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orchardoriole's review against another edition
4.0
I'm fairly torn on my review of this one. I've been reading Lori Pickert's blog for a couple of years, and I'm embarrassingly groupie-like in my admiration of what she has to say. But I've gotten more out of her blog and her discussion forums than I did out the book.
The idea of project based learning, as I understand it, is that you don’t go to your kids, and say, “This month we’re going to be learning about the human body!” Or even, “Hey, I see you’re really interested in dinosaurs right now. This month, we’ll tie all of our learning to dinosaurs!”
Instead, if your kid is interested in dinosaurs, you let them take the lead and tell you what they’d like to do with their dinosaur passion. Your job is to be more of mentor, helping them remember what plans they’ve made, providing materials, and gently offering new ideas when they get stuck. The idea is that it’s really valuable to learn how to learn, to be excited about something, to make plans and follow through with them, to overcome obstacles, and that sort of thing. The kid will obviously learn all kinds of interesting, specific things in the course of their project, and if the project is dinosaurs, they’ll probably become a walking encyclopedia of dinosaurs or whatever. But that’s really secondary to the process of learning and making.
The book does do a good idea of getting the idea across. But the forums and blogs do a better job of explaining how to make that idea a reality.
The problem for me, I think, is that there are few examples of specific projects in the book. I remember reading somewhere that Lori did that intentionally. She didn't want parents reading about a specific project and comparing their own child's real-life project to a hypothetical project in the book. And I get that. But it made it hard for me to connect to what the book was saying. The book tended toward repetitive discussion of abstract philosophy instead. And I'm generally all about the abstract philosophy! But I guess I was looking for a more robust dose of how-to to go with the philosophy.
I actually read the book twice, once before we'd started any project-based learning and again after we had a project underway. I found the book more meaningful the second time around, when I was able to mentally apply what she was saying to the actual project my daughter had going. I suspect I would have found the book more helpful the first time if I'd had some representative projects to connect the ideas to.
I think the book also could have been served by a section or two on troubleshooting. The forums tend to be overflowing with discussion of, "All he wants to do is play Minecraft! What do I do?" "She gives up on her interests after a day or so. How do I help her go deeper?" "My space is really small. How can I make this work?" The troubleshooting discussions on the forum tend to be really enlightening, both because the answers are helpful and because they're a nice reminder that, no, it's not going to be textbook perfect for you all the time, but that's okay. I would have liked more about what to do when things aren't working.
And, finally (This is getting pretty long!), I would have liked more discussion of projects that are not necessarily completed with art materials. I've never been a let's-make-stuff-in-the-physical-world kind of girl. Maybe my own daughter will be, but maybe she'll be more like me. Anyway, I know that a project can be anything that's a really deep passion, and the output can be anything - a story, a computer program, a really excellent loaf of bread. But the book sometimes gave the impression that it doesn't count as a project unless art supplies were involved. And I'm pretty sure that wasn't the intention.
I think I'm being harder on this book because I've enjoyed Lori's blog so much over the years. If I had been picking it up cold, I think I would have found it really enlightening. But as it is, I'm going with three stars for the actual book, and five stars for what I've read of Lori's book, averaging out to a four.
The idea of project based learning, as I understand it, is that you don’t go to your kids, and say, “This month we’re going to be learning about the human body!” Or even, “Hey, I see you’re really interested in dinosaurs right now. This month, we’ll tie all of our learning to dinosaurs!”
Instead, if your kid is interested in dinosaurs, you let them take the lead and tell you what they’d like to do with their dinosaur passion. Your job is to be more of mentor, helping them remember what plans they’ve made, providing materials, and gently offering new ideas when they get stuck. The idea is that it’s really valuable to learn how to learn, to be excited about something, to make plans and follow through with them, to overcome obstacles, and that sort of thing. The kid will obviously learn all kinds of interesting, specific things in the course of their project, and if the project is dinosaurs, they’ll probably become a walking encyclopedia of dinosaurs or whatever. But that’s really secondary to the process of learning and making.
The book does do a good idea of getting the idea across. But the forums and blogs do a better job of explaining how to make that idea a reality.
The problem for me, I think, is that there are few examples of specific projects in the book. I remember reading somewhere that Lori did that intentionally. She didn't want parents reading about a specific project and comparing their own child's real-life project to a hypothetical project in the book. And I get that. But it made it hard for me to connect to what the book was saying. The book tended toward repetitive discussion of abstract philosophy instead. And I'm generally all about the abstract philosophy! But I guess I was looking for a more robust dose of how-to to go with the philosophy.
I actually read the book twice, once before we'd started any project-based learning and again after we had a project underway. I found the book more meaningful the second time around, when I was able to mentally apply what she was saying to the actual project my daughter had going. I suspect I would have found the book more helpful the first time if I'd had some representative projects to connect the ideas to.
I think the book also could have been served by a section or two on troubleshooting. The forums tend to be overflowing with discussion of, "All he wants to do is play Minecraft! What do I do?" "She gives up on her interests after a day or so. How do I help her go deeper?" "My space is really small. How can I make this work?" The troubleshooting discussions on the forum tend to be really enlightening, both because the answers are helpful and because they're a nice reminder that, no, it's not going to be textbook perfect for you all the time, but that's okay. I would have liked more about what to do when things aren't working.
And, finally (This is getting pretty long!), I would have liked more discussion of projects that are not necessarily completed with art materials. I've never been a let's-make-stuff-in-the-physical-world kind of girl. Maybe my own daughter will be, but maybe she'll be more like me. Anyway, I know that a project can be anything that's a really deep passion, and the output can be anything - a story, a computer program, a really excellent loaf of bread. But the book sometimes gave the impression that it doesn't count as a project unless art supplies were involved. And I'm pretty sure that wasn't the intention.
I think I'm being harder on this book because I've enjoyed Lori's blog so much over the years. If I had been picking it up cold, I think I would have found it really enlightening. But as it is, I'm going with three stars for the actual book, and five stars for what I've read of Lori's book, averaging out to a four.
mossoffa's review against another edition
3.0
I love many of the concepts and ideas in this book, but the book isn't well-organized. It is full of examples but they don't come together into a whole for me. The table of contents isn't logical for someone considering starting projects. There might be more material here than on the website, and I think I'll refer back to it, but it's mixed.
arrrgh_schooling's review against another edition
3.0
I found it a bit repetitive, but I like the basic idea of letting your child have ownership over their learning. I just can't figure out how to make it work in our tiny home - I don't have space for tons of art projects to be going at all times with all the supplies out and at the ready. As with all things, I'll take what I can from this and dismiss the rest.
ktmtta's review against another edition
3.0
Good information. It was what I was looking for, but as someone who picked this book for all the reasons she gives to do project-based learning, it was repetitive.
nilatti's review against another edition
4.0
This book wasn't revolutionary, relative to what we have been doing in our home, but it did remind me of a few things I wanted to try out.
This would be a good resource for someone who wasn't already doing these kinds of project-based explorations instinctively.
This would be a good resource for someone who wasn't already doing these kinds of project-based explorations instinctively.
judereadsalot's review against another edition
5.0
Don't be fooled by the title! This book is not just a book on homeschooling, but a guide for those who want to help their children direct their own learning, whether those kids are homeschooled or not. The book will help you help your kids figure out how to plan and complete their own projects, enabling them to self-direct their learning. I also think a lot of these ideas could be useful in assisting you with your own projects. The book is full of good ideas, without the filler you see in a lot of non-fiction books.
mangofandango's review against another edition
4.0
This book was great inspiration and good as a guide. It has a lot of guidance as to examining and living out your goals and committing to the learning experiences you value, and many excellent pointers for how that would actually play out. I'm still frustrated by the ways in which my limitations (physical space, free hands as the mom of a school age kiddo and a toddler, etc.) come up against this vision, and I wish it had offered a little more support for how to make those things work...but I am told there is an accompanying blog that may help!
This authentic and child-driven learning is the experience I want for my child and it is how we have begun to do things. This book just gives me more to aspire to.
This authentic and child-driven learning is the experience I want for my child and it is how we have begun to do things. This book just gives me more to aspire to.
miss_tricia's review against another edition
3.0
Sure! The book was a fine intro to project work with kids. However, I'd recommend just subscribing to the blog and skipping the book. After 2 months of reading most of her occasional posts, I'd already read all of Pickert's highlights.
fournier48's review against another edition
2.0
Very focused on younger children and, strangely, groups of young children working together.
lexyfl's review
3.0
I really love the concept, but found the book a little repetitious. It's still definitely worth reading!
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