Permaculture Homeschool Experience (PHE?)

With baby due any time now, I have a lot of time to sit and ponder. One of the things that I enjoy pondering is her schooling -- which I know I have a fair bit of time before she’ll be starting, but is fun to think of nonetheless. We plan to homeschool with a mixture of different methods (Waldorf, Charlotte Mason, Montessori, etc) and want to also incorporate as much of a Permaculture/homesteading lifestyle as we can even though we’re both still learning that ourselves.

Enter: PEP! Hubby and I were looking over the badges last night, talking about the different things we’d like to work on together once baby is here, and I couldn’t help but think that with some age-appropriate (and location appropriate...would want it to be accessible to as many folks as possible so potentially mixing in some PEA) modifications, it would be fantastic to incorporate a fair bit of the content into a future homeschool curriculum. The goal wouldn’t be to inherit property specifically, but to grow skills, and gain confidence and experience in a permaculture girl guides/boy scouts kind of way. At the beginning there would need to be a lot of parent involvement, but the idea would be as time goes on that the child takes on the projects themselves and becomes more self-sufficient to the point where they have a number of solid skills they can fall back on as they enter the adult world -- no matter what they want to do in life.

This is the very start of me poking down this path, but I was wondering if it piques the interest of anyone else? Any thoughts, brainstorms, etc to add? I like the thought of turning it into an actual homeschooling curriculum that would teach the kids/parents along the way as an addition to their other studies, but may be getting a bit ahead of myself there :D

I can say as a parent who homeschooled for a year (kids wanted to go back to government school because they missed their friends) that incorporating BBs can be just a part of their daily lives (and yours too).  I did a number of these that I have said to myself "dang, I wish I'd documented that better". Both my kids are also in Scouts and there are plenty of things they do in Scouts that can be easily tweaked to fulfill both program requirements.  

One of our biggest challenges, even on a homestead, was keeping the kids busy after their school work was done and knocking out BBs would be a great guide to making that happen.  Safe tool use can start at a much earlier age than what is deemed "acceptable" in today's bubble wrap society. My daughter was 7 when she got to play with my air nibbler (for cutting sheet metal and hardware cloth) for the first time.  I showed both kids how to keep their hands away from the cutting edge, made them wear eye and ear protection, but didn't make them wear gloves. A few cuts and scrapes only made them more aware of what happens when you use tools.

This is a great idea! I've been wondering how to get the SKIP book out to more kids and your post has inspired me to donate a bunch to our Scout Troop as well as the school libraries.  THANK YOU for such inspired thought.

Sage Chara wrote:I like the thought of turning it into an actual homeschooling curriculum that would teach the kids/parents along the way as an addition to their other studies, but may be getting a bit ahead of myself there :D

I don't think you'll have much luck getting BBs into the "official" curriculum, but presenting it to your Homeschooling groups (maybe with books in hand to loan out along with a QR code for the link) would be a great way to get this out.  Even with your baby still in the "oven", I feel like you could present this to the groups as added curriculum.

Thanks for the feedback, Nick! I can imagine that it would be great to have something on hand for keeping kids busy, even for those in school to be working on on the weekends etc if they need projects. I was homeschooled through all but the first couple of years, and would've absolutely loved this sort of resource to work on along with my normal schooling (distance ed). I've had a look through the PEA badges as well, and reckon they might be a little closer to the mark, just to keep it as inclusive as possible so can be done even if the kids don't live on a homestead. Thinking it would be more of a progression type guide rather than focusing on proving the skills -- things like instead of going straight to wood carving, start with learning tool safety etc and with something like soap carving to start getting the basics. Of course would depend on the child as well, and need a lot of parental input and consideration especially in the younger years.

Great idea with getting the SKIP books to the scouts and libraries!

This is such a great idea! I think you (homeschooling parents together) will have to make a totally new list of BBs, a new PEX, especially for very young children to do together with their parents. And then other BBs for the somewhat older children who can do them on their own, but are not yet able to do the existing PEP or PEA BBs.

My baby is still much too young, too, but I'm keeping her schooling in mind as I look through the BBs and badges. I plan to homeschool, and I'd like to incorporate them or something similar. Maybe I'll make physical badges for her, or maybe I'll just keep a logbook of "required skills" before I'll consider her ready to graduate.