10/09/2026
OUR HOMESCHOOLING JOURNEY 👩😀🥰
(written by Sherae Zwart, Zwart Home School, KZN)
We started our homeschooling journey last year (2025) with our middle son, Judah, starting Grade 1. After experiencing some difficulties in the mainstream environment, we felt like he would benefit from a quieter, less-pressured and slower-paced environment as he tackled the foundational tasks of learning to read and write. With Mom and Dad both being ACE graduates ourselves, AEE was the obvious choice for our family. We know the curriculum well and are confident in the quality of education our son would receive.
I’ll be honest with you and say that it was a tough adjustment in the beginning - for both Mom and Judah! It took time to figure out a routine that worked for us and how to work together, but after a few months, we settled down nicely. Judah thrived in a space he knew well and with a lot of focused attention from Mom. He finished the Grade 1 year better than we’d anticipated and more confident than ever.
We have two other children, Noah and Alyssa, who remained in mainstream schooling throughout 2025, however, we found the juggling and pace of life to be unsustainable. We had to decide what we wanted our family life to look like day-to-day and what would be best for each of our children. So, at the end of 2025, we made the decision to bring everyone home and thus started 2026 as a completely homeschooled family.
As a ministry family (Dad is a full-time pastor), this has been a game-changer for our family. Our pace of life has slowed down tremendously and we have seen the benefits in our children’s health and Mom and Dad’s sanity! The children are still busy with sports in the afternoons, but we have made a routine for school work that works well for our entire family. The flexibility homeschooling provides has freed us up to serve our church more as a family, to rest when we need to and to have more intentional time teaching our children from the Bible. We are able to plan our school terms around upcoming church and outreach events so that we can serve without worrying about falling behind in school work. Mom has even found herself benefitting a lot from the Scripture memorisation that the children have been tackling this year!
One of our favourite things about homeschooling has been the amount of time our children have spent outdoors playing and exploring. Noah has spent many hours building a swing and a treehouse out of scrap wood with very little assistance – Dad just has to buy a pack of nails now and then! Alyssa and Judah have also gotten involved, transplanting plants from around the garden to plant around the bottom of the treehouse and painting the outside. We have been on many family adventures visiting water parks, hiking, finding shells on the beach and even watching a caterpillar found in our garden turn into a butterfly! The children have also taken part in numerous sports this year including cross-country, cricket, soccer, swimming, gymnastics, chess, hockey and athletics.
Overall, we have found our homeschooling experience to be beneficial for our whole family and our children are thriving!
--> NHEA Comment:
We're thrilled to have you and your lovely family on board, Sherae!😁
If anybody has a question for Sherae, post it in the Comments.
