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
Pamela Uckerman On the first day of the school year in 2019, when my boys were entering grades three and two, I dropped them at school, went home and cried. After six blissful weeks of summer, the complaints about school and the horrible mornings were back. They attended a beautiful Montessori school and we had made a lot of sacrifices to keep them there.
Lyndall Thomas So much of our homeschooling journey is about learning. But for me, it’s also about unlearning. Unlearning is an academic concept about undoing the bonds of institutionalised learning. It’s a very close cousin to deschooling. You might have been engaging in unlearning without even knowing it. You might have chosen it with all of your free will behind you. Or, if you’re
Linda Ford On June 12, we were on Day 2 of our 1000km road trip to Armidale in northern NSW. Two of my older children are studying there at the University of New England, and I was taking my five youngest up to visit them. The day started in a caravan park in Forbes. Isabelle announced that it was three weeks until she turned
Catherine Durrant I recently watched a segment on The Project about Unschooling. Overall, it was very positive towards home education and the families in the segment were very articulate and inspiring. However, towards the end an education expert, Adam Voigt, commented that home education is ‘missing the opportunity to learn cooperatively with other people, that in the future people need to work out significant
Mairi Girgis. I was never going to “homeschool” my kids myself. I didn’t research home education before I started. When I started I had a lot of misconceptions, I didn’t think I’d have the patience to teach my children, and I was looking forward to having all my children in school and going back to study and work. I distinctly remember attending a school-parent
Faye C Ahh, those early days of my family’s home education journey! I had our Happy Homeschool House all planned out about ten years ago— something along the lines of perfectly co-operative children who would happily sit down and complete ‘work’ without a problem. My two children were going to be the poster children for home ed and beautiful sibling relationships. Too easy! Of
Belinda Lee When did society start to put family values behind those of progress and being ahead? Increasingly, what we are witnessing in society is a way of life which chases a notion of being better, being smarter, having more and having done more. When we talk about family being central to the happiness of a child, we are suddenly seeing a societal climate that
By Alison Mazza As a homeschooling mum all I seem to do is rush from here to there, With barely any time to even brush my hair. It’s always ‘quick, everyone, shoes on and out the door’, No time now for all those last-minute chores. Then once we’re safely in the car the questions start. ‘Mum, what’s faster, a three- or four-wheel cart?’ And
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