If you’ve been following our family’s homeschool journey for any length of time, you already know how much we love interest-led learning and delight-driven experiences.
Interest-Led Learning, One Rabbit Hole At A Time
*Disclosure: I received access to Doctor Robin’s School of PRE-Medicine and was compensated for my time to write a review. I was not required to write a positive review. As always, I only share resources that I would use with my own family and those that I believe other families will enjoy.
As a school psychologist and homeschool mom, I rely heavily on interest-based learning and rabbit holes. Today, I am sharing our family’s latest rabbit hole and it has been so much fun! It’s called Dr. Robin’s School and if you’ve got science enthusiasts at home, you’re going to want to keep reading!
Rabbit Holes Are The Foundation Of Our Interest-Led Homeschool
Interest-led learning and rabbit holes have immense value for homeschool families. Children and teens are born with a natural curiosity. Providing our kids with space to explore their unique interests can fuel knowledge. When a child or teen is interested in a certain topic, they naturally retain more information about the subject. If you’re interested in a topic, you will naturally retain more than if you were forced to memorize the information for a quiz!
Here’s a real-life interest-led learning example for you…
In the fall of 2019, my boys became interested in WWII. I know a good rabbit hole when I see one, and so I decided to follow their interest. When we visited the library, I borrowed books about WWII and read them aloud during the week. We watched documentaries related to WWII. I pulled out the game Memoir ’44 and left it on our coffee table.
Now, a year later, my boys have moved on to other interests, but if WWII comes up in conversation, they have a TON to contribute! At 13- and 10-years-old, they know far more about World War II than I did at their age.
Why?
Because they were interested in WWII! They were attentive and engaged. Learning about WWII was pure joy for them. At 16, I was an excellent student but WWII wasn’t my interest at the time. I read about WWII in school, watched some documentaries, wrote papers, and aced my exams, but my long-term retention was not on par with my boys’ because I lacked interest.
One of the best things about interest-led learning is that curiosity can be contagious! (This happened with Dr. Robin’s School, too, so stay tuned!)
When my boys first dove down the WWII rabbit hole, they did it together. But all of that WWII talk and excitement was contagious. Suddenly, I found myself reading WWII historical fiction and my daughter followed suit.
Our dinner table conversations included WWII facts and stories. I learned much more about WWII than I did when I was in high school! Why? Because I was interested. It’s so much fun to learn alongside your children!
Interest-led learning is where the homeschool magic happens!
The Memoir ’44/WWII story is just one of many I could tell. I absolutely adore that, as homeschoolers, we have the freedom to pursue delight-driven learning and curiosity. Interest-led learning is where the magic happens for homeschool families!
And that brings me to our current rabbit hole and Dr. Robin’s School!
But, first, the backstory…
My daughter has been interested in the medical field for…ever.
Where is that pause button?!
I have so many photos like the one above! I have photos of her dressed up as a physician and tending to her brothers, her beloved Linda, our various pets, and an assortment of beanie boos.
Nowadays, she loves to pepper her father with questions as soon as he gets home from work. She loves to hear stories from when he was in medical school. (If that story is high on the gross-out factor, all the better!)
What I’m trying to say is that her interest in human anatomy has been a constant over the years. We’ve read countless human anatomy books, watched oodles of documentaries, completed puzzles and played various games and trivia related to science and anatomy, and so much more.
And so, when I learned about Doctor Robin’s School of PRE-Medicine, a homeschool science and health curriculum for kids, I had to check it out.
Using My Child’s Interest To Fuel Our Learning
Doctor Robin’s School was created by Dr. Robin Dickinson, MD, a homeschool mom and board-certified family physician with over a decade of experience in private practice.
As a homeschool parent, Dr. Robin was dismayed by the lack of high-quality resources for homeschooling science. And so she created Doctor Robin’s School of PRE-Medicine for homeschool parents and their kiddos.
Doctor Robin’s School is an absolute treasure-trove for science enthusiasts! The classroom is arranged in such a way that children and teens can explore freely. New lessons are constantly being added to the classroom, so kids who love rabbit holes will be delighted!
Best of all, unlike many other science resources available, Dr. Robin’s School doesn’t require any work from the parent. Everything is available, right there, for your children. That’s right- you don’t have to do anything. No review of the information you’ve long forgotten, no in-depth prep, no random and hard-to-find ingredients or materials required. You can sip your coffee and sit back and watch your children and teens get lost in the world of science!
And that’s exactly what I’ve been doing lately. Earlier this month, I set my daughter up with Dr. Robin’s School and, within seconds, her brothers wanted to join the fun. Because curiosity is contagious!
Do you see all of that WRITING? This is my reluctant writer! This is the power of interest-based learning!
Doctor Robin’s School of PRE-Medicine is designed to be a complete curriculum for children in grades 3-8 and a supplementary curriculum for high schoolers and adults. (But if you’ve got a little one who has been passionate about biology from the get-go, like my sweet little one in that first photo, they would love it, too!)
Here’s my oldest (13 years) watching a chicken dissection.
If you’d like to learn more about Doctor Robin’s School, check out this sample lesson on the vestibular system. (And if you sign up for Dr. Robin’s monthly newsletter, you will get a code for free access to the Eight Senses Unit for September!)
Dr. Robin’s School is an excellent interest-led learning resource for homeschool families and could be used in the following ways:
- A complete, full-year curriculum
- Unit studies
- Rabbit holes (interest-based, child-led learning) ⬅ This is what we’re currently doing!
Dr. Robin’s School offers several subscription options. You can sign up for a 3-month, 6-month, or year-long subscription. There’s even an option to sign up for one month just to see if it works for your family. You can read more about subscription options here.
How Our Family is Using Dr. Robin’s School in Our Homeschool
My kids (age 13, 11, and 10) started using Doctor Robin’s School of PRE-Medicine this month and they are LOVING IT. I am writing this article on a Sunday afternoon and two out of our three kids have already asked to use Doctor Robin’s School. (The third child is volunteering with Boy Scouts, otherwise, I’m sure he would have asked, too!)
The amount of interest-based learning that has happened this month as a result of Dr. Robin’s School has been astounding. They log into Dr. Robin’s School individually and get lost in their rabbit holes. My kids are filling out pages in notebooks, drawing, and making models out of clay!
The conversations we’ve had at dinner when Dad gets home from work, have been fascinating! My kids love to regale my husband with all of the stories Dr. Robin tells them, from the time she was a little kid and didn’t pack a toothbrush when visiting a relative for the whole summer and ended up with cavities, to the time she was teaching about eyeballs and the eyeball model rolled away while she was talking, to the science of ear wax! (Yep, we talk about ear wax at dinner! 🤣)
The Ongoing Advantages Of Interest-Led Homeschooling
Interest-led learning is incredibly important for homeschool families. Children and teens are born curious. They cannot help but learn!
Your children and teens might be interested in something right now. I told you our WWII story, and I shared our current human anatomy rabbit hole, courtesy of Dr. Robin’s School. When children are allowed the time and space to explore interests and get lost down rabbit holes, they learn how to learn.
Interest-led learning teaches our children and teens how to be curious, and lifelong learners!
Would This Resource Work for Science in YOUR Homeschool? Find Out More!
As I mentioned earlier, if you’d like to learn more about Doctor Robin’s School, check out this sample lesson on the vestibular system. (And if you sign up for Dr. Robin’s monthly newsletter, you will get a code for free access to the Eight Senses Unit for September!)
Dr. Robin’s School offers several subscription options. You can sign up for a 3-month, 6-month, or year-long subscription. There’s even an option to sign up for one month just to see if it works for your family. You can read more about subscription options here.
To learn more, sign up for Dr. Robin’s newsletter. You can also connect with Dr. Robin on Instagram and Facebook. Dr. Robin also has a podcast for kiddos interested in the medical field. It’s called I Want To Be A Doctor and you can listen here!
