© Beverley Paine

It wasn't until our daughter was almost five that we discovered home education. As a result, and with the encouragement of her kindergarten teacher, we modelled our early homeschool environment on the the preschool April had attended.

This meant wWe used the lots of hands on learning, activities and games, with a focus on multi-sensory learning and physcial activity. I tried to include a focus in each subject area each day, covering the eight subject areas over three or four days. What I quickly discovered was that learning in one area usually covered two or three other areas which meant we didn't have to spend all day doing 'school-at-home' (or preschool-at- home!)

Modelling April's first year of homeschooling on her last year of kindergarten helped to gently ease us into home education. It was brilliant for her four year old brother as naturally everything she did he was keen to have a go at. An activity, play based curriculum was also helpful for me as homeschooling mum, as I'd only just had our youngest...

There were a lot of good quality 'fill in the blanks' student work books, or student homework books, for sale at the local newsagent back then. I can't remember the company that put them out but they usually had a centrefold of colour reward stickers which April could put on each completed page. She romped through these books - which meant that in her first year she had covered the equivalent of three years of curriculum in maths, spelling and grammar.

We then bought 'Words and Sounds' and 'Sentence Strength' - each year level book cost less than $10 and was meant to last a year. I thought of these books as our 'curriculum skeleton' which we then fleshed out with lots of activity and play based learning. We did the same with maths.

Our youngest had a completely different approach to learning by the time he was six, but that's because I felt a lot more confident with learning naturally and unschooling.

Useful links and articles:
(If you come across an article that could linked to this page please email Beverley)

• Laura Grace Weldon writes eloquently on the perils of Educating too Early
• Brilliant article on the importance of the parent/caregiver in the first few years of life, Where are the Happy Babies?