How to Create a Project?

The Family Heritage Expo is an exhibition of individual and family projects used to develop academic and vocational skills. WCFS wants to showcase the projects that you use as a curriculum resource for the purpose of glorifying God, exchanging ideas, and giving public testimony. Families display and demonstrate aspects of their home activities that might benefit others.

This year’s Expo will be held in conjunction with our Field Day and Picnic at the WCF/S Campus on Saturday, May 7. Details can be found at: https://www.wcfs.edu/expo

There could be a project for almost every academic, personal, family or social area of training.

The projects you select should be directed toward real needs and areas of interest. You should be able to see a meaningful benefit in personal growth as the result of doing your project. Projects are a special way of learning very important things that you will use for the rest of your life. Therefore, projects must be integrated into your daily lessons, not tacked on as an extra burden. Begin by looking at what you are already doing, and see if there are opportunities for growth and encouraging others.

Remember, you are not attempting to create a museum masterpiece to amaze and impress people. Ordinary areas of victory and growth are valuable for sharing with each other and are truly worthy. Don’t be afraid to enter what you are learning as a family, no matter how insignificant it may seem to you. Nothing is too small to share! Every student is working daily on a host of different kinds of learning disciplines. Much of that learning could be made into a project to be shared with others!

Turn Needs into a Project!

The primary goal of a project-oriented curriculum is the individual training of each child. The home that is “taught by God” will be able to provide the special attention which is needed to fully develop a child’s potential. To be taught by God requires a deliberate effort to hear Him and respond to His specific leading on a day by day basis. It is imperative, therefore, that parents develop the skill of responding to the Lord’s ways of giving insight into the specific needs of their children. This is our goal outlined in the following brief discussion.

Why Projects are Valuable

God has cursed the earth in order to frustrate our independent sense of purpose and well-being. He does this so that we will search Him out and not miss the eternal glory He has prepared for us (Romans 8:18-27). This should send us on a search for meaning and purpose in all aspects of life, for we find no satisfaction except in Him. If we train ourselves to see God’s gentle hand of Creativity, we can begin to quickly discover critical areas of growth that God wants us to work on in our own personal lives (Romans 5:1-5, and James 1:2-8). Here we find the truth of Romans 8:28, “And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God and who are called according to His purpose.”

Home Industry Philosophy

God expects mankind to labor and find frustration in his labor. (Gen.3:17; Rom. 8:20) Our children need to learn three things about labor and their future life vocation:

We must labor against the curse to meet our needs.
We must find life’s satisfaction in our field of labor done well and the security of our hope in God, Who only is eternal. (Eccl. 3:12,13)
We must use the frustrations of the curse as a medium for service as we meet needs and endure the frustration to encourage men with our only true hope – Salvation through Jesus Christ! It is the purpose of the Expo to encourage families to develop and work on projects. Practical, hands-on apprenticeship of children with their parents is the first step towards a well-rounded education based upon God’s Word (Jn 5:17, 19-20).

Remember! Every legitimate academic goal can be represented in a project that meets a genuine need!

Selecting Projects With Your Children

How to Brainstorm Your Project? Ask these questions... Are they truly interested in it? Do they have well defined goals?

Will the project challenge them with new learning opportunities (like teens working with Dad or Mom - or elementary students working independently)?

Have you scheduled time in your calendar to join heart to heart with your child to help complete the project?

Will you and your child be able to get help when needed in the subject area of the project?

How to Set Project Goals

Don’t get caught up with the abstract idea of just “doing a project”! That is not the goal of a project-oriented curriculum. Project goals must be purposeful!

Identify, meet needs and encourage intuition in your children, whether directly, academically speaking or indirectly through practical living.
Classify what you hear from God. What is His will & direction in researching your project? (i.e.,“R.E.S.E.A.R.C.H.” - Read about it, Enjoy the process, Solve problems, Enlist the whole family, Account for individual needs, Record all processes, Construct a presentation, Head for the Expo).
Solve problems in the Lord’s wisdom and strength. Projects create solutions to problems this is your goal!
Display learned skills and spiritual fruit! Be a testimony of gaining new knowledge through seeking God.

Step 1 — Identify Needs

√ Create a log book in which you list all significant areas of interest, frustration or needs currently pressing your family members (Needs like sloppy rooms, fighting cancer, engineering an invention, researching articles for decorating a home, reaching the lost from your home, etc.).

√ Write down family needs, keep track of them in some kind of “Frustration Notation” log book. Keep this book in full time use throughout the year.

√ Meet as a family in special sessions and small groups. Organize discussion groupings such as: Mom & Dad only; 1 parent & 1 child; the whole family; each member privately etc. Discuss problems and possible solutions.

√ Be nice! Make this a safe meeting. Encourage your children to clearly state their concerns by:

Assuring them that you want honest, open answers, and that you will not scold them for what they say if they say it with courtesy.
Using a template type question which will frustrated when.... (fill in blank)... and I wish that I/we could ....(fill in blank)... instead.” The statement should always include a desired solution to help clarify the frustration. The more detail, the more useful.
Write for family members who can’t.
Stimulate a broad area of discussion by suggesting different areas of personal and family life that easily experience frustration.
Encourage the use of one word or one phrase if full sentences are hard to come by. Then discuss the item to clarify what is the child’s concern.

Step 2 — Classify Needs

Organize the frustration notation log notes and create practical projects for each child or the family as a whole. Work the “raw material” of the log into a more useable form.

Classify frustrations into common groups.
Sort problems by their difficulty. This is important because every stated problem is important in someone’s eyes and all should be addressed. Some problems may have very simple solutions and should be worked on right away.
Remember, your family goal is to work and grow in the areas that God is pointing out, not to put together an Expo entry! Any motive apart from God’s leading is insufficient for a worthy project.
Decide which areas or frustrations you want to work on first. Start a project sheet for each, listing ideas of possible projects as in step 3 below.

Step 3 — Resolve Needs

Create a plan of action and turn it into a presentation for Expo!

State the frustration.
Define the problem in a concise form.
List as many factors as possible that seem to affect the problem.
List and evaluate proposed solutions that would fix the problem and also be worthy of our Christian heritage.
Do Bible research on the topic as a family and individually to discover the spiritual values at stake. Be sure to list passages and give summaries of verses or sections. Write down the Biblical concepts as goals that you want to achieve; this will give your project a real spiritual direction and reality. In short, this is how to walk worthy of our calling in Christ Jesus.
Draft a project plan creating goals, sequences, timetables and tools as needed by which to organize the project’s efforts and bring some family accountability to the project. The most important part of this stage is to focus your ideas on the useful needs that you want to meet for your family. Don’t focus on the Expo event! If you do something worthy of God, then you can share it anywhere. The wrong attention here will result in projects that are a burden because they seek to please men — please God and relax!
Oversee the project to its natural completion by giving daily/weekly assignments and checkups to keep the project moving. Feel free to evaluate, redo, adapt, abandon or whatever in order to achieve the real worth of the project. Be sure to record, log and summarize the step-by-step progress of the project. Again, creating recording tools for the child will truly assist in easy project achievement.
Lastly, plan the formal presentation of the project if that is what you feel will honor the Lord. Try to present the project so as to clearly present the particular needs that the project attempted to meet. Present the project in its final form, and show the steps of progress along the way. Select the format for presentation. All types of projects can follow these general guidelines:

Step 4 — Project Display Guidelines

Reprinted from A Beka Book “A Science Project" *

Plan your exhibit so that it clearly tells its story. Be sure to include a project testimony. (See page14 for details.)