Advice for Home Educators

Responses and suggestions from other home educators – Bad days

What advice do you have to get through the ‘bad ‘ days? A Bad Day At Home Is Still Better Than A Good Day At School.  This Too Shall Pass. Go Gently – that’s what my 13yo told me 2 weeks ago!!!! Make a cuppa, put on Netflix and relax. Have a bath. Tomorrow is a new day Take the day off and have

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Advice for Home Educators

Responses and suggestions from other home educators – Documentaries

What documentaries would you recommend to other families? Maddie’s do you know on iview. Someone on FB suggested My Octopus Teacher & it was amazing. It’s on Netflix. Also Youth v Gov, The Social Dilemma but it depends on age, mine are older & watch lots of educational documentaries that I wouldn’t say are for younger children. I like My Octopus Teacher too. It’s

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Advice for Home Educators

Responses and suggestions from other home educators – main reason you started

What was the main reason you decided to start home educating? We had our 3 boys in an amazing Montessori school just out of Boston, MA. USA. They built confidence, skills and found drive to progress. 
We have not been able to find a school in Australia to provide the same environment for our kids.
So they were each losing who they were, losing confidence

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Advice for Home Educators

Responses and suggestions from other home educators – Children under 12

What advice would you give to someone home educating children under 12? Coffee. If anyone is looking for a fantastic program, we used the coach house. This program is Tailor made to suit your child. Teach them to make coffee.  Homeschooled our kids taught my daughter to make cappuccino at the age of eight. Golden years. Get outside and explore as much as possible.

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Advice for Home Educators

School Can’t

If your child has School Can’t, and you are looking at other options, then you are in the right place. HEN is here to support parents, to help you meet the needs of your individual child, and to help you find community. Nobody would suggest that home education alone will magically make everything better, but recent HEN surveys of School Can’t families showed that

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Advice for Home Educators

Using Your Local Library

Using Your Local Library By Saba Hakim Yesterday at our local library, Eassa, along with a group of other primary aged children, was writing instructions for a robot to make a jam sandwich. The robot was our library events presenter in disguise— wearing a cardboard costume. The session started with an explanation of the task, and direction to write instructions. Some children chose to

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Home Ed Stories

A week in the life (JW)

Week In The Life … By Janet W We kind of fell into home education quite by accident. We are parenting for the second time around after our tiny premature grandson arrived and it became obvious very quickly that we would be raising him. As the stay-at-home parent the education decision was mine, but I’m fully supported by my husband. Our boy Charlie is almost

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Advice for Home Educators

Two Generation Homeschooling Journey

By Jess D My homeschooling journey started in 1987 when we were living in the UK for 18 months. I was seven years old at the time, and my parents were considering taking a position in Africa. They didn’t like the idea of boarding school for us kids (I had two younger siblings at the time), but my dad was quite unsure/against homeschooling. After

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Concerns and Confidence

In The Dark – Word Games for Home Education

In The Dark – Word Games for Home Education Pavlina McMaster When my kids were little, we spent countless hours playing with language. Almost every time we were in a holding pattern – on public transport, waiting in a queue for an activity, in line at Centrelink – we played verbal games to pass the time. Even last week, in a quiet moment at

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Concerns and Confidence

Games for English

Games for English Kirsty James In addition to the verbal games outlined in Pavlina’s article (In The Dark – Word Games for Home Education), there are many options for pen and pencil games, as well as card, board and online games for students of all ages. Some games focus on specific skills such as spelling or vocabulary, whilst others are broader and include soft

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Advice for Home Educators

I’m not a teacher, so how can I teach my children?

I’m not a teacher, so how can I teach my children? This answer to an often asked question by newbie home educators was kindly shared with us by an anonymous member  Home Educators often get asked how we, as parents, can be effective academic teachers of our children compared to a trained teacher. Prospective home-ed parents often worry about how they could possibly teach

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Advice for Home Educators

Deschooling, A work in Progress

Deschooling, A work in Progress, Bridget Muhrer I loved school. I was that super cool kid who refused to skip classes with her friends, unless it was PE, or the last day of term. I enjoyed studying, I enjoyed writing essays, I enjoyed highlighting lines in books that might come in handy for a debate about the text. Without putting too fine a point

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University Goals and Home Education – A Relaxed Journey into G8 University

Tracey G ‘I will only do it if I know I won’t be hindering them from becoming an astronaut, orthopaedic surgeon or anything in between.’  These were my ‘famous last words’ words as my husband and I discussed the option of ‘trialling’ home education. Having had a private school education, tertiary opportunities, and a wonderful job in the medical-health profession, I was adamant this

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Home Ed Stories

New to home Education – Our Journey

New to home Education – Our Journey Catherine J. Our family is made up of me (Catherine, 37), dad (Darren, 40), Noah (son, seven), Joy (daughter, five) and Jemima (daughter, four).  We have been home educating since January 2022. It was prompted by the uncertainty of how schools would fare throughout the pandemic, and the difficulties associated with remote learning.  We decided it would

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Home Ed Stories

A week in the life of our home educating family (Sara)

A week in the life of our home educating family (Sara) Sara I’ve been a home educating parent for almost nine years. We’ve always had a bit of an eclectic style, I prompt and strew a few activities, but the kids (now 12 and 14) have always been mostly self- directed learners as they have many interests to keep them engaged.  The best thing

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Advice for Home Educators

Home Educating Socialisation – Building a diverse community for your child

By Shweta S   Every new home educator (and non-home educator) is always concerned about the social life of the home educated child. I think the concern is valid, especially from those adults who had an active social life at school and still enjoy life-long close friendships with their childhood friends. For many families, a school gives an out-of-the-box community that you can plug

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Advice for Home Educators

Interest Based Learning

By Kirsty James Unless the family situation is unusual, the HEN support team usually suggests interest based learning, which some people interpret to mean natural learning or unschooling (which is by definition interest based). However, interest based learning is relevant to every philosophy, and also to those who are new to home education and have not identified any particular style that appeals to them. 

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Advice for Home Educators

Normalise Reading

Normalise Reading By Pamela Euckerman When I was ten years old, we lived with my grandfather for seven months.  He lived in an old stone house surrounded by lush farmland in Cornwall, in the south of England. The house had once been a butter factory and in his younger days my grandfather ran a nursery—he had a shop room, greenhouses and what he called

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Advice for Home Educators

Unschooling Neurodivergent  Kids 

Unschooling Neurodivergent  Kids  Carla Clark Our family consists of mum, dad and two boys now six and three. We are unschoolers with our oldest going into ‘grade 1’ this year. Because we live in Victoria, we are lucky to have the flexibility and freedom to educate our children in a relaxed way that meets their needs.  My husband and I are both at home

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