I first heard about home education when our eldest daughter was two years old. I thought it was a great idea, but not for us. We also had a baby and I was expecting another baby shortly after our eldest's third birthday. Home education sounded so difficult! When our daughter turned three she started at a small country Kindy for two mornings each week. I became the Kindy's correspondence and minutes secretary, did monthly committee newsletters and helped with fund-raising. I was also secretary and treasurer of our playgroup, editor of a print newsletter and worked a little from home. Then baby #3 arrived... Boy, was I busy!
Months later I came across more information on home education and looked into it further. All the literature I could find was Christian-based, so while I liked the idea of home ed. - our reasons and ideas were different to those I was reading about. Still, I was really interested in this idea of having our first daughter at home as Kindy was a huge disruption in our lives - including in the relationship between the children.
Through the Christian home educators I had met I found 'Stepping Stones' newsletter - a quarterly Australian print journal (contact gracechapman@cyberwizards.com.au for details). I was thrilled to read about like-minded families. Unschooling (also known as natural learning in Australia) amazed me. I bought and read books by John Holt and R & D Moore as well as information on Steiner (Waldorf) education.
We took our little girl out of Kindy and had a few months of staying home, playing and reading. The following year I decided to do some pre-school activities with her as most turning-five year olds in our state go to pre-school for half of each week. I bought a few resources, read a lot on different curriculums and made a loose plan for our home based learning adventure. It took months of reading and discussing ideas with Gary until we knew what our goals were.
Each month I wrote goals for our pre-school "work". Our four year old thoroughly enjoyed her daily "lessons" of reading, writing, science experiments, worksheets or games. To obtain our goals I combined those from state and Waldorf curriculums as well as looking at her abilities and interests. Without realising what I was doing, I wrote a program for our daughter.
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