It’s where all the action takes place. It’s where our country’s future resides. It’s the living learning laboratory where a child’s life will be shaped to a major degree. It’s where those who entered for the first time this month will emerge from in 2025 with growing talents to take on and shape the world. Each classroom is an amazing place where the kinds of interchanges, important for national survival and development, are so critical.

What do they look like? How many has the general public seen? Does a normal classroom really look like the ones portrayed in films and documentaries. Read more

Science inquiry through a Project-Based Learning approach is not a new concept, but the idea of tackling it in a multiage experience was new for Celina and me this year.We approached it as we do any teaching and learning in our classroom through a lens of questions, not unlike the inquiry process:

1.Students first: What would they need? We have three different grade levels that need high interest and engaging opportunities to build their learning.They learn best through an active approach to acquiring knowledge, where they have ownership and are inspired. Many also benefit greatly by building their social skills through interacting and conversing with others along the learning path. Read more

The National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) got me thinking back in the 1980s when they were strongly against early academic, and especially early reading, instruction. I took their arguments to heart, and my own young children freely played their way through their preschool years and were not given any type of early instruction. Instead, we created a rich and stimulating environment in which they could learn through play, experimentation, exploration, investigation, collaboration, and doing what brought them joy. And they learned. A lot. There was no stopping them. After that, school was a big disappointment. Read more

I have seen service learning turn at-risk youth into contributing, giving, happy citizens who have a solid set of values and are ready to pursue college or career success. Service Learning is a set up for success in many ways.
Here are a few:

The great feeling that just comes from doing something good for someone else (increased self-esteem)
The perspective that just comes from seeing others that are more needy in some way than you (insight),
The learning that just comes from creating a project and following it through (task completion, life skills, reading, writing, math, speaking, etc). Read more

While learning is often associated with textbooks, tests, and teachers, there is an another source from which children can learn some fantastic life lessons.  One of the best learning resources are the creatures that live among us. Animals! There are so many great ways to learn with and from animals.  Here are ten fun and innovative ways that young people, and the adults in their lives, can get in touch with their warm and wild side and learn a lot in the process. Read more

Number one grandchild, Emily, has in the blink of an eye reached that dubious milestone known as “school aged,” and yet her homeschooling continues. You can imagine this Grandma’s mental cartwheels, thrilled that what I consider the gift of homeschooling is still giving within my family after all these years. And you can imagine how, er, “supportive” a never-will-be-retired homeschooling grandma can be, even when she’s almost 2000 miles away.

So far the majority of support, as it has often been for new homeschooling parents over so many years, is simply lending an understanding ear. By invitation, Erika, my daughter, unburdens her deepest beginner’s self-doubt, trials, and tribulations whenever the need builds. Since she was, without question, my own biggest homeschooling challenge, I’m sometimes happy we’re talking by phone and not in person. I confess, sometimes I smile. Read more

In less than a fortnight our eldest leaves home! Anna Maria is excited and eagerly looking forward to beginning the next stage in her life's journey.

Eight months ago Anna Maria began a course at our local TAFE, Administration/Bookkeeping, Certificate 3. She quickly found her rhythm and enjoyed the experience of formal classes and independence. We watched her blossom and bloom with pride. Just before Christmas she sat for her final exams and passed with flying colours, receiving 100% for Bookeeping!

Throughout this period Anna Maria had been discerning what direction to take next.  In October she applied to attend a Catholic Liberal Arts College.  All applicants to the College have to write an application essay and are subsequently interviewed.  Anna Maria was accepted to attend the College on the proviso that she undertake and do well on the STAT test.  Students who enter via traditional schooling undertake the HSC, home educated students can use their STAT results, both result in ATAR scores.  Anna Maria sat the STAT exam in November and did extremely well (ATAR 84). Read more

Two Cooma home schooled year 12 students graduated on Saturday after gaining outstanding year 12 results. Their marks are remarkable given they didn’t attend regular school, taking up a home school option instead.

Bradley Ventura and Samuel Vanderhout completed their year 12 certificate by distance education through the Jubilee Christian School in Queensland and sat a Scholastic Assessment Test (SAT) exam to gain a tertiary admission rank for university admission.

Bradley Ventura scored an equivalent Australian Tertiary Admission Rank (ATAR) of 99 and is enrolled at the Australian National University to study a double degree this year, a Bachelor of Engineering (Electronics and Communications) and Bachelor of Information Technology.

Samuel Vanderhout achieved an equivalent ATAR of 95 and will also undertake a double degree, a Bachelor of Engineering (Electrical)/Bachelor of Business at Newcastle University in 2012. Read more

A mother's nurturing love for her preschooler fosters the growth of a region in the child's brain that is key to learning and responding to stress, researchers have found.

Until now, there's been no solid proof linking a supportive, attentive parent to changes in the brain anatomy of children. Many studies have shown the importance of nurturing early in life in rodents and primates.

The nurturing experiment was designed to give researchers an idea of how much support the children received at home. (iStock)
The brain's hippocampus is important for learning, memory and coping with stress.

In this week's online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, U.S. researchers reported that some children had a hippocampus almost 10 per cent larger than their peers whose mothers who didn't show as much care. Read more