Home Ed Activities Around Victoria

Home education doesn’t mean all learning happens in the home: the world really is your classroom!

Victoria offers many free and low cost activities. You can plan your activities as a family or link up with a group of home educators to go along together. Many venues that cater to school groups also have education materials available on their websites at no cost, to complement an exhibit or activity. There are also open days at some of the venues listed below, or free family days.

Here’s a short list of Victorian venues and activities that can help you with the eight key learning areas we must cover under home education regulations. Activities usually fall in to multiple learning areas.

The Arts

• National Gallery of Victoria
• Ian Potter Gallery
• walk around the city looking at architecture
• your local art and design galleries
• free lunchtime concerts at your local uni
• street performers (some are happy to teach kids tricks)
• street art walking tours
• local theatre productions
• Aboriginal art galleries and exhibitions
• McLelland Sculpture Park and Gallery
• Heide Museum of Modern Art
• Melbourne Town Hall galleries
• ACMI workshops and exhibitions
• ArtPlay workshops
• SIGNAL workshops for teens
• Abbotsford Convent
• Melbourne Symphony Orchestra

Humanities and Social Sciences

• NAIDOC Week activities
• Parliament House
• Old Treasury Building
• Old Melbourne Gaol
• Polly Woodside
• Ripponlea
• Werribee Mansion
• Geocaching
• Neighbourhood orienteering
• your local historical society
• Magistrates court, other courts
• Melbourne Law Week activities
• Melbourne Museum
• Melbourne double decker tour bus
• Melbourne Tram Museum
• City Circle Tram
• walking tours in the city
• Central Deborah Gold Mine in Bendigo
• Sovereign Hill
• Kryal Castle
• Coal Creek Korumburra
• Monash University Museum of Art
• Immigration Museum
• Shrine of Remembrance tours and museum
• your local council meetings
• Melbourne Business School lectures
• State Library of Victoria
• Cooks’ Cottage
• Fire Services Museum

Sciences

• Scienceworks
• Planetarium
• Australian Synchrotron
• Melbourne Uni Physics in July lecture series
• Open days at WEHI and other research institutes
• Knowledge Week activities
• Science Week activities
• Royal Society of Victoria lectures and events
• activities run by the EPA, government departments etc
• Melbourne Observatory
• Melbourne Water treatment plant tours
• annual frog census
• backyard bird watching census
• public events run by university science departments
• Victorian Space Science Education Centre
• Gene Technology Access Centre
• Melbourne Bioinformatics events
• Bureau of Meteorology
• Space Association Australia lectures
• Citizen Science activities
• Big Science Competition
• animal sanctuaries and rescue shelters
• CERES Environment Park

Information and Communication Technology, and Design and Technology

• ACMI exhibitions and workshops
• Your local Makerspace or Hackerspace
• Robotics workshops hosted by libraries
• school holiday STEM activities at libraries
• CoderDojo
• GovHack competition
• engineering departments at university Open Days
• STEM activities during Knowledge Week
• Victorian Telecommunications/Telstra Museum
• Australian National Aviation Museum
• RAAF Museum
• Sea Shepherd ship tour at Williamstown
• LEGO Brickvention
• Speed cubing events

Languages

• cultural festivals
• Bunjilaka Aborginal Cultural Museum
• food and culture in Chinatown, Lygon Street, etc
• continental delis, markets and stores with products from around the world
• storytime sessions at libraries
• enjoy a meal out trying new foods
• museums and galleries
• cultural days at markets
• open days at language schools

Health and Physical Education

• Aboriginal Heritage Walk
• Royal Botanic Gardens stroll and the Tan track
• board gaming venues
• National Sports Museum
• the MCG, sports stadiums
• attend a sporting match
• visit your local club of a new sport eg croquet, bowls
• farmers markets, Queen Victoria Market
• plotting walks in your neighbourhood
• adventure playgrounds and skate parks
• Ian Potter Foundation Children’s Garden
• explore the many bike paths in Melbourne
• chocolate factory tours
• kids cooking events hosted by libraries
• 1000 Steps Kokoda Track Memorial Walk

Maths

• Mathematical Association Vic: Investigating Maths
• Polly Woodside Maths@Sea
• free financial literacy workshops
• financial literacy materials published by banks
• use Google Maps to plot courses and measure distances around your neighbourhood
• Australian Mathematics Competition
• budgeting and grocery shopping

English

English is perhaps the easiest KLA to cover as just about everything involves skills under the English umbrella such as reading, comprehension, speaking, listening and so on.

• Shakespeare productions
• Toastmasters clubs
• book clubs
• speaker events at your local library
• public panels and debates
• writing letters to the editor of publications
• discussing your local newspaper or current affairs
• writing an article for Otherways home ed magazine

Events and Handy websites (some with apps)

Using the suggestions below, you will be able to find a number of activities for your family.

• Our website and Facebook page 
• local neighbourhood houses and community centres
• Open House Melbourne (held in July)
• EventBrite website
• VisitVictoria website
• Meetup.com website
• Playground Finder website
• What’s On Melbourne website
• Time Out Melbourne website
• subscribe to your local council newsletter
• subscribe to State and your local library newsletters
• special weeks e.g. NAIDOC, Knowledge, Fashion
• your local newspaper for upcoming events
• discount voucher sites such as ScoopOn, GroupOn, Cudo
• university events such as public lectures
• City of Melbourne website

Everything listed here counts towards covering the key learning areas. Think about schools going on excursions as part of covering their curriculum– home educators have the advantage of being able to do this too, for as long as we want and as many times as we want!

Downloadable flier

PDF file for download is a tri-fold pamphlet of the information above.

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