imagination

Fun-Schooling & “The Let Them Theory”: A Perfect Match

/ Sarah Janisse Brown / Leave a comment

As a mother of 15 and the creator of Fun-Schooling, I’ve spent decades helping families embrace a natural, joy-filled approach to learning. Recently, as I’ve been reading The Let Them Theory by Mel Robbins and listening to her podcast, I realized just how deeply her philosophy aligns with what I’ve been teaching through Fun-Schooling for years.

For me it started on the day I woke up, a homeschool mom of eight who was worn out micromanaging their education and depressed because there was no joy. So I said, “Today I will just say YES to whatever they want to do.” I had created a beautiful environment for learning, but curriculum was boring, limiting and too much work for me. I was drained and wanted to enjoy being a mom while homeschooling. I told my kids, “We are going to Fun-School today”. It was amazing. The learning that happened amazed me, and the joy set us all free.

Mel’s Let Them theory is about releasing control, allowing people to make their own choices, and letting go of the urge to micromanage. Fun-Schooling is based on the same principle—letting children study what they love, explore their passions, and skip the boring, outdated schoolwork that kills curiosity. Instead of forcing learning through rigid, one-size-fits-all curriculums, we let kids take the lead, trusting their natural desire to grow, explore, and create.

Here are ten ways Fun-Schooling and The Let Them Theory are a perfect match:

Let Them Learn What Excites Them

Mel Robbins encourages us to let people pursue their own interests, even if we don’t understand them. Fun-Schooling follows this same logic: if a child is obsessed with horses, let them dive deep into everything horse-related—biology, history, art, business, and storytelling—all through their passion.

Let Them Skip the Boring Stuff

Traditional education forces kids to memorize facts they’ll never use, leading to burnout and frustration. But what if we let them skip what doesn’t spark their curiosity? In Fun-Schooling, we trust that when a child is deeply engaged, they’ll develop the skills they need naturally.

Let Them Make Mistakes

Mel emphasizes that people learn best through their own experiences. Fun-Schooling embraces this truth—kids don’t need to get everything “right” the first time. They need freedom to experiment, fail, and try again without fear of judgment.

Let Them Go at Their Own Pace

Not every child learns on the same timeline, just like adults don’t all hit milestones at the same time. Fun-Schooling allows kids to develop skills when they’re ready, not when a curriculum says they should.

Let Them Create Instead of Conform

Mel Robbins challenges us to step away from people-pleasing and embrace individuality. Fun-Schooling does the same by giving kids the space to create, imagine, and build rather than just regurgitate facts.

Let Them Follow Their Curiosity

We trust that adults will figure things out when they’re interested in something—why don’t we extend that same trust to children? Fun-Schooling encourages kids to chase their curiosity, knowing that a self-motivated learner will always go further than a forced one.

Continue reading by clicking here.

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Sarah’s Poetry: Who I Want to Be

/ Sarah Janisse Brown / Leave a comment

Today I took an hour
To rearrange my things
To think about my goals
And to reignite my dreams
I went from shelf to shelf
To gaze upon each book
As if to stop and ask myself
To take a deeper look
To think of who I want to be
The skills I hope to learn
To set imagination free
To love, to grow, to yearn.
I found my favorite basket
Full of other people’s things
I dumped it out, and asked it
To be the keeper of new dreams.
I start fresh from empty
And held it with one hand
Without hesitation we
Set off to make new plans.
I found my favorite books again
And promised to begin
To treat them as my dear friends,
And then I found some pens
I found my father’s Bible
Filled with his notes and lines
I’ll take his thoughts once more to heart
and try to make them mine.
I have a little journal for each and every child
I fill the pages with my prayers
Through times of tears and smiles
I have some colored pencils
Some photos and memories
I’ll add a story book of course
For my little girls to read.
My basket is almost ready
My heart and mind feel full
Now I just need a cup of tea
And a journal for my soul
Today I took an hour
To rearrange my things
I’m ready now to grow and learn
And to reignite my dreams.
~Sarah Janisse Brown

Read about Mom-School here.

Find Mom-School journals here.

How to Spot Your Child’s Natural Interests

/ Sarah Janisse Brown / Leave a comment

What is a natural interest? A natural interest is an area of life that you’re drawn to! For a lot of people, they might call this their hobby or side project. Natural interests can cover a vast variety of subjects – from a specific animal to the overarching act of reading, to drawing with charcoal or recording/writing music! Natural interests are our callings. So how do you spot this in your child from an early age?

Identifying your child’s natural interests can help guide their growth and learning! Here are some simple ways to spot what excites and intrigues them:

  1. Observe Their Early Play: Pay attention to the activities they choose most often — whether it’s building, drawing, or imaginative play! These can reveal their passions, such as an interest in architecture, fashion, or writing creative stories!
  2. Follow Their Questions: The “why” and “how” questions they ask can point to what they’re curious about, like science, nature, or history!
  3. Notice What Captures Their Attention: Take note of what they focus on for long periods and what they ask to learn more about — this shows what they’re naturally drawn to!
  4. Encourage Exploration: Provide different activities (arts, sports, books) and see what excites them the most! Giving them a variety of topics to learn about can help you notice which ones they focus on the most! By observing your child’s play, questions, and actions, you can help nurture their natural interests and encourage their growth!

Learn more about preparing your child for their future calling/career here.

Find journals for every possible area of interest imaginable by clicking the image below!

How Your Child Thinks: Visual Thinkers (Part 2)

/ Sarah Janisse Brown / 3 Comments

children who are visual or creative thinkers

My child has a totally different way of seeing the world! He thinks in 3D Pictures.

Stop for a moment and look up from your computer. All around you are things that were designed by someone. Even the webpage in front of you was designed. Your computer was designed. The room you are sitting in, and the clothing you are wearing? Everything was designed, and chances are they were designed by a person with the gift of being able to think visually.

Some people are able to imagine something in their minds that has not yet been created. They are able to envision a better way of doing things. They are able to envision an object and change the size, shape and color using the power of the 3D workstation called the imagination. The people who designed the objects all around you were often called bad students, day-dreamers and doodlers. They are the visual thinkers.

Creativity journal for artists, songwriters, poets, writers, dreamers, thinkers

What if your child is a visual thinker? Only 10% of the population has the power to think visually, rather than to think with words. The people with the most powerful of visual minds often have an imbalance when it comes to standardized learning situations. The visual mind swirls with colors, ideas, music, art, and creativity and drives the visual thinker into a state of constant creativity and movement. Standardized systems of learning try to conform the child and make efforts to normalize him through medication, punishment, and control so he will not be a disruption in the classroom.

The visual thinker learns differently, and if you ask me, I would tell you that they can not be taught, they must discover. They struggle with the lifelessness of flat pages, the discomfort of the desk, the buzz of the fluorescent lights, the dullness of flat words on a page, and concepts void of emotion, dimension and wonder. They will ponder the mysteries of measurement and time, but their minds go blank when sitting at a desk staring at repetitive lists of math facts. They create works of art and new inventions from items rescued from the trash can, but can’t hold a pencil correctly when asked to write down their spelling words. They can tell the most amazing stories and their words will take you to far off lands and fill the air with magic and mystery, but if asked to put a sentence on paper, they might just cry. They are brilliant, they are amazing, they are curious and brave… until they are forced to conform to a way of learning designed for children who have no dancing, no questions, no music and no colors in their minds.

The majority of students will be content to follow the instructions, fill in the blanks, and make their lists on paper, but the visual thinker was not created for desks, for charts, for lists, for textbooks, for flash cards, for teachers, or for chalkboards… they would dance on the desk, and challenge the teacher. They would add color to the chart, they would roll up the chart to make a telescope or a musical instrument, they would stack the text books and build houses for invisible people, they would turn the flashcards in to a magic trick and turn the chalkboard into a work of art that belongs in a museum. They are constantly in search of the third dimension, the music and the movement.

Find Part 1 of this series here: How Your Child Thinks (Part 1). Continue to How Your Child Thinks: Inventors (Part 3)

How My Fun-Schooling Story Began in a Library

/ Sarah Janisse Brown / 1 Comment
Picture

Back when I was 14, my parents looked into homeschooling because of some health issues my little sister had. I expressed an interest in also being homeschooled, but they said we’d have to wait until we got our tax return because they had spent a lot of money on my sister’s curriculum. My reply to that was, “Who needs a tax return and who needs curriculum? Aren’t there enough books at the library?” We had a library just a couple blocks away and what I said made sense to my parents, so after Christmas I got a library card and didn’t go back to school. It was the best thing that ever happened to me.

I had something more valuable
Than a university degree–
I had a wise librarian
And a local library.
And locked up in my spirit,
Curiosity untamed,
My mother set me free from school
And I walked down Library Lane.

There were bookshelves to the ceiling
And a million mysteries–
The stories of 10,000 lands
Now opened up to me.
And I found my place in science 
And I sailed though history,
And the wise librarian smiled
As she shared a book with me.

What do you want to learn now, child?
What do you want to be?
The pages are the treasure troves
And this card is the key.
So I filled my sack with freedom
And a dozen new best friends.
I savored every story;
I wished each one would never end.

I read my way through worlds
That I never knew could be.
I discovered whole new cures
And I was rescued from the sea.
I pitched my tent on mountain tops
And I learned to watch the stars
I paged through Egypt’s Secrets
And I traveled wide and far.

And I, because a fighter, 
A writer, and a queen,
I discovered galaxies
That had yet to be seen.
Old friends just passed me by,
In a yellow bus each day the same,
With my pack of books, I waved goodbye
And I turned to walk down Library Lane.

And I never sought a teacher
Or a classroom in a school–
I had a local library
And I knew I was no fool.
So satisfy curiosity’s fire
To research, think and dream.
To seek jewels and reach higher
I began to spread my wings. (click Page 2 to continue reading)

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