I have found that even with topics that are not interesting to my son as envisioned by the teacher, if (and that's a big if) I can get my son to get it started and get some momentum going (and that's where breaking it into smaller chunks really helps)then he finds a way to make it interesting. For example, he was dreading starting some research recently on art and perspective but once he got past a certain point, the lights came on and then I found myself saying things like "no more for tonight -- you have to go to bed."
I think almost any topic can be interesting to a child if you help them keep their mind open to it, but you may have to help them find that connection and point of interest initially.
Things that I might do are provide some thoughtful questions or tie-ins to another area of interest and maybe supplementary reading (links to cool websites). It's just that when it's initially described, it sounds booooring... But, if you can find a way to get past that with your child, you just might be able to get a more thoughtful and in-depth approach. Eventually. That's the hope I have for my son, anyway... that eventually, he'll say "wow, this sounds so boring -- how can I make it more interesting and make it my own so that I am motivated to work on it?" And hopefully, I am helping him learn ways to do this...
For us, that approach has helped with all homework and using appropriate technology to scale back all of the tedious parts of research has helped as well. It's definitely not perfect, but we've been thinking that way for a year, and I see a huge difference.
Edited to add that of course this approach requires having a teacher who allows more complicated and in-depth projects... not narrowly defined projects. Ours does, with approval of course.
Last edited by remalew; 10/20/11 08:50 AM.
