Homeschool Desks.... (and chickens)

Wherever they might be....

When you let a child follow their interests, you will be surprised where you will find them learning. A school desk is where they will go if I put them there with a school text and workpages. But when a child is left to his own devices, you will be surprised where you will find them learning.



I found Austin in the bathroom one day. When I asked him what he was doing, he told me that he was 'calculating'. I later discovered that he was working out the costs involved in having his own chicken.

Noone had to force him to get out the paper, pencil, or calculator. Noone coerced him into doing math. He simply wanted to get some answers to something that interested him and out came the tools that were needed.

How did this all begin?

Because they watched a Little House on the Prairie show and saw a little boy get a chicken for a gift. Austin then approached me and said, "Mum, could I have a chicken?"

I immediatley said, yes. He has been asking me for three years, but I have been so busy with 'school' that 'life learning' did not have the time it should have had in our lives.

No more!

The following day, Cassidy came to me and said, "Mum, Austin said you said he could have a chicken. Can I have one?" And he received the same answer.

Next, came the boys, one by one, asking me if they could sell their eggs. I told them that yes, they could sell their eggs to me. I would buy them for 50 cents an egg. Then I remembered that they would have expenses. I explained that they would probably end up with about 30 cents an egg after paying their costs. We then went into the fact that they would need to get a ledger to keep a running list of all that they needed to buy to have a chicken pen, and as they gathered eggs they would be able to sell them to me for 50 cents, but they they would have to pay their bills for having the chickens. This will be a real lesson in business.

We visited our friends the following week, and Austin and Cassidy had a plan to get as much information as they could while visiting, from the children that owned the chickens at the house. They fed the chickens and collected the eggs.

Ever since then, I have seen him and his brother with livestock books, drawing plans, looking up things on the internet, calculating costs, and working as a team to decide what would be the best way to get what they wanted.

Austin's Idea of a Chicken House

Cassidy's Supply List

Cassidy's Chicken House

One day, when Cassidy had a new livestock book he wanted to read, I had told him that he had to go out and get some fresh air. He really wanted to read the book, and he had been cooped up in the house all morning doing 'schoolwork' (read drudgery) and I wanted him to cut loose for a while.

A while later, I looked outside and what did I see:

Studying His "Textbook" on Chickens

The beauty of this is how it has drawn Austin and Cassidy together. Rather than sit at separate desks doing 'Math', 'Writing', 'Science' and 'Reading', they are sitting together, studying

'Math - through calculating cost, drawing plans, creating supply lists, logical thinking - with what are the best ideas',

'Writing' - with all the plans they are making, supply lists they are writing',

'Reading - through the different animal books they are having to read'.

'Science - learning all about biology of chickens and how to take care of them'

So much more holistic in approach. Boys together. Learning in a way that is relevant to them. Information sticking rather than falling away, because they have a passion for the topic that covers all the basics.

As they draw their own ideas for the chicken house, they are fully aware that they will have to come together in the final plan, as they will have only one house. I have heard them talking about how they will take the best from each plan and combine it into one.
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