Save time and simplify
your homeschooling life...
Learn from experienced
homeschoolers how to write your own curriculum.
It really is that easy!
Use this website with Beverley Paine's Getting Started with Home Schooling - Practical Considerations to help you develop your own educational curriculum to suit your family situation, beliefs and lifestyle. The checklists can help you identify your children's current educational skill level in each subject area, as well as find any 'gaps' in their learning, plan what they need to cover or keep track of what has been learned. As you can appreciate this website is continuously under development... It's our aim to add pages on a regular basis in all curriculum areas: check back frequently. Feedback and comments welcome. We hope you enjoy the articles and activities and find the links and recommended resources useful. Over the next year we will be working our way through each subject area and writing fresh, new content which will also be reproduced in a reasonably priced handy reference booklet from our Practical Homeschooling Series. |
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"Congratulations on a terrific website. It's a great resource." Steven "By sharing your experiences, we are into our third year of homeschooling and enjoying it thoroughly." Marina "Thank you so much for your wonderful website! I was getting quiet frustrated with finding appropriate information on homeschooling - thanks to your website we are now on the right track... Using your checklists for reassurance helped me to have the confidence to come up with my own programme that suits our needs." Rachael "I'm a frequent visitor to your website... I gain valuable knowledge from your website, luckily recommended in the very early stages of our homeschooling journey." Geradine "I checked out your website today and was incredibly impressed by it. I can tell it will be a great resource for our family for many years. THANKS for all the hard work that has gone into making homeschooling easier and much less isolating for families like us." Cynthia |
Reading for Life: Te Lost Arts of Making and Mending
© Beverley Paine, 2004
In the homeschool we provide plenty of opportunity to develop craft skills through exciting projects that captivate the children's imagination or provide suitable props for their many games. There's a more practical side to developing craft and technology skills though; we're preparing our children to be self-reliant, teaching them self-sufficiency and conservation skills that will save valuable resources and help them to become independent and useful members of society.
There are oodles of craft books full of wonderful activities that teach, step by step, how to make anything from a woollen scarf to a kitchen sideboard, to a robot carrying a snack tray! Find books or kits that excite and interest your child, or you. When you are engaged in craft or technological projects, even if you don't involve your children, you are modelling valued life-skills. In time they will emulate your example, even if they aren't interested at this stage. Always invite them to join in, but don't feel the need to coerce or bribe them. Get involved in their projects too, with real enthusiasm, in whatever way you can, without taking over completely!
If you're like me, you read the packaging and instructions to just about everything you buy. A long time ago I grew tired of watching other people struggle to put together something new, give up in frustration when they hit a snag, then dig out the directions. I've always been a great believer in 'reading the instructions first'. I love instructions. It's a quick and easy way to learn new skills. Sometimes I need to ask about a term or find a definition for new words in the dictionary. I can't imagine a home without one, two or three dictionaries of different sizes scattered throughout the house or shed!
We have books that show us how to build a garden wall that won't fall over, how to repair the plumbing under the kitchen sink, how to change a light bulb. We have books that show us how to crochet, knit, sew and embroider. We have building books, gardening books, cooking books, home repair books, and books that show us how to build up, identify and label elaborate collections. We also have books that show us how to solve problems on the computer, how to use the programs, how to surf the Internet and find instructions on how to do just about anything we'd ever want, or need, to do!
I know that I am continuously demonstrating that I am reader and that the written word is an integral and powerful tool in my life. My children want to become readers to be able to access the information they need to do what they want, as well as an enjoyable past time.
We don't need to invent reading-related jobs or chores around the house or copy contrived classroom antics to encourage children to read. On those long days when there doesn't seem much to do and we're all bored with what we've been doing it's time to dust off some of the jobs we never get around to doing. Here are some reading-rich examples of activities that you can share with your children:
• make a card file for your recipes, or record on the computer;
• file the photographs in the album, and write captions, or scan them onto computer and store on CDs, complete with notes about each one;
• make a family website and upload to the World Wide Web;
• make a calendar which records family birthdays and special occasions;
• update or make a new address book;
• make a family tree;
• tidy the bookshelves into categories or alphabetical order;
• with your child revise the family weekly list of things to do;
• make greeting cards and write suitable poetry and store close to the address book and birthday calendar;
• plan the next holiday, map out the route and make a list of things to take and do; start a planning scrapbook you can take with you;
• research a new project together and make plans, write lists of things you need to buy, etc. It can be about anything you or they have wanted to do but haven't had time.
on this website is of a general
nature only and is not intended as
personal or professional advice.
Getting Started Manual Unschooling Books Educational Games Natural Learning Practical HS Booklet Series Curriculum Reports/Portfolios Homeschool Diaries Conference DVD 
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Beverley and Robin Paine
PO Box 371 Yankalilla 5203
SOUTH AUSTRALIA
Thank you for visiting!
Pioneering members of the home education movement in Australia,
Beverley and Robin Paine
are passionate advocates of true educational choice for families.
They began homeschooling in 1986 and three years later started the
South Australian Home Based Learners
network. Beverley continues to write for homeschooling newsletters
and magazines as well as hosting several websites dedicated to promoting
and supporting home education in Australia. Her aim is to demystify the
education process and make it accessible to all parents. Enjoy Beverley's
wealth of practical knowledge, homeschooling and unschooling tips and
ideas through articles and books and online at
www.homeschoolaustralia.com.
Since the late 1990s Robin and Beverley have been building their home education
publishing business - Always Learning Books - from home with the help of their son Thomas.
"Education is not a preparation for life. Education is life itself." John Dewey
Please note that the opinions and articles included in the suite of Homeschool Australia websites are not necessarily those of Beverley and Robin Paine, nor do we endorse or necessarily recommend products (other than our own) listed in contributed articles, pages, or advertisements.
Please visit the following websites for information on homeschooling in Australia:
Homeschool Australia : SAHEN : Australian HS Curriculum : About the Paine Family
Text & Images on this site
Copyright © 1999-2008 Beverley Paine.
All rights reserved.
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