Western Port Co-op Stephanie Garrood We live, learn and play on the Mornington Peninsula, Bunurong Country. It is the most biodiverse region in all of Victoria with 60+ Ecological Vegetation Classes (EVCs). Beauty abounds in a multitude of terrains where 70% of land is green wedge protected and includes national and state parks, Ramsar wetlands and beaches a-plenty. Home educating here, we are spoilt
Dungeons and Dragons A world of Adventure! Gameschooling is the practice of using games to learn. When you have fun while learning, you often retain information better! So why not take advantage of the many card, board and video games available—to absorb new information; practice life-skills like reasoning, team-work and losing with grace; and to keep the joy of learning alive? By Aleisha Hobson
Alexis the Welder By Helena Van Soest Alexis is a very friendly girl, but shy. Working in a retail store or restaurant did not suit her. She did not like to ask people ‘How’s your day?’ and engage in idle chit chat. Alexis tried Child Care too. She is very good with children and always thought that would be her calling. However, the underlying
World Schooling – 6 months in Canada Christine Cole Last June my husband and I took our children to my family home in Canada for six months. At the time they were 3, nearly 5 and nearly 7 and we hadn’t seen my family for three years! So we decided to take an extended trip to spend some quality time and do some adventuring.
Spotlight on Home Ed Alumni Find Your Own Way It might not be what you think By Jemima Please introduce yourself, tell us how old you are and what you are doing now. My name is Jemima, I am 36 and I spend my days home educating my three children, who are between 5 and 10 years old. What did your home education look
We are a neurodivergent, single-parent household with one remaining teen of school age (L, 15 years old). Two older siblings (C, 19 and A, 23) sometimes join our activities out and about and often join in home-based learning. However, our learning no longer looks anything like traditional schooling: L is a self-directed learner and prefers periods of deep dives / hyperfocus. Our home education
How Conversations Can Lead Learning Naturally Bella We are in our second year of home educating and it’s been a journey of ups and downs, but the improvements have definitely made it all worth it. My son is 9 years old and has a lot of learning trauma amongst other issues which has made learning interesting for us but this hasn’t stopped him from
By Sonja Otto My husband is a novelist. It was his dream to be a writer from when he was around seven years old and wrote a series of stories titled The Detective Known as Brad (hardly surprising with a childhood of reading The Famous Five and The Three Investigators). His stories (and titles) have come a long way since then, but writing is
By Clare Dunstan This year I thought I had it all together… Yes I know, how foolish of me! In my mind the kids could just continue on with the work they were doing from last year, it had been going well, nothing needed changing. How wonderful not to start the year with the typical scramble for new books. Or so I thought. The
Nicole B Sunday: Used jack hammer, crow bars and cement saw to smash up concrete with dad and friends—part of our home renovation project. Watched anime series in between. Swam at the beach. Watched Labyrinth film with the whole family. Monday: Guitar practice Prepared breakfast and lunch to take out for the day. Went to the hairdresser and got pink highlights as a celebration
Annie Regan I love the deep, lasting friendships that my kids make, the sense of community and inclusivity, getting to know other parents and kids, having lots of time to relax, exploring new places with friends, eating ice cream, going back to the same places and developing traditions, or going to new places and discovering new things – every camp we’ve been on has
By Pamela Ueckerman One of the most frequent questions I get about our journey through home education now that my boys are a tween and a teen—aside, of course, from the inevitable and soul-wearying question about socialisation—is, “Will you home school through high school?” It’s a valid question and my answer is always, “If that’s what they want,” which is usually met with more
Am I a Bad Dad? By Ash B I’m a pretty simple, average dad, no expert, but like so many of you, I want the best for my family. The hassles of school had caused me to consider home educating on many occasions prior to beginning our family’s journey. One of my main objections to home educating was personal, it suited me too much
Our life is anything but Instagram worthy. I read the amazingly post-able blogs of home educating families, that must have fifty times the energy of my family, with mixed feelings of inspiration (at what’s possible), insecurity (I’m not capable of that), and a touch of cynicism (tell us the downside)! We’ve got 11, 9, and 5 year olds. Our week consists of a flexible
Spotlight on Home Ed Alumni Jessica Shepstone Hi, my name is Jessica Shepstone. I graduated from home education in 2010. I am an art teacher who runs home-based art classes to children of all ages (primarily home-educated). I started home education when I was 11 years old, having attended school from Prep to Year 5. I enjoyed school, had good friendships and great teachers.
Infinite Sky By Pavlina McMaster Imagine, if you will, that you are a child. You are intensely curious about the world around you. As you grow, you explore the world around you; you follow your parents and family around and learn about how the world works. You observe what happens when you drop things from your high chair, and experiment with different materials—do carrot
Home Ed Groups – The Co-op of my dreams By Bridget Muhrer When my family started our first year of home education, I thought we had our co-op set up for the long term. We had a group of seven friends that were all starting at the same time, and we had had lots of meetings and made lots of plans. We knew what
A week in the life of our home educating family By S. Miranda Monday Eiri (7) and Tal (4) play quietly (like elephants) downstairs before Mum and Dad get up. Dad works from home, so the kids get to have breakfast with him, while I go for a morning walk or sleep in. After helping clean up after breakfast, Eiri does a segment of
Discovering Learning Opportunities on Phillip Island By Pamela Ueckerman Phillip Island, Melbourne’s playground island, is well-known for its little penguins, Seal Rocks and the Phillip Island MotoGP. Having family who live on the island, we visit multiple times a year and love to see it in all its different guises, and over the years, we’ve found many other fabulous opportunities off the beaten track
This Little Piggy went to Market Rachel Vautier If you had met my daughter years ago, and said hello, her answer would have been ‘oink’; pigs….and origami…..were two of her biggest loves. April’s love for origami, the overflow of that paper love all over our house, and her requests to sell something out the front of our house like she had read about in
