Project-Based Home-Learning

When your child literally climbs the walls, it’s time to think beyond online learning.

On Day One of homeschool I had no idea what was going on. On Day Two, I started noticing patterns. On Day Three, I was getting the hang of it. By Day Six, I was an expert… or so I thought. Then I witnessed my 8-year old son climbing the walls within minutes of starting his online class — it was at that point that I realised more needed to be done to engage him (and my other two children) during this difficult time.

Firstly, let me acknowledge that life is very hard at the moment. Yes, the world is falling apart! Yes, everything has come to a grinding halt; and yes, remote online school is not working for my kids. Nevertheless, all this disruption seems like an opportunity to work out how to do stuff differently and not just attempt to replicate real life on Zoom. We could actually do it differently, find ways to innovate.

So, frustrated that online learning wasn’t fulfilling my kids’ needs I decided to take matters into my own hands and implement a project-based curriculum.

Sadly, I was under the illusion that it was going to be easy…

I needed to find a project that would engage the kids in something mathsy, with a bit of science and some English thrown in for good measure. This was like an Olympic diver trying a reverse four-and-a-half somersault in the pike position (degree of difficulty 4.8) because, not only was I trying to do interdisciplinary project-based learning, I was also trying to do it across a tricky group of different ages: my 14- and 11-year-old daughters and my 8-year-old son.

So, faced with a problem that was a too big and too complex for me to solve, I turned to the users and asked them what they wanted to do. The fourteen-year-old argued that, in a world of isolation and restricted access to essentials, the biggest concern was where their next meal was going to come from. Apparently in addition to being the Principal of my own homeschool, I was also the proprietor of a new 24-hour cafe, complete with coffee machine. So, based on the need to survive the current global pandemic, we decided to raise our own cattle. Sadly, despite Australia having relatively low-density living we do not have enough room in our suburban dwelling for the humane rearing of cattle (never mind their humane consumption). This limitation was just the thing our innovation needed — a pivot — turning our original idea to the more achievable project of building a veggie garden. I was sure this would satisfy the cross-curricular and cross-age criteria!

Step one: Where would the veggie garden go? The 11-year-old was all over this and after doing the research online found out that growing veggies in the Australian Autumn needed as much sunlight as possible. Great! This seemed like a perfect task for my 14-year-old to calculate and no sooner than I had finished making that suggestion, she tendered her resignation from the project preferring instead to decorate (read: graffiti) the veggie garden once it was complete. One task presented, one student down. This might actually be tougher than I thought.

Fortunately, my overachieving 11-year-old seconded her friend into the project so we were back to three eager students. On reflection I thought perhaps calculating how much sunlight fell in the yard was too difficult for someone in Year 9. But then I found this…

…and thought, no! Calculating the shade in the yard was not too hard — it may actually have been too easy! Quietly pondering that my daughter had bailed on the project because it wasn’t stimulating enough for her filled me with a warm sense of pride. She decided to undertake a different project in the end. Either way, I was just glad they had all finally reduced the amount of data their devices were sucking hour after hour.

In the end, the sunshine answer was more simply calculated by waking up early and observing which place got the most sun throughout the course of the day. We did this for three days and identified the ideal spot, and with this in mind it was time to work out what size the veggie patch needed to be. Due to some restrictions with plumbing and gas conduits the ideal size for our above ground veggie garden was a space 2m long, 40cm wide and 30cm high. This presented an obvious maths problem, ideally suited to Year 6 students, to calculate the length of wood required to build the box for the veggie garden and the volume of soil required to fill the box. This left the relatively easy task of determining what additional materials were required to complete the construction to the Year 3 boy.

So off to the hardware store we went to get the materials we needed.

Again, after some research and advice from an expert (the hardware store attendant), we decided on treated pine, which my son thought was hilarious because with him standing at at 108cm tall, the 5.2m piece of wood seemed like a tower.

Next came the practical aspect of building the boxes — this required teaching them the difference between flat head and Phillips head screwdrivers (and screws) and the little trick of gently tapping the screw in place with a hammer first, to make it easier to screw in. No power drills allowed…

With the box built, it was time to turn our attention to the science of seeds and the lifecycle of plants. This conversation turned into the lifecycle of all living things, which was quickly escalated by the 11-year-olds into puberty, the menstrual cycle and human reproduction. I was now uncomfortably out of my depth so I quickly threatened to call in the 14-year-old to explain it. But neither wanted a lesson from her about it. Phew! We all dodged a bullet there…

Meanwhile back at the veggie patch… being that it’s Autumn here in Australia we needed to be careful about which veggies and herbs we would plant in order to maximise success. Again, this required some research. We discovered that beets, onions and strawberries would grow well so we went down the the nursery and sourced those seeds to plant. While we were there we checked out the soil we’d need and calculated the volume required for our planter box.

At the nursery we learnt that before we put the seeds in the soil we need to get them to sprout, so we purchased some special soil to help with the sprouting — not sure if the woman in the store was up-selling me or if it was absolutely necessary. Either way, it gave us more to do for our project.

Back home and it was time to put the seeds in a shallow soil dish to encourage sprouting, before transferring them into the bigger veggie garden.

We also had to make sure the soil was nice and moist.

The last part of the project was for the students to write a journal of what they did, what they learned and a reflection of the project, all as a way to incorporate reflective and descriptive writing into the project. I needed to get the English in there somehow.

It’s been a few days since they finished the building part of the project and as of now, nothing yet has sprouted (and no-one has yet written anything in their journal). But, this nearly three-day project provided a focus, some much needed non-screen time and an opportunity to learn maths, English(well, eventually) and science in different ways. Best of all it showed the students that learning can take place without an online or offline classroom, a traditional teacher or a text book. All they need was a clear objective and a desire to get the job done.

Now all that’s left is for the 14-year-old to get artistic and decorate the planter box.