The Curiosity Project

"Self-education is the only possible education; the rest is mere veneer laid on the surface of a child's nature."- Charlotte Mason
"The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing."- Albert Einstein
"Curiosity killed the cat." Anonymous

Curiosity is curious- we want our children to be motivated learners, yet often times we can resort to making the majority of their education based regurgitation of information that requires very little effort on their part. Curiosity can be messy, and inconvenient, and can take lots of effort, and it can often interrupt our schedules if we decide to let our children go down the path where the interests lead them! I could share plenty of stories about my children even putting themselves in danger's path because they were curious enough to ignore safety and common sense!

​One of the benefits of a Charlotte Mason education is the permission it allows us to give our children and ourselves to "own" our education in any subject or topic, and the result of this ownership is motivation to learn more and dig deeper. 

I wanted to make a deliberate effort this January to encourage my kids (and myself!) to choose a particular topic to learn more about, and to let the journey of learning lead them wherever it might go, rather than me giving them a prescribed project or learning path, so I came up with this little "Curiosity Project" that we are working through together this term. 

The idea here is to gently guide them with some tasks and conversations that will encourage them to ask questions, look deeper, seek connections and then share their findings- and I am linking it here to share with any of you that might want to try it with your children as well!

Your process and results might be messy and you may end up with more questions than answers- and I truly believe that is perfectly fine! I gave each of my girls a composition notebook to record their progress, results, questions, drawings or to print and glue in anything that they think might be relevant. 

Right now this is a simple plan- when time allows I am hoping to make it into a more polished product, but here I am sharing it with you exactly as I typed it up to use with my own children. It is very flexible and can be used with lots of different ages- I have an 8 yo and 14 yo that are enjoying the journey it is taking us on- and I hope to share some of that here as well. 

I hope that it will help you to let go of some of the 

Just click on the link below to go to a pdf- and please share any questions or comments here!

Blessings and virtual hugs-
Shay

The Curiosity Project (Link)