The Educating Parent (merging Beverley Paine's Homeschool Australia and Unschool Australia)

FREE RESOURCES
from Beverley Paine, The Educating Parent

ALB Big List of Free Australian Curriculum

April from Always Learning Books collates and compiles a list of popular free curriculum resources used by home educating families. Updated regularly.

What is home education?

A free brochure you can download and print to give to relatives, friends, school staff, local authorities and politicians to help them understand home education, what it is, how it works, socialisation and more. 3 A4 pages.

Beverley Paine on Natural Learning

Some folks call it unschooling, others describe how they home educate as natural learning. Beverley found it hard to justify introducing learning activities for the sake of learning something, preferring to allow life to present her children with a myriad of different, interwoven and naturally complex situations which gently challenged them to grow and develop different skills and understandings. In this short eBook, Beverley explores what natural learning - or unschooling - isn't, as well as offering some insights and tips how you too can tap into the learning that your kids are naturally doing every day.

Children and Chores

Everyday life is rich with amazing natural opportunities for children to learn and grow but because we're so used to thinking about education as schooling we fail too recognise the educational richness and importance of these essential developmental tasks. Chores are packed with opportunities to learn a range of skills and knowledge across all curriculum areas: remember to consider them when recording and planning your home educating year.

I Was Home Educated

In this short eBook a collection of adults who were home educated share their thoughts and memories - answers to questions posed by members of Beverley's online support groups. People were curious about home ed graduates liked best about homeschooling or unschooling, how they developed their passions and interests, what they didn't like, if they wished they'd be educated differently, if they had strong friendships, if they felt they'd missed out on anything, etc. Some interesting questions not normally covered in other surveys!

A Few Words to my Younger Self

"As a young mum I wanted a different dynamic to the one I grew up in for my family: I wanted one built on mutual respect that nurtured self esteem and confidence. Having children challenged so many of my assumptions about what was important and necessary in life. I wish I'd known some of the things I know now."
10 tips from Beverley to her younger self, and for parents still enjoying growing up with their kids.

Literature Unit Study: The Chimaera Conspiracy

In 2002 Beverley's first novel, a sci-fi story called The Chimaera Conspiracy was published by Greater Glider and available from Always Learning Books. Beverley put together this literature unit study both as an example of how to create your own literature unit studies for other books your children are reading, but also if you have a child interested in either dolphins, genetic engineering, or sci-fi!

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Beverley Paine with her children, and their home educated children, relaxing at home.

Together with the support of my family, my aim is to help parents educate their children in stress-free, nurturing environments. In addition to building and maintaing this website, I continue to create and manage local and national home educating networks, help to organise conferences and camps, as well as write for, edit and produce newsletters, resource directories and magazines. I am an active supporter of national, state, regional and local home education groups.