I want to let you peek into how we helped our kids follow their loves in their education. This is a Facebook post from 2016:
Michael has been working hard, getting his 1998 GMC up and running. His awesome dad found this dirt cheap and we gave it to him as a fixer upper for his birthday in June. The men got the engine in finally last night, and it sounds great. Big smiles. No muffler, so even bigger smiles for the ManTeen. A great way to earn elective credit for school, AND get daily driver transportation ready for when he gets his license. Proud of him!
He ended up apprenticing under his dad (who is an ASE Master Certified Tech) for a couple years and taking the Auto Upkeep course along with this free motorcycle mechanics course (free, faith based and amazing!) and has now been working as a tech in several automotive businesses for several years.
Our oldest had a love for skin care and makeup artistry, so I bought an industry textbook on eBay and cobbled a course out of it, as well as hooking her up with some great professional skills-based tutorials and classes on YouTube channels. She finished by shadowing at a local day spa and eventually was hired there. We live in a more rural locale now, so the demand for this type of career is pretty slim, but she still stays practiced up and does makeup for people for special occasions like costume parties, proms and weddings.
Our youngest has a love for art, so we had her in an art/literature club at our local library as well as signed up for online art classes. However, her love for animals has been more prominent in recent years, so she participated in our local zoo’s Zoofari program all summer which has been very educational (she helped with exhibits, presentations, animal handling) and still fills in for special events throughout the year. She also volunteers at our local animal shelter several times a week. When she was smaller, I used this printable pretend vet kit (pictured) which she enjoyed immensely. She is currently taking Animal Science as a high school sophomore and we are looking into the vet tech program at our local community college.
How are you engaging in delight-directed learning at your house?