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Subject Topic: Help me to understand Rabbit Trails Post ReplyPost New Topic
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fishem001
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Posted: Jan 02 2008 at 1:37pm | IP Logged Quote fishem001
Hi and Merry Christmas!

I am needing a little more guidance on Rabbit Trails. Do you ladies have materials ready when your kids decide their interested on a particular topic? Or do you Google, order from Amazon, or hit the library right then? I mean, how do you follow the rabbit trails or even encourage them a bit? Does this make sense?

I really want our schooling to be more "living" and less dry. I'm afraid since I'm on the new side of things and fearful of messing up my children that I'm a slave to curriculum. All this to say, I would love to explore rabbit trails with my little ones when they show an interest there.

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Emily
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Meredith
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Posted: Jan 02 2008 at 1:45pm | IP Logged Quote Meredith
Emily depending on the ages of your children and the books you have currently on your shelves at home you can create a ready made rabbit trail, or you can query your little learners and ask them if they would like to learn more about, say "frogs" then you can simply google it or go directly to the library and have at it! Maybe set a goal of one rabbit trail per month and see where that leads you for the remainder of your 2008 school year. YOu certainly will not be de-railing them from any curriculum that you are currently using and you may find your niche in certain rabbit trails and take longer with them. Have fun with it, that's the key
Happy New Year!

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Rachel May
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Posted: Jan 02 2008 at 3:32pm | IP Logged Quote Rachel May
I'm curious....is there a difference between unit studies and rabbit trails?

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lapazfarm
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Posted: Jan 02 2008 at 4:20pm | IP Logged Quote lapazfarm
I think the difference between a unit study and a rabbit trail is that unit studies tend to be pre-planned by the mom, attempting to cover many subject areas under the umbrella topic, while rabbit trails are typically child-led, and may cover only one or many topics, depending on where they lead. Unit-studies tend to have fairly fixed end goals, while rabbit trails can lead anywhere and everywhere or nowhere at all. That said, there is much flexibility in both methods and they can begin to look more and more alike the more loose you are with your unit studies or the more structured you get with rabbit trails.

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Rachel May
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Posted: Jan 04 2008 at 5:25pm | IP Logged Quote Rachel May
lapazfarm wrote:
That said, there is much flexibility in both methods and they can begin to look more and more alike the more loose you are with your unit studies or the more structured you get with rabbit trails.


Thank you, Theresa! I think this part is very me!

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Tina P.
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Posted: Jan 05 2008 at 11:28am | IP Logged Quote Tina P.
Continuing on the frogs theme (thanks, Meredith), I think my kids would do a whole lot better capturing tadpoles and observing their development into frogs, using books mainly as a side-reference. Is that considered a rabbit trail?

Also, I start feeling stilted and overly-structured when I do unit studies with the kids due to my desire to DO IT ALL. That's one of my biggest faults and the biggest stresser on my kids.

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