Strawbale play inspired story-telling and architectural investigation into strawbale and cob building design.

We’ve been educating at home now for almost 18 months now – first my daughter then a few months later my son decided he’d prefer to learn at home too. They are thriving and without the testing, I know they are not just keeping up, but actually learning more rapidly, broadly, deeply and in a more connected way.  They’ve regained their sparkle and thirst for learning – I love it!

Making a worm farm – part of Hugh’s project to breed worms for his chickens, and also to sell at the local market with his worm towers.

One of the things they love about learning at home – there is no fixed timetable. We design and negotiate the program each day and it always remains flexible to allow them to go with the flow of where their interests may take them.  This gives them the opportunity to go deeply into a topic until they are satisfied. When they are ready, they move on.

My mum was a primary school teacher and the way she taught really inspired me. I remember going into her classrooms and being in awe of the amazing learning wonderland she had created.  As a kid, I was so excited when she came into my class as a relief teacher – she had a way of drawing everyone in, learning was fun, exiting and stimulating.

What I learned from my mum’s approach is that by surrounding children with things of interest it presents them with opportunities to naturally engage and connect. Our house has become like this – multitudes of ‘activity stations’ always ready, books on every topic imaginable, materials to create and design with, instruments and music galore, homemade posters reinforcing language and numeracy, and lots of tools for investigation – magnifying glasses, microscopes, binoculars and monoculars, note-pads and clip-boards, and of course a permaculture playground in this ecovillage setting, surrounded by amazing natural places.

Homeschooling has it’s challenges particularly with regards to managing time for work and house keeping, but it is so incredibly rewarding that I find a way to make it all possible. Evan and I decided to both work part time from home and share the role of being the learning support person.

Dressed up for their musical performance with the Hinterland Concert Band’s gig with local band, the Unusual Suspects – very exciting!

To help us meet our kids’ voracious appetite for learning, we have also found mentors locally and online to help extend them in their areas of interest – particularly music, writing, theatre – and take them to lots of workshops and organise many ourselves.

Hugh checking out how the biochar system works – at a biochar workshop we organised at Crystal Waters.

learning about the world

Being a permaculture WWOOF host we often have international guests come and stay. This is a great opportunity to learn about the history, culture and language of many places. For the past couple of months we’ve hosted a Columbian WWOOFer so the kids have learnt so much about South America and have been practicing their Spanish.
We have also travelled to teach permaculture overseas with the children a couple of times, immersing them in cultures so different from their own.

learning to be educators

Being a centre for permaculture education we also have many groups coming here -from playgroups to Year 12 geography classes, to permaculture tours and classes. The children always get involved and are so stimulated by engaging with kids from all different areas and of various ages. They are becoming excellent communicators. They’ve just finished doing toastmasters and have signed up for two plays with local drama group this term.

Year 11 Geography camp – the kids took part fully in the entire 3 day program.

learning to be designers

The children understand why and how we designed our house and our edible landscape, and why we live in an ecovillage. They have heard me explain it to so many visitors. We often discuss the design of settlements, houses and landscapes wherever we go and chat about what we could do to make them more sustainable. I have taken them to design projects with me and they are becoming good designers themselves. The critical thinking and problem solving skills that design requires are great to cultivate, and are useful in so many different situations.

I am planning to write more about our journey of educating our children at home over the next weeks. If you have any particular questions or have experiences to share regarding education/learning at home, please leave a comment.

The post Why I Let My Young Children Leave School To Learn At Home… appeared first on Our Permaculture Life.

Futher reading and collections of research: https://www.childrenandnature.org

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Hugh’s Bunya and Maple stool.

Hugh finished his stool today  – sanded it back and oiled it with olive oil from the kitchen.

Maia with her stool. It’s a perfect height for the kids and easy to move around to various activities around the house.

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Over 30 children participated with their parents and siblings.

Exploring the design brief and sharing suggestions of what features might an ecovillage include.

Raiding the resource piles for building materials.

All ages worked collaboratively.

The children made their structures from cardboard boxes, bamboo, hemp string, pegs, clips, old sheets, fabric offcuts, and decorated with paint and found items from the garden.  The structures went up quickly, then the exciting part came – crafting the details, creating ecovillage stories together, and visiting each other’s places in the ecovillage.

There was rich and detailed thought processes embedded in the designs of these ecovillage elements.

Many focussed on getting their structures stable first before adding the detail.

This household complex was complete with garden, energy and water systems.

This little ecovillage house was tucked away in the bushes, away from the central zone.

A ‘tiny house’.

This big collaborative structure became the ‘ecocentre’ community meeting space complete with mailboxes.

Setting up the internal village systems.

There was a big rain the night before this event, and so many ants had come out of the ground. There were quite a few bites unfortunately, but this led to the design and construction of a bite clinic complete with aloe vera sticks inside.

New services evolved as the morning progressed – responding the the needs that emerged. For example, the anti-bite clinic became a necessity, with aloe vera treatments available.

A patient in the clinic – reportedly feeling much better after she’d been there!

The workshop enabled the children an opportunity to explore permaculture and systems thinking in action, and the notion of simple ecovillage living – they considered too what features might be included in such a village.

Bakery complete with a variety of sourdough breads on offer.

The wind-powered cafe – connected to one of the community energy systems.

Careful what you order….!!!

The children were very resourceful, finding ways to use a stack of boxes, bamboo, string and pegs and collecting materials from around their environment to add detail and form. I was so impressed at how focussed they were and how cooperatively they worked together to create a cohesive village environment.  I was so impressed too by the rich fabric of stories woven about the spaces the created.

The children showed intense focus and concentration for a couple of hours while they made their village elements.

Sharing the stories.

Ecological design, creating sustainable living environments and considering what it means to have a sustainable lifestyle are such important skills for this young generation to be cultivating. My goal with designing and offering Nature Kids, Young Ethos Scholars and Earth School programs is to create opportunities for children of all ages to delve deeply into thinking about the future in positive ways, experiencing ecological thinking and action, and finding ways to apply that knowledge and experience.

I think it is critically important for children to hear about and experience more ecological and nature-connected forms of human development and to share this with other children – to explore ideas together, to teach each other, and to explore what a regenerative, positive and joyful future may look like.

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Today was Hugh’s 8th birthday.  Because we are exploring waste as a homeschooling topic, he was super keen for his party to be simple, fun and as waste-free as possible.  He helped to design the food plan and it was almost plastic and waste-free.

Hugh decided on a bike party with simple home made fare. He made and decorated his own cake – a sugar-free choc-banana cake (although the little bit of icing and decorations he added on top were sugary)

His request was for a party of riding bicycles and playing together around the village green, and for simple homemade treats and a BBQ with friends.  As a mum, I was delighted. I love helping my kids organise celebrations, but this one was particularly easy-going – very little organisation from me needed at all. Hugh made and distributed the invites, wrote the food plan, helped shop, baked and decorated the cake…

This was Hugh’s plan to reduce party waste….

• Instead of party bags, take fun memories home
• Instead of poppers, streamers or balloons – have it outside in nature – nature’s decorations.
• Instead of disposable plates, napkins, spoons – use reusable cups, mugs, plates etc
• Instead of cling wrap use beeswax cloths and robust, reusable lidded containers
• Instead of packaged food, offer home-made food (we slipped up on the bag of snakes/jelly babies and the soft bread for the sausages because I was told… real bread doesn’t wrap).

Hugh’s menu

• choc-banana cake – made from our own bananas, organic flour, local honey, coconut oil…
• home-made spicy pumpkin dip with carrot sticks, sourdough bread
• organic popcorn with honey, butter and cinnamon
• homemade biscuits – organic flour, local honey, ground sunflower seeds, organic oats, butter, cinnamon
• watermelon
• BBQ sausages – sourced locally without the plastic trays
• tap water 

Spicy pumpkin, capsicum, chick pea and sunflower seed dip with local organic carrots and local sourdough rye bread.

The tablecloth is a piece of fair trade fabric from a local fabric store – I have used it over and over for parties and stalls. The $2 disposable plastic party table cloths are unnecessary.

Organic GMO free popcorn – drizzled with melted butter, honey and cinnamon was super delicious.

Hugh didn’t want to waste present wrapping either – he carefully opened presents so he could reuse the paper another time.  We tried to cultivate a tradition at home of using cloth and ribbon to wrap presents. We simply fold up the ribbon and cloth for next birthday, or it gets used in a sewing project. If we are giving to someone outside the family, we make the wrapping part of the present, use a recent painting one of the kids has done, or wrap in cloth and kindly offer to take the cloth back home again.

Cloth present wrapping. This can be part of the present, like a sarong, scarf or table cloth – or a collection of cloth wrappers that are used over and over. This particular piece is destined to become beeswax cloths this week, with hopefully enough for a skirt for Maia.

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We spent today playing in the rain at Lake Cootharaba – rock hopping, tree climbing, splashing about, paddling, snorkling, cloud watching and exploring.

I agree with the experts, but I don’t really need to see the research to confirm this. I see it everyday as a mother of three active young children. When my children play outside, and particularly in nature, they are happiest. I notice how they are so much calmer and relaxed in themselves, and they are engaged, focussed and positively creative. 

Outside, particularly where there is physical challenge and mental stimulation, they cooperate with one another, help each other and fight far less than when they are confined indoors and ‘bored’.  They solve problems, build useful things, and ask intensely interesting questions which I love to explore with with them.

I actually saw my children beginning to switch off by spending too much time indoors. Before they went to school they were full of questions about life and living. But after a few years into school and with their busy schedule of organised classes (even with a lot of outdoor time and living in an ecovillage) these questions nearly stopped. 

 I thought I was doing the right thing as a parent, but I began to sense an underlying sadness and a level of discontent and uneasiness in my 2 school-age children.  It deeply troubled me. So when they each independently asked to be homeschooled I agreed. 

Since then we have been spending so much more time outdoors just playing. Most of their learning is directly connected to their interests, explorations, projects and adventures. When we need to do ‘lessons’ our classroom is the verandah where we can look across water to a national park and are surrounded by permaculture gardens and wildlife. They fly through their tasks so they can get back to playing. Overall their learning seems more connected, holistic, contextual and meaningful.  

Going outside is the most inexpensive thing you can do for your children’s mental and physical health

Studies show that children who play on rocky, uneven, tree-filled areas have better balance and agility.

Stepping back as much as possible to let children explore is so important. Being able to take risks and problem-solve helps build self-esteem.

“The healthiest, non-sedentary activities are those in unstructured, natural spaces – the ones without carefully painted lines and adults with whistles.” 

Richard Louv,  Author of ‘Last Child in the Woods’

“Across the industrialised world, children’s freedom to play and get around their neighbourhoods are in long-term decline. Children are in effect reared in captivity, thanks to traffic growth, academic pressures, the lure of screens and ever-growing adult anxieties. It should be no surprise that childhood obesity and adolescent mental health problems are major public health issues.”

Tim Gill, Author of ‘No Fear; Growing Up in a Risk Adverse Society’

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I realised a long time ago that to write, to think deeply and develop plans I needed more than a few interrupted moments here and there – I needed good solid hours to really get into the flow.  I carve out this time from late night hours when everyone else is asleep. In the quiet of the evening the schedules evaporate and the hours seem to extend enlessly into the night.  There I find a sense of freedom and ease where I feel I can keep working on ideas for as long as I need. Most nights of the week, I find my focus here.

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