Learning Through Children’s Interests: How Support Can Look in Home Ed Life

This post is about noticing your child’s interests - even the ones that might drive you crazy - and making sense of what supporting them can look like in real, everyday home ed life.

Whatever your home ed approach, I think it’s safe to say that your kids being genuinely interested in their learning makes a real difference. Take away curiosity, and learning quickly feels dry.

But how does that actually work in reality? Do you step back and let your kids follow what they’re curious about, even if it feels uncomfortable at times? Or do you try to introduce things you think are important - spelling, multiplication, perhaps - and find ways to connect them?

Many of us sit in an uncomfortable middle ground, trying to work out when to step back and when to guide.

And as with so much of home ed - it depends.

Some children are very self-directed, with deep (bordering on obsessive at times!) passions that naturally lead to deeper learning and many skills. Others enjoy a range of interests without any single driving focus - I seem to have one of each child. Some families are comfortable letting learning unfold organically, others place more emphasis on building certain skills along the way. There's no 'correct' method - it depends on your child, your family values and the priorities you explore together.

However you do it, starting with your child’s interests is a great place to begin. Interests really can to more depth of learning, meaningful connections and motivation. At the same time, introducing new ideas, resources and skills can help them explore even further.

And there are important skills worth building over time - reading, writing, arithmetic - not just for exams or keeping pace with school (though that’s a reality for many families), but because these skills unlock new ways of learning: reading gives access to information and stories they might struggle to reach otherwise, writing helps them express and organise ideas, and arithmetic supports problem-solving as well as understanding and interacting with the world around them.

The trick is finding a balance: letting them explore what they love, but notice where you can open things up and expand the learning.

In this post I show a simple way to do this that's worked well for us over the years that you might find useful.

How does this look in practice?

Take a look at your child's interests:

• What are they already interested in, no matter how insignificant and 'non-educational' it might at first seem?
• What learning is already happening, and where could it be expanded?

Write them all down, even the tiny ones like their love of Octonauts or Zelda. You don’t need to chase every little detail of an interest - that would get exhausting and annoying. But sometimes you can tell that something has taken hold of them (the things they might talk about non-stop) and it might be a good place to explore further.

For example, my son’s current passion is Formula One. At first, it looked like building and playing incessantly with F1 Lego, reading books, watching races, drawing cars and even writing a few letters to drivers (giving them his analysis on their race performance 😆). That felt like enough. But over time it was clear an even deeper curiosity was unfolding: lap times, car designs and engineering, an interest in host countries and cities as well as track designs. He talked about it a lot and all his library book choices and online research were along these themes.

So we explored ways to branch out on the topic. I thought I’d struck gold when I saw Twinkl had partnered with Ferrari to create some learning resources. They were fine, but to be honest, pretty dry - basically maths and reading comprehension worksheets linked to F1. It's like when teachers put Christmas tree pictures on long-division worksheets: ta-da, Christmas maths! (Except, of course, the kids know exactly what you’re really up to.)

So, with the help of the internet and on a big piece of paper, we brainstormed everything we could think of involving F1 that might be worth exploring, including activities we could try. And I was pretty surprised by how far this one single interest could go once we thought about it properly, not all of it immediately obvious.

Here’s where it led:

Learning Opportunities in Formula One 🏎️

It might look like a lot but it’s unfolded over the last 18 months, so it hasn’t been pressured, planned or made into a meticulous tick-list, instead it's been a very handy guide to work from.

Some of the learning came from reading, research and conversations; others from experiments and small projects. Some he did on his own, some we did together. Some even involved learning some maths and science way beyond his age and ability at the time but because he was interested, he was motivated to try and understand it. It feels very different from the times in the past when I've tried to shoehorn learning in completely out of context.

Even better, not all learning is immediately obvious. While some of these activities you can see happening - like counting, measuring, writing or designing a challenge - so much learning is quietly happening in the background: problem-solving, spatial reasoning, planning, persistence, focus and creativity are all developing naturally as kids explore, experiment and play.

No Interest Too Small

Now, you might be thinking: 'that’s great, but my child only loves Pokemon, Minecraft, or Mario Kart!' No problem - Mario is new in our house and the kids love it, so let's try the same approach on just a basic level. (If you dive deeper into games design, of course, that opens another world entirely).

Learning Opportunities in a classic Mario platform game

There's more to Mario than meets the eye! 🎮

Now you obviously don’t need to chase every learning opportunity. Some things can simply be left as they are - not everything needs to be delved into deeply.

But having a loose list of ideas branching off from a few interests can give you some direction and help to notice unexpected tangents. Some will lead nowhere, but some might spark further interests and curiosity and open new doors, with skills being picked up along the way.

You don’t need to do all the work or plan every step - you can observe, be their cheerleader, offer new ideas or experiences and leave plenty of room for independent exploration and creativity. Sometimes you’ll be needed to explain, show, or help; sometimes you can step back completely. That combination of guidance and independence can lead to surprising discoveries, new skills and genuine engagement.

You might be surprised at where something seemingly small can actually take you.