By Martina McNeill We are newly registered home educators. Again! Our youngest son has had a stint at school for almost six years, but 2022 finds us home educating. Again. If you’ve ever spoken to a home educator who has been at it for more than five minutes, you might have heard them say, ‘It’s a lifestyle, not just an education’. Well, that describes
A week in the life of our home educating family Kirsty James Three of my children are now at university, so home ed looks very different for my remaining teen, Rosa (15). There’s no more traipsing around after her siblings, the whole week is planned around her activities. Our style is eclectic, and ranges from academic classes to days of nothing much. We discuss
The End of Home-Ed: Where Are the Parents Now? By Rosemarie Tipping Home educators sometimes wonder what life will hold after the home-ed journey is over. Some feel lost, even down, particularly when the ending is unexpected. Others feel excited, having made plans for new adventures. We hope Rosemarie’s words offer some inspiration and also comfort to those who may be feeling blue about
By Annie Regan As an unschooling family, our learning method hasn’t really changed over the years. They learn from the environment around them, making connections to things they already know, following their interests and using things they discover to branch out into new topics and activities to pursue, and not distinguishing life from learning. They have always learnt from playing games, reading books, watching
By Nabeela Wahid ‘I can do this, Mama! I just need to try harder.’ ‘I can’t believe I did this!’ ‘I love this challenge!’ These are not positive affirmations from a TikTok video, rehearsed and performed for an audience to amass followers and likes. These are the utterances of a child no older than ten. Behind these words lies a gargantuan shift of mindset,
By Sarah My seven-year-old began making beaded bracelets for kids with their parent’s phone number on them. We learn maths, art, writing, geography, marketing and much more through this along with budgeting and finance. He was really enjoying making beads so we put our heads together to come up with a way he could turn it into a business. We created a spreadsheet where
The Great Outdoors By Jacqui Rickard As part of our home ed lifestyle, I love to spend time at interesting outdoor places – the beach, the bush, going for a walk, finding a waterfall, exploring rock pools, playing in creeks – anything like that. It’s as good for the kids as it is for me. I don’t think about what our next meal is
By L Winter “Wait, you were homeschooled?! Seriously?! Surely not… but you’re…” I’m what, normal? Social? Working? Happy? This is usually how the conversation goes when someone discovers that I was home educated for most of my child and teen years. Yes, not only am I a joyful, well-adjusted young adult despite my alternative education, but I’d like to suggest perhaps it is because of it. I
By Sara Giambruno Hello all, we are a quirky family of four (six if you include the pampered cats) who have pretty much followed an interest-led approach since we started home educating seven years ago. Currently, with all our classes/events/excursions temporarily out of the picture, most of our days consist of lots of reading, artwork, discussing anything of interest, daily Duolingo lessons (12-year-old Sofia
Changing Social Needs By Annie Regan As we’ve moved back into seeing our friends and doing activities this year, after the lockdown of 2020, I was feeling that things were different. At first, I thought it was just the weirdness of being able to go out and to see people again, then realised that it was more than that. We’ve moved into a new
By Pamela Ueckerman When my eldest son took the exciting step of learning to read using a phonics-based approach at his Montessori school, he dove in and picked it up quickly, which we expected because of his great love of books. What we didn’t expect was that his younger brother began showing an interest in learning phonics at the same time. He was already
Cheryl Dedman My name is Cheryl and I’ve been home educating our son Jacob for over 9 years now. We have a family of four: my husband Pete and myself, our eldest son Nathaniel (26) and our younger son Jacob (15) and of course our black lab/golden retriever, Wade. Our elder son went through the mainstream school system, which never suited him, but it
By Kirsty James A couple of years ago I organised for a small group of 7- to 12-year-olds to come to our house and learn about Africa with my daughter. I’m a huge fan of picture books, and I knew there were some wonderful books about the continent that we could enjoy together. We met for a few hours once a week. About two-thirds
Nabeela Fathima Wahid It was a chaotic start to the morning, a frenzy of activity dotted with the clatter and noise of each family member trying to cram in a multitude of chores into a single moment. The announcement of an unexpected visitor threw a spanner into the works and despite the dejection and frustration, we knew it was a matter of just getting
The End of Home-Ed: Where Are The Parents Now? Home educators sometimes wonder what life will hold after the home-ed journey is over. Some feel lost, even down, particularly when the ending is unexpected. Others feel excited, having made plans for new adventures. Here are some personal accounts from former home educators. HEN would like to thank Jean, Carol, Dora and Jeanie for taking
By Sarah Botting Lola is eight years old and Elena is six years old, and we have been home educating for a year now. We follow a very play-based, self-led approach, along with some printed curriculum based on current interests and some textbooks. I find some weeks the girls are driven to learn from the books, and happily ask to do more or choose
Jane Berry One of our roles as a parent is to help our children develop the necessary skills to function well as an adult in today’s society. In raising children who are world changers, hubby and I are trying to become intentional in how our children learn these skills and what those skills are. We are also trying to be intentional with raising our
Annie Regan Digital technology is one of the many tools we use for home education and it has made our life and learning easier, and expanded our world. Finding Information: We often look up information on the phone or computer when we are wondering who, what, why, when, or how. Sometimes we have a discussion first and then search to find out more detail
Annie Regan Last night I watched a Transformers movie. Liam and Tony were watching it and I was half paying attention and half doing other things (which is the way I watch most TV), and I was getting tired and sat down for a few minutes and watched a bit of the movie without distraction. I really really loved it. I had planned to
Heidi McCormack Why? I guess the first thing most people want to know is why we started home educating, and why now? That’s an easy and a hard question to answer. Easy because once I knew this was right for us, it made perfect sense. Hard because it was quite a journey to get here. As I’ve aged, I’ve become more self aware and
