I began this blog because education is my passion. I always wanted to become a teacher - that was my career choice from a very early age. I attribute this desire to all the Enid Blyton books based at boarding school I read as a child. Namely, the "Naughtiest Girl at School" series, the "St Clares" series, and the "Malory Towers" series. This was compounded later when I chanced upon and subsequently devoured the "Chalet" series by Elinor Brent-Dyer.
Unfortunately my parents would not allow me to study education at university (believing there were no jobs in the teaching field!), so I studied Science instead.
I also am a researcher. I love to research things - to search for and unearth hidden treasures. And the nuggets I discover that are useful educational resources - I want to share with you here. I spend a lot of time plumbing the depths of Youtube - countless hours - finding a goldfield of useful websites and clips. Over time I will share them all. I want this blog to be RICH with information - a one-stop-shop for all your homeschooling needs.
I have 5 children ranging from 1 year old to 15 years old, and have experienced both the public and private school system with my older children. I desperately wanted to homeschool my older children, but my now ex-husband vetoed the idea. After my divorce, being a single parent of little ones on welfare, I was lead to believe that I had to put them in school, and go out and get a full-time job. I was under the misguided understanding that if I did not comply with this, my financial support would be cut completely. It was only recently that I discovered that single parents in Australia have the same right to homeschool their children as anyone else, and the government could not have cut my benefits as that would have violated my constitutional rights. Bit late now, for my older children. They all choose to stay in school, and despise the very idea of homeschooling. One thing they've learned from attending school - homeschooled kids are weird. They are aghast that I shall be homeschooling my younger ones. Thankfully, I have the full support of their (Zari and Rori's) father, who can see the negative results of schooling in my older children - more so some than others.
More about the pros of homeschooling and why I will NEVER school my younger ones in another post. (I am not anti-preschool, just anti-school - I'll tell you why that is later, too).
CURRICULM:
I intend in my blog to cover the whole scholastic curriculum - History, Geography, Art/craft, Music, English, Languages, Mathematics, Sport and Bible/Religious studies.
LANGUAGES:
I will be covering learning many different languages, including French, German, Mandarin, Indonesian, Spanish, Italian, Japanese and Sign Language. My older children have been learning Japanese for years, and some German, though my son is currently learning Indonesian. In Australia, Indonesian is a sensible language to learn, as Indonesia is our closest neighbour, just as North Americans tend to learn Spanish due to being in close proximity to Spanish-speaking Central and South America. Unfortunately, there are not many resources for learning Indonesian or Australian sign languages (Auslan, Makaton and Australasian sign). So I will concentrate on American Sign Language (ASL) as we are currently swimming in resources for that!
MUSIC:
I will be discussing how my children learn to play the Piano using Piano Wizard software, and how they learn to play the violin, bagpipes, recorder and other instruments I collect while scrounging around in thrift shops. I will share what dvds, software, websites and Youtube clips are helpful for learning about music and for learning to play instruments.
SCIENCE:
You will notice that I will spend quite a lot of time teaching my kidlets about science. It's my natural bent and where my expertise lies, so that is understandable. You will begin to observe that I will divide the subject of science into subcategories such as Botany, Zoology, Astronomy, Chemistry, Physics, Geology, Paleontology, Microbiology, Genetics and so on. I majored in Zoology, so will subdivide that further into Entymology (study of insects), Ecology, Animal Anatomy and Physiology and so on. I hope to place the various subjects in the right categories, so if you are looking for studies on magnets or electricity the best place to look would be filed under Physics. I think. I'm not a physicist, but I hazard a guess that that would be the correct spot.
I could go on and on about how I plan to cover each subject, but suffice to say I will include tonnes of resources (links and reviews), photos of our activities and more. MUCH, much more - I promise! I'll include handy money-saving tips too, and lots of art/craft activities. I am just a bit overwhelmed at the moment with the demands of motherhood and hometeaching, my other passion (visit my other blog to find out what that is), and figuring out how to set up a blog - so much information to swallow before I can get started in earnest. So much to learn - so little time...
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