Through a series of earth building workshops at Mangaroa Farms, children explored natural building methods while developing understanding across science, maths, engineering, and ecological design — all through embodied, hands-on experience.

For many homeschooling families in the Wellington region, one of the ongoing questions is how to shape learning in a way that feels sustainable, meaningful, and responsive to children’s real lives — rather than trying to recreate a classroom at home.

Seasonal learning offers one possible approach. By aligning learning with the rhythms of the seasons, families can notice changes in weather, light, plants, animals, and community life, and allow learning to emerge through lived experience.

This resource offers a gentle framework for seasonal learning in the Wellington region, alongside local examples and ideas that families can adapt to suit their own children, values, and circumstances.

Earth School Aotearoa is a place-based learning community rooted in whenua, relationship, and seasonal rhythm. Our approach is informed by mātauranga Māori — the knowledge systems, values, and ways of being that have grown in relationship with this land over generations.

Worldschooling is an approach to learning that weaves together family life, travel, and education through lived experience. Rather than following a fixed classroom model, children learn through engagement with place, culture, people, and everyday life.

For many families, choosing where to worldschool is as important as how. Aotearoa New Zealand has become a compelling destination for families seeking safety, natural beauty, cultural depth, and a pace of life that supports wellbeing and connection.

Earth School Aotearoa supports families who choose to spend a season in New Zealand — offering a grounded learning environment, a welcoming community, and a place where children can truly settle.

Regenerative education is an approach to learning that asks a simple but important question: does our way of learning help people and places thrive over time?

Rather than focusing only on individual achievement or academic outcomes, regenerative education pays attention to relationships — between learners, communities, land, culture, and future generations. It recognises that education shapes not only what children know, but how they relate to the world they are growing into.

For those interested in exploring regenerative and place-based approaches to learning more deeply, the following resources offer thoughtful perspectives from education, ecology, and Indigenous knowledge.