Experience based learning

If you follow my blog you probably know I am fairly structured in my homeschooling.  That is something my kids and even I need to make our days go smoother.  I have noticed that when we have school breaks such spring break my kids tend to want to only play electronics which drives me batty.  I am one of those Moms who restricts electronics as I find it ultimately causes drama in the house, as in one child wants to play the game the other child is currently on and the fighting begins!  I wish I could say my kids willing go off to learn or research something on their own time but that is simply not the case and I want to try to encourage that more!   I have been hearing a lot about Experience based learning and decided to investigate this new system and give it a try.  We first made an effort with this over the Christmas break and it was a big success but I still needed to be tweak a bit to make it fit our family.   So with spring break  I created a spread sheet that listed 9 activities that needed to be completed before the kids could play any electronics.  At first I wanted the kids to complete all the tasks before they could play any electronics but as you will see further down that changed a tiny bit after the kids brought up their concerns issues.

This is what the kids and I decided needed to be accomplished during the day.  The only "School" activities I insisted on remaining was Piano practice, a mine craft class and Math daily!  All other activities could be of their choice but it must be written down and done for a minimum of 30 minutes.  The plan was for the kids to discuss their day and what they learned at dinner....that did not occur as regularly as I would have liked as the kids preferred to talk about other things, so I am still working on this component:)

My son is currently in Occupational Therapy and is working on improving his core muscles.  Since my oldest also doesn't get much exercise I have her working on the same exercises!

So here is one of the kids completed weekly experience based learning sheets completed.  We did have two field trips scheduled that week so I made a few modifications...I like that I have flexibility and each morning the kids and I would discuss what was expected and what could be left off if plans were made for other activities.

Oh my gosh what a huge success this has been!  It is amazing!  When I talked to the kids they said they like how they could control their day and do things in the order they wanted.  No fighting this week and electronics were kept at a minimum, a win for me!

Note: we made one minor change to the schedule if the kids completed four activities in the morning they had 60 min of electronics before lunch.  Then after lunch they finished the last four activities and had another 60 min of electronics that seem to help with motivation for my youngest.  So it was really 2 hours of electronic time per day!