Do we need a curriculum?

Photo by Taylor Heery on Unsplash Interesting things are happening in home school politics in Queensland. Many home school families are upset that, without much consultation, a bill is about to be voted on that would force home school families to follow a set approved curriculum. So is that a good idea or not? The…

Letting perfection get in the way – Literacy Edition

Sometimes it’s very hard to make a start. It can be overwhelming. Other times it’s hard to start because it feels like it has to be done perfectly. That’s overwhelming too. I wanted to convert the garage under my house to be a rumpus room for the kids. Nothing too fancy, just somewhere for them…

Do They Need Teachers?

I heard tale of a teacher who recently went on a course about Lego learning in the classroom. One thing that surprised him about the training was that there was no Lego involved, it was all about the structured design process and getting the kids to write down those ideas in a way the teacher…

How to Start Homeschooling

I think a lot of new homeschool parents get quite anxious about how to start. There are so many options and so many big feelings. It’s very different if you’ve never sent your little ones to school, but if you have then what on earth do you do? Many make the mistake of immediately feeling…

Skeleton Biscuits

I asked the children to help me make some skeleton biscuits and said they needed to be fairly accurate. We printed off a diagram and as we made the biscuits we talked about the names of the bones, which were the smallest, the longest and how many there were. It was enjoyable. The kids love…

Learning about cells in Minecraft

I’ve been umming and ahhhing about how to teach my children about cells. I know that its going to be boring if we sit down and try and teach them. They won’t take it in. We tried making the cell cakes using sweets for parts and it was fun, but they don’t remember anything. In…

Getting Creative with Literacy

I’ve tried so many different things over the years. My kids loved books when they were little, we’d snuggle up and I’d read to them. Then they went to a school for a few years and all that changed. They ad a specialist literacy teacher who was strict and shouty and set boring tasks. They…

Nail Polish Rainbow Science

Sometimes it feels like we’ve done all the science. Sooooo many science experiments over the years and it can sometimes feel like there aren’t any of those fun little things left to do. We’ve done some more advanced ones lately, but since we’ve needed some things where we can learn in shorter bursts, we’ve enjoyed…

Turtles and sick kids

In our house we do what we can. We have children with illnesses which means sometimes they are well and sometimes they are not. Sometimes one is well and the other is not. It’s not always easy and it’s not always fun, but the mantra is that we do what we can when we can….

Opportunistic Unschooling

Today we went for a trip to some caves. It was magical and wonderful and was supposed to be my effort to quietly fill them with some fascinating geography and it worked. On the drive home we passed a truffle farm. I’ve never tasted truffles as my budget and tastes swerve me away from the…