Homeschooling Getaways
Turn a family getaway into a learning adventure
Learn from the world around you
Homeschooling gives families the freedom to learn wherever life takes them. At MacFarlanes Guesthouse, that could mean taking your lessons outdoors, exploring a working farm, and turning the natural world around you into a classroom.
Set in the Eastern Free State Highlands, MacFarlanes offers families the opportunity to combine a relaxing farm stay with meaningful, hands-on learning. Instead of learning only from books, children can experience nature, farming and the outdoors first-hand.
A stay at MacFarlanes can provide opportunities to explore a wide range of subjects:
Biology & Life Sciences
Observe plants, insects, birds and other wildlife in their natural environment. Discover how ecosystems work and how living organisms interact with their surroundings.
Agriculture and Animal Science
Experience a working farm and learn about livestock, crops, farming practices and where our food comes from.
Birding and Ecology
The farm and surrounding area provide an opportunity to identify birds, observe animal behaviour and explore habitats and biodiversity.
The Eastern Free State landscape provides a fascinating setting for learning about mountains, rivers, weather, soils, landscapes and the forces that shape our environment.
Explore topics such as water, weather, conservation, sustainability and the relationship between farming and the natural environment.
Geography and Geology
Environmental Studies
Outdoor Education
Hiking, fishing, kayaking, horse riding and exploring the farm can turn physical activity into opportunities for learning, observation, problem-solving and adventure.
A different school day
A different kind of school day
Imagine starting the morning with a lesson overlooking the farm, spending some time observing wildlife, and then heading outside to put what you've learned into practice.
There is no need to follow a rigid timetable. Families can use the farm and surrounding area to complement their existing homeschool curriculum in whatever way works for them.
The aim isn't to replace your homeschool programme — it's to bring it to life.
Learning together as a family
A homeschooling getaway can be more than an educational experience for children. It can also be an opportunity for families to spend uninterrupted time together, away from the distractions and routines of everyday life.
Parents can continue with their normal homeschool programme while incorporating the farm and surrounding environment into their lessons. Children can learn at their own pace, explore their interests and gain practical experience along the way.
Come and make the farm your living classroom
Whether you're studying biology, agriculture, geography, environmental science or simply looking for a way to make learning more hands-on, MacFarlanes provides a unique setting for a homeschooling getaway.
Bring your curriculum. We'll provide the classroom.
Come for a few days, slow down, explore, learn and enjoy time together as a family in the Eastern Free State Highlands.
MacFarlanes Guesthouse — where a family getaway can become part of the learning journey.
Pre-history and fossils
View the farm's oldest inhabitant
Lystrosaurus putterilli – A Prehistoric Harrismith Resident
More than 250 million years ago, an unusual animal lived in the landscape around what is now Harrismith. Lystrosaurus putterilli was a stocky, herbivorous dicynodont, an extinct group of mammal-like reptiles that survived the enormous Permian–Triassic mass extinction.
What makes this fossil especially fascinating for the Harrismith area is that its type specimen was discovered at Harrismith in the Free State. The fossil came from rocks of the Lystrosaurus Assemblage Zone, part of the Karoo succession that records a remarkable chapter in South Africa's prehistoric history.
The species was formally described in 1915 by palaeontologist E. C. N. van Hoepen, in the Annals of the Transvaal Museum.
For families visiting the Harrismith area, Lystrosaurus putterilli offers a remarkable reminder that the ground beneath the Eastern Free State preserves evidence of a world that existed hundreds of millions of years before humans.
Lystrosaurus putterilli
Local History
MacFarlanes has its own private family musuem
Local historian nearby
Historical sites nearby:
Kerkenberg, Retiefklip and Kaalvoetvrou monument. 15 minutes
Natal Battlefields (Spioenkop, Platrand) 1,5 hours
Kerkenberg