This Week's Homeschool Picks

A collection of ideas, inspiration and thoughtful articles from fellow homeschooling Substackers from my in-box

Today I’m trying something different — I’m writing a round-up style newsletter, sharing links to a few of the Substacks that landed in my email in-box this morning that I’m sure will be helpful to other homeschoolers.

Sarah, from MyHomeEdPlan, delves into the difference between a curriculum and learning plan, saying “Most home educators start with a curriculum. The ones who stick with it usually end up with something else entirely. Here’s the distinction that changes how you approach everything.” I encourage families to write their own homeschool learning plans, but for those Aussie families who need to register quickly and want something ready-made built with links to free online lesson plans, unit studies and activity suggestions that covers learning across all subject areas, I created my series of Always Learning Homeschool Year Plans.

I was a child failed by school, even though for 11 years I was lauded for being one of the few “top of the class”, “bright”, and “showing great promise” kids. As a fifteen-year old I dallied with the idea of becoming a teacher. Something deep within my rebelled against that idea, and by seventeen it was obvious that although I was still intensely interested in education, schools weren’t going to feature in my future. Katy’s newsletter, Schools Don’t Just Fail the Kids Who Struggle. They Are Run by the Kids Who Didn’t, is a plea to those that like me loved and enjoyed school, but unlike me went on to have a teaching career, to critically examine their pedagogy and to listen to the people school has harmed, because there are answers and solutions and practices that do work.

I never considered myself as creative, not in the traditional artistic sense, when I was young. “Your kid’s creative fire is in there, and you can fan that flame at home,” writes Mackenzie, urging us to unleash our children’s creativity at home with simple, practical suggestions and tips. I believe fostering creativity is absolutely vital in the age of AI because it alone provides the originality, emotional resonance, and critical direction that computer chips can’t replicate.

Missy urges us to look at how we naturally build competence and learn new things, and then says our children are no different. She encourages us to reframe our worry about our children being “behind” and to look at what’s happening through a different lens. This is so important for home educating parents because we’ve stepped outside the normal way children are graded and judged as competent and need a new, different framework for understanding this aspect of our children’s growth.

I really appreciate it when experienced home educators share practical ways we can upskill our homeschooling practice: clear steps and what to do to help our children learn. In this newsletter Shari gently shows how well-meaning parents accidentally build dependence. She writes: “Success cannot mean a perfectly completed worksheet. Success means your kid needed slightly less of you today than they did yesterday.”

Using an example from their homeschooling life, Bethany provided a powerful example of a lesson that took me half a dozen years to learn: that instead of teaching the way that worked for me, I needed to find the way that worked for my child. Bethany writes: “Sometimes it felt like I’d tried fifteen different ways to teach the exact same lesson. It was exhausting. It was discouraging. Then the sixteenth way would work. Not because I’d finally found the perfect curriculum. Because I’d finally found an approach that made sense to him.”

We’ve all been there.

Emily shares her take on the different philosophical approaches to home education and where she lands with each of them, and I really enjoyed reading part 1 and am looking forward to part 2. So far she’s covered Montessori, Classical Education, and Charlotte Mason. A brief dip and description of each.

Yesterday I came across what looks like it could be a really valuable — essential — tool offered for free: Homeschool Observation Tool | School Can't, Neurodivergent, Autism ADHD |. It is an ‘educational observation resource’, specifically designed for those families who are home educating because of school refusal, school distress or "school can't" — parents of autistic, ADHD, AuDHD, PDA-profile and otherwise neurodivergent children. It would be helpful too for families feeling lost after purchasing a homeschool program that isn’t working. The Baseline Fortnight is a 26 page, guided 4-day observation tool we can use that maps what our child can actually do right now, before we plan a single lesson.

I had a look through the tool and wish it was something I had available when I was new to parenting. Because it shifts the lens through which to look at and consider what is happening. It's method is a sound research tool: first it instructs us to simply observe without judgement and assumption, and then to reflect on those in a certain way after a period of time has elapsed. And this grounds us in our current reality and cuts through the panic that the 'shoulds' in our head constantly cause.

There are a lot of encouraging and reassuring blog posts about homeschooling on the internet and I’ve written a fair few myself, but I think the information that many of us crave, particularly in the early years, contain practical “how do I help my child learn xxx?” tips. Getting Young Children Ready for Handwriting by Karen Tui Boyes is one of these. A very thorough and sound guide worth reading if you have young children.

In her reflections about natural learning, Gem asks, “Why do we feel such a need to prove that learning has happened at all?” She echoes my thought that we’ve been conditioned to recognise only that learning which can be recorded and measured. And this frames just about everything we do and think throughout life: living becomes one long performance. Sometimes we need this spelled out using examples that we can easily relate to — which is what Gem does in her July Field Notes.

Some days I’d find myself reluctant to put out the art materials because I knew it would take me longer to tidy up afterwards than the kids would spend creating their masterpieces! I’m a sucker for a post that offers practical tips and ideas that are actually useful and will help make life smoother, easier and less work overall. Art is Play gives us some simple, effective suggestions that will help to make cleaning up much less of a chore after artistic explorations.

And finally, I’ve started following Sarah Beale’s The Unschoolers Way. A ‘radical unschooler’ her thoughts can be unsettling and challenging for many, but I find myself nodding along with many of her observances as I’ve witnessed them in both my children and grandchildren. This week I resonated very strongly with her thoughts about socialisation (and I think you will too, regardless of how you homeschool), and also resilience.

And that’s a wrap! I read so many other Substacks — far too many, as well as several other articles that caught my attention throughout the past week. Some weeks I write, some weeks I read… And that’s okay.

I posted this Note a couple of days ago and it generated a lot of comments, particularly on my Facebook page. I thought I might share it here too:

The question most often asked on homeschool forums used to be, “How do I start homeschooling?” but lately it’s been, “What company is everyone going through to homeschool their children?”

And to be honest, I don’t know how to answer that question, because for me - and many experienced home educators - that’s not homeschooling! That’s something else, distance education perhaps?

It’s one thing to find and use resources when homeschooling our children, but that’s completely different to outsourcing the learning to an educational company.

Is the nature of home education being redefined?

Or perhaps it is finally evolving into something many families who, for decades past, wanted to homeschool but couldn’t because the resources they needed didn’t exist yet.

I’m not sure. What do you think?

Whether you’ve been homeschooling for a long time, a few years years or just started, I’d love to know where you land on this.

Photo by Alexander Grey on Unsplash

I’m dropping Notes most days and would love to connect with you that way — you can add a comment or like. Don’t forget we can keep the conversation going on any of my posts by adding a comment there too.

If you’re homeschooling in Australia, don’t forget to download my FREE Resource Directory for a bumper list of educational and curriculum providers and suppliers, as well as comprehensive guide on getting started how to register as a home educating family.

Whatever your approach, your lifestyle or education philosophy, I’m here to support you. Take what you need, leave the rest. I want you to lean on my experience because I’ve leant on others — we are in this together, growing and learning from each other!

That’s all for now! Until next time, Beverley