Australian Catholic Homeschooling Families Webring

Update: January 2009 Unfortunately this idea didn't really take off and the web ring host has disappeared so it seemed like a good time to say good bye. There are other attempts at uniting Australian Catholic homeschoolers. Keeping in Touch is a quarterly magazine hosted by Cardinal Newman Faith Resources. Each term a homeschooling family volunteers to edit the newsletter which is then posted on the Downloads page. It has been going since 1992.

There is a mailing list and bulletin board under the name of Marium Regnum Familiae - Mary Queen of the Family. Their latin may not be perfect, but they're a good bunch with a mix of homeschooling approaches.

The old blurb about the webring (now obsolete)

Homeschoolers are an independent bunch. Two homeschoolers, three opinions, as the saying might go. But no homeschooler is an island. Newcomers to homeschooling may find that they have few people to talk to. More experienced homeschoolers may want to share the lessons they have learned. Sharing resources and ideas is what the internet is made for. How to harness its potential is the tricky thing.

This webring may just do the trick. For those of you who have your own webpage the hard work's already done. Just add your site to the ring and follow the instructions. Once you've joined you need to add the links for the webring to your page. That way each webpage links to the next homeschooler's webpage in the ring.

If you need help in writing a webpage you could ask someone who's already in the ring. There's quite a range of help available on the internet. The Arachnophilia web site springs to mind, I'll have to put a link here. For now you could try my introduction to writing a web page.

Rules

1. This ring is aimed at Australian Catholic Homeschooling Families.
   • Australian - this is flexible, anywhere in the Asia-Pacific region will do
   • Catholic - this is not so flexible, loyalty to the Magisterium is important
   • Homeschooling - this has some flexibility, includes families who have homeschooled, plan to homeschool, partially homeschool
   • Families - to show homeschooling from the family point of view. Your linked site should be about your family and your homeschool - not about a commercial enterprise.

Suggestions

• Why we decided to homeschool.
• What our typical day is like.
• Any special interests - music, sport, maths, english . . .
• Homeschooling apologetics: Socialisation, Academic Rigour, Religious Education . . .
• Tips and Tricks: How to fit in daily Mass, How to teach maths, How to keep teenagers motivated, How to involve preschoolers, . . .
• Recommended reading, recommended bookshops, recommended web sites, recommended activities, . . .
• Anecdotes, children's work, jokes, puzzles, riddles, . . .
• Photos, recipes, . . .
• Current issues: legal requirements for homeschoolers, culture of life v. culture of death, liturgiam authenticam, . . .
• Special ways of celebrating the liturgical seasons.

There are many, many, many possibilities. Teaching older children how to write HTML can help them learn about computer programming and organising their work (especially when you start playing with cascading style sheets). Learning about the W3C standards, bandwidth, disk quotas and such can help teach about social responsibility in an area where such considerations often fly out the window.