Sure, ask away! But you might not get me to shut up about it now, LOL.

Yep, we've definitely decided. You just register with the Home Education Unit when they're 6.5 (compulsory school age). It's different in different states but here you just send in a learning plan at the beginning of each year and a report on their progress at the end.

Never thought I'd homeschool! I imagined it was just for crazy hippies, lol. And I thought it was like 'school at home' where you sat at the kitchen table with your mum all day doing workbooks. But it's not like that at all. A whole different lifestyle. Because a lot of the time in school is spent on behaviour management, lining up, moving from room to room, etc etc, you can get the same amount of learning done in much less time at home. So say for prep I might only be doing some more deliberate work with her for 1/2 hr, 4 days a week. So fitting that in with DD2 around is easy. We might be doing something that she can join in with on her level, or I can set up an activity for her that will easily keep her engaged for that long, or she can just have some independent play time without DD1 bossing her around, LOL. And then as she gets older she will be able to join in more and more. And as DD1 gets older and is able to read and write she will be working a lot more independently anyway, without me needing to sit with her, and I can just be near enough for answering questions and seeing how she's doing IYKWIM.

So I'm pretty excited because there are lots of possibilities for the things we can do. When we were looking at school I really wanted to find one that was more play based in the early years but unfortunately there is no good schools around here. Actually, the opposite, I have only heard bad things. DH's sister is a teacher and she told us not to send the girls to the schools in our area. (We're in a nice area but it's pretty new and the schools aren't that old, and they have lots of kids in the younger grades. They seem to have big problems with bullying too, no thanks.) Then a teacher friend of mine asked if I'd ever thought of homeschooling, and I started looking into it. The more I read, the more it felt right for us.

I just want them to be happy and to be who they are meant to be. I don't believe academics is more important than creativity and I want to nurture all their interests. I want them to have hours of outside time every day, I want to tailor their education to their interests to make it more meaningful for them, I want them to love learning and not feel pressured by it, I want lots of play-based and natural learning every day, I want to learn at a pace that suits them, I want us all to have great relationships with each other and lots of time together, I want them to be confident and social, I want them to have great friends of any age, and so many more things!

I suppose lots of things we all want for our kids! I think I can better do all that at home at this point in time so that's what I'm going with. I am definitely not anti-school, most kids do great in school! I do think they will go to school one day, when they're much older. I know there are some fabulous schools out there, and also some really great teachers! But for now, this feels the right way for us!

Anyone who has me on FB will know I take a crazy amount of photos, LOL. You know one of the things that was hard for me when deciding this? I won't have a cute first day of school photo!!!!!!!!! lol. With their brand new uniform and oversized backpack!! lol. I will have to make up my own or something. You'll all have to share your super cute preppie photos with me!!