18 days

As I sit here over my morning coffee my little ticker on my desktop tells me it's 18 days until the beginning of Term 1. This excites me and fills me with dread all at the same time. The excitement comes from a new year, some new books/stationery and a return to the school routine. The dread comes from having to plan the new year, find the books and return to the school routine!

How are you going with your homeschooling preparations? Do you buy things through the year and use them immediately or do you save things up until the new year to use then? Do you buy everything as the end of the year or the last week before term begins?

For us, I've researched (many, many, MANY hours of research) which books to use and as I have the funds have bought them. In 2007 we were in the position to buy the rest of the books needed for primary school english, maths and health for both the girls (so 5 years for one and 3 years for the other). This has taken a huge weight off my shoulders to have finally found the ones that we like and stick to them. So most of my work is finding and implementing lessons for the rest of the Curriculum Framework Outcomes.

Here in Western Australia it is legal to homeschool. We have to register as a Home Educator and the girls are registered as our "students". We also need to show that we are covering the outcomes of the Curriuculm Framework, a document which teachers spend 11 weeks learning about at Uni. Basically the outcomes are Science, Maths, Art, English, Physical Education and Health, Technology and Enterprise, Society and Environment and LOTE (Languages other than English). We cover each of them at some time through the school year, focusing on the more important ones, English, Maths, Science, PE&H, Art and Society and Environment (which is basically social studies). Once a year our district moderator comes out to be shown if you are covering all this and the girls are learning. They report to the Education Department and you are "allowed" to continue for another year. This is compulsory from the time your child is 6 until 16years old. There is no payment, allowance or funding from the Goverment at all as in other countries around the world, even though we save them a heap of money by not sending our children to public (goverment) schools. But that's another post I'm sure!