Biomimicry
I am often asked what curriculum we follow in our homeschool. And every time I am asked this, I find myself searching for words to articulate exactly how our home education journey works.
While we use Denison Math for my 8th grader and a combination of Math Mammoth, Kitten Math, and other math resources for my 2nd grader, it’s pretty open-ended for other subjects. We have a Science Mom and Mystery Science subscription, a membership for Lily and Thistle’s Art Makes Me Smart (our favorite resource!), and a Hearth and Story bundle for Language Arts. Still, we don’t use these every day, and we don't learn exclusively from these sources.
In fact, we often find ourselves going off on rabbit trails that last for weeks after reading some interesting books! So, in a way, picture books are our most used curriculum.
Last week, we read the very interesting book, Biomimicry.
The book explains what biomimicry is in simple terms and offers many clear, awe-inspiring examples of how humans have been mimicking and learning from nature for a long time. This inspired us to take a walk outside, gather our own bit of learning from Mother Nature, and create a useful project from it.
A snowy day walk.
The kids initially felt inspired to make a night light that resembled a snowball. They tried, but after many tweaks, they didn’t like the look.
That evening also happened to be the night of the Ramadan moon. We read some books on the moon and tried to spot the crescent moon, unsuccessfully (too cloudy). But, we were elated to find the moon the next night! And that gave my daughter an idea.
A phases-of-the-moon projector light!
The kids used a paper towel roll, some tape, and cardstock cutouts to make the projector, and every night, before the bedtime story, they get so excited to show us the current phase of the moon!
The moon projected on our ceiling.
When learning happens this organically, it feels so wholesome and wonderful. I personally think learning is meant to be this way. After all, we are all born curious learners. We were learning all about the world around us, about people, emotional ‘manipulation’, trust, physical progression, etc., long before anyone opened any textbook and taught us these things.
I think we ought to trust that our kids were born loving to learn and explore the world around them, and that they are still constantly learning, enthusiastically, whether that was prescribed in a curriculum or not.