Homeschooling 101: A guide to home learning with your kids

With return to school delayed in more than a couple of states, it looks like kids (and parents) will be learning at home for a while yet. Homeschooling (or rather, home-based learning), can be a real challenge. In most cases it is another job put upon you when you are already in lockdown, working from home and dealing with all that entails. Although lessons can arrive in emails from the school it can be really difficult for parents to get up to speed on the curricula.

Often activity sheets and ideas can be the best way to keep the kids amused but also engage them with important information. You want them to practice and improve on their core skills, and hopefully do that without full time supervision. Although there’s plenty of online resources, you really need to give them more than all-day screen time. What you need is a good blend of hands-on and self-study, something great for questioning and challenging young minds. Books are great for this!

For younger children

There are many books available that are both fun and educationally solid! The well known brand of Kumon is brilliant at meeting the different needs of children in a fun way.

And there is also the award-winning ABC Reading Eggs series produced by Australian teachers.

For middle-grade children

If you want more of an emphasis on fun for the curious, you simply cannot go past the DK (Dorling Kindersley) books. Beautifully and clearly laid-out illustrations and easy-to-follow explanations which emphasise the ‘wow’ factor make these books very satisfying for a wide range of ages. Although they cover all kinds of subjects, from history to craft, they also do a great range of STEM books.

Another great publisher that makes homeschooling easy is the For Dummies brand, showing how some subjects that seem intimidating are easy if approached the right way.

Core skills

The most popular workbooks and guides are those from Excel Education, written by experts to support the Australian Curriculum. The range covers all areas and core requirements of school from Primary to High School. They are great for autonomous study, with questions and answers, enabling students to work on their performance, and see where they went wrong. These guides go all the way to the HSC and VCE levels.

And if your child is in year 11 or 12 and could do with some help, we recommend the Cambridge Checkpoints. These guides are updated regularly to perfectly match the Australian curriculum. These handy guides are increasingly popular, with official past exam questions and suggested responses.

Older children may find assistance with studies from the older range of For Dummies guides, and it is worth browsing our range of school study skills books here.

Get them engaged!

Looking for tips on how you can help your kids with homeschooling in a more one-on-one way?

We have a few books for the engaged parent on helping your child learn here, but we recommend this book by Australian educator and literacy expert, Patricia Hipwell: Helping Children Become Better Readers, a short practical guide to assist readers to enjoy the process of reading.

Another great Australian book is Megan Dailey’s Raising Readers, about nurturing a child’s lifelong love of books, leading to increased language and emotional skills.

Although recent studies have shown many children actually thrive in home-based learning, there are some that find the lockdown experience problematic. If you are looking to help them with their anxieties we have some excellent books you can find here.

Don’t forget – parents need to feel positive about the homeschooling experience too. If your child is enjoying a great interactive or activity book, it is probably doing them a world of good. You can support their independence and break their boredom with play challenges like Lego building. We have some more great ideas here. Do not feel any guilt about putting a great book in your child’s hand that lets them enjoy the thoughts and words of the greater world. A good novel is an education in itself.

And remember, lockdown is not forever and children are always learning if you give them a great starting point. Good luck!

Check out Education Central here!

Plus, check out more fun for kids in our Kids Month collection.

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About the Contributor

Robert O'Hearn

Robert O'Hearn is the non-fiction specialist at Booktopia HQ. He has been a bookseller for over three decades and can't seem to stop. He is an aspiring apiarist and likes playing Joy Division songs on mandolin. He is generally harmless.

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