About Shirley

Shirley Erwee was educated at Queenstown Girls' High where her love and flair for language was nurtured. After school she spent a year abroad and while working as an au pair in France, her love for children and the importance of a mother's influence on developing children was strongly reinforced.

On her return to South Africa, she studied at Rhodes University, majoring in Linguistics and French. This was followed with an Honours degree in English Language Teaching. A year later she married and in 1997 when her stepdaughter came to live in Hermanus, she became an ‘instant’ mom. That was when she and Riaan decided to homeschool their family, which has since grown!

Now, as the mother of five children, Meghan (14), Lucille (8), Jonathan (6), Kayleigh (4), and Riaan jr. (1) she has had nine years of homeschooling experience and is actively involved in homeschool circles, facilitating a local support group, distributing various resources, offering Footprints workshops and encouraging prospective and existing homeschoolers in person and via eloops.

Besides co-authoring the Footprints On Our Land series, she has also published a manual for preschoolers, ABC Fun & 1-2-3, two free menu planners, Prepared to Cook and A Joy to Cook, a website Shirley’s Preschool Activities and a free e-zine for parents of preschoolers, The Whole Child.

Her desire is to encourage families to choose homeschooling as a lifestyle and to build the confidence of moms who teach their children.

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