Teaching Everything Through Anything

Sometimes the idea of following our child's lead can feel daunting. Not knowing where our children's interests will lead or end up can make us feel anxious about whether or not they'll be getting a quality education at home.

If our child only focuses on baking, will they ever learn how to read or write? If they only focus on building with LEGO, will they ever learn History? If they only ever like to play video games, how will they advance in their math skills?

It's normal to worry about things like this when you take on homeschooling and there's a phrase in the Unschooling world that might help: "everything can be learned through anything."

If you think about how people naturally learn, its usually interest-based. Something piques our curiosity so we start diving down a rabbit hole to figure it out. Along the way, we learn new things. Sometimes the things we learn tie together under one category, but often times the things we learn are varied and feel like disconnected dots until we are able to apply them. Sometimes, after absorbing new information or skills, we are able to apply the things we learned right away. Sometimes we don't recall what we've learned until much later on, when an experience prompts us to remember it, appreciate the connection, and put it into action.

It's the making connections part that allows us to learn about all sorts of new things through a single interest or curiosity. Making connections is how you can take your child's interests, even if it's video games, and expand it into more areas for learning to help their home education experience wholesome.

Continents of Learning

In her book, The Brave Learner, home education veteran and curriculum developer Julie Bogart advises using a tool called a Continent of Learning to help you make connections between your child's interests and other areas of learning. It's basically a mind map where your child's interest is placed at the center and you expand outward into different areas of learning and the concepts or activities that could tie back to their interest.

Let's say your child's interest is playing Minecraft. This would go in the center. Now let's look at the different areas of learning and possible activities we can connect to Minecraft.

Technology

• Learning to code through game building

• Digital Design, Building and Scripting

• Learning to navigate online interactions and collaborations safely and wisely

Science

• Recreate scientific models or concepts in the form of online games

• Understand the science behind raw materials and turning them into useful tools

History

• recreate famous historical scenes or sights in Minecraft

• Learn more about the history of online game development and how it impacts people

Language Arts

• read Minecraft novels

• write your own short story about a spawning adventure

Mathematics

• building concepts

• layouts, floorplans, and specs

• area, perimeter, patterns, scale, and coordinates

When you map it out, a simple video game seems like much more than meets the eye, right? You can use this approach with any interest your child has.

Try making your own continent of learning with our free downloadable template!