celled animals.

Mathematical/Logical

• Learn to play chess.
• Design a bridge - construct a model.
• Purchase a book of math puzzles and work them out

Technological

• Build robotic devices from kits.
• Build electronic devices from kits.
• Build a computer.
• Make a movie focusing on the equipment used.
• Study photography, focusing on the equipment used.

Literary

• Read Great Books.
• Write short stories.
• Write poetry.
• Write and publish a newsletter. (This newsletter could be directly related to a project from a different category that you found very interesting.) 

Artistic

• Paint pictures.
• Draw sketches.
• Play an instrument, join a band, or sing in a choir.
• Learn a style of dance. (Note that this also falls under Physical.)
• Learn acting with a theater group.
• Take pictures, focusing on the artistic side of photography.

Social

• Read quality historical fiction.
• Read biographies.
• Do a geography project.
• Study a people group.
• Do a country of the world project.
• Explore your local city and area.

Spiritual or Moral/Contemplative

• Spend time in Bible, religious or moral studies, prayer and praise, or contemplation.
• Do ministry with your local church, synagogue, or other community group.
• Go on a mission trip or a trip to another country to work with people in need.
• Help the poor nearby - food bank, etc.
• Do a study project on a great moral or religious figure.
• Read great inspirational books.

Important Point:

Please understand, for a child's healthy development through the ages of 11,12, and 13, it is not in any way necessary to be bound to reams of academic learning. They already know basic reading, writing, and arithmetic; they will lose nothing by not being forced to repeat these academic exercises.

A child who spends these middle years doing, making, growing, building, fixing things will enter later rigorous academic environments with way more inside of them than their fellow students.

Guaranteed!

Individual Project Guides For Sale