When we started homeschooling, we had a few goals for our kids. We want them to have a customized education that helps them become happy, healthy adults. So life skills are one of the subjects that we teach and focus on in our homeschooling. Learning financial skills is one of the life skills we work on.
Download The Allowance Chart we use with our kids.
We’re excited that our girls are starting to understand money. It’s a going to be a long series of lessons as they grow. But we’re off to a good start.
Every September, we have a day that we celebrate as the first day of our homeschooling year. For us, we usually celebrate on the same day that school starts in our area because Stephane is a high school teacher. It’s a natural start for us since it’s his first day of school too.
But exactly how do we celebrate?
Have a Special Breakfast – It’s a great way to start the day!
Take a Picture – It’s an annual memory for the first day and marking milestones in their life.
Curriculum Gift Bag – Take all their new supplies and curriculum, put it in a bag and let them open it. Because everyone likes getting gifts.
Go On a Field Trip – Since everyone is back to school, you can take advantage of the empty science centres and museums and zoos and go on a field trip.
Go On a Picnic – Pack a lunch, head outside and have a picnic. We look for a place with a park or splash pad to make it extra fun.
Library Visit – Start the new homeschool year with some new library books.
Get Creative – Do an art project with the kids. Bonus points if it has the potential for getting messy.
Have a Game Day – Gameschooling is huge! Why not ease into the year with a day full of games. Great, easy option if your other plans get rained out.
Start a New Read Aloud – Pick a new book or novel and get reading. We start our new novel right before bed. It’s a great way to end our not-back-to-school celebration.
There are lots of ways to celebrate! Pick as many or as few as you want. These are just some ideas that you can do, but I encourage you to build traditions that your kids love. Every family is different. Make your celebration work for your family.
This easter is going to look a little different. Ok, a lot different.
With all the social-distancing and self-isolation, this holiday is going be unusual for a lot of people.
We aren’t going to church on Good Friday or Easter Sunday. We aren’t visiting the grandparents, aunts, uncles or cousins. Even our plans for a big family Easter dinner has been put on hold.
With all these changes, along with the inability to find all the traditional Easter fare, this holiday will be different from those of the past.
But that doesn’t mean it can’t be fun and exciting. The Easter bunny has been cleared by the World Health Organization and even deemed an essential service in our province. He’s still making the rounds just doing so s safely.
If you want a great letter from the Easter Bunny, explaining the whole situation to kids and how he’s keeping everyone safe this year, feel free to download our free PDF letter here! It’s punny and cute and perfect for little ones.
Since this is going to be a different Easter season, we’ve come up with a few simple ideas to make this Easter “egg-citing” even in quarantine.
Decorate the Windows
This has been one of the best trends to come out of the COVID-19 pandemic. People every where are decorating their windows. Some are taping paper hearts or drawings up. Others are painting the windows with washable paint (mix either water-based paint or acrylic paint with a drop of dawn dish soap, to make your own.) It’s a great way to great creative, do something different and decorate for the holidays.
Scavenger Hunt
Who doesn’t love a scavenger hunt. We’ve done one every year. It’s how the girls find their Easter baskets. Growing up, it how we found our large chocolate bunny. And it’s so easy to do.
Just make a series of clues that lead from one room to another. We used some post-it notes so we could stick it where ever we wanted without worrying about the tape damaging the walls or surface. Then send the kids on their way. It’s a simple way to add some extra “egg-citment” to the morning.
Puzzle Hunt
DO your kids love puzzles? Mine do! Take a puzzle, and put a peice (or a few) into plastic eggs. It makes for an awesome activity. The kids don’t know what puzzle it is until it done. You can do this with a new puzzle or one you already have. We got a new puzzle at Walmart, where we do our regular groceries for $1.25 and it would be perfect for this Eastery activity.
Substitute Snacks
Can’t find you favourite Easter snacks? I get it. Alexie has lots of food sensitivities, which means we’ve been substituting snacks since her diagnosis last year. We’ve gotten quiet creative with what we fill our plastic eggs with. In the past we’ve filled them with:
dry cereal
gummies from the “lunch snack section”
mini granola bars
any type of candy
boxes of raisins
chocolate chips
freeze-dried fruit and yogurt drops
gift cards
nail polishes
basically anythign small that fits in your plastic eggs.
Remember that it’s about the excietment of looking for eggs, not just what’s inside them.
Tea Time
We are huge fans of poetry teas and what better time to have one, than at Easter. Put on your favourite outfit (perhaps your facniest Easter dresses?), gather your Easter treats, pour a cup of tea (or iced tea) and read. Whether it’s a book, a favourite poem or the biblical Easter story, it’s a simple and fun way to make learning and literacy part of the day.
With this year being a different holiday, lots of things won’t be the same. But that doesn’t mean they have to be sad or boring. A little fun and excitement can be good for the soul, especially in these troubling times.
Last year’s Easter Baskets filled made especially for kids with Food Allergies and Sensitivities
This might surprise many people, homeschoolers and non-homeschoolers alike, but we don’t homeschool during December. Yep, that’s right.
During December, we don’t do any work in our workbooks, journals, or flashcards. We even take a break from our novel studies. This might seem odd to most, but it’s a very conscious decision on our part.
You see, December is just so busy.
There are Christmas concerts and parties, storytimes with Santa and family dinners. Then there’s all the holiday stuff like decorating the house, shopping for presents, and holiday baking. Then there are all the fun things you want to do during the holiday season like writing letters to Santa, decorating gingerbread houses and making ornaments with the kids. In the past, I’ve tried to do it all. And I just end up exhausted, frustrated and overwhelmed.
Last year, we decided to take the month off of homeschooling and it was the best decision we could have made. Instead of doing everything and feeling overwhelmed, we decided to lean into the holidays and focus on all the festivities for a few weeks.
But just because we aren’t homeschooling during this time doesn’t mean that we aren’t learning.
We start the month with our advent activity calendar. It’s filled with activities, crafts, and events for us to do for the 24 days leading up to Christmas. Some of it is educational like baking and letter writing. Some of it is fun, like the Christmas carol dance party. But, it gives us a chance to pick and choose what we will do during the month.
We also read a lot of Christmas books. We pick a different storybook every night from under our Christmas tree and read a lot. It’s fun to have festive seasonal books at this time of year. We also go to concerts, plays, visit Santa and spend lots of time with our friends and family.
Taking a break, especially during the holiday, can be a great blessing for your family and homeschooling.
Last year we started a tradition. During the month of December, the girls really look forward to two things. They love to do their daily advent activity and they love their daily Christmas book.
You see, on December 1st, the girls wake up to find the advent calendar set up and 24 presents under the tree. Each present is a book — a fun and festive book for us to read together.
Now, I don’t buy 24 new books. But, what I do is wrap up 24 Christmas books that we already have. Since my teaching days, I’ve slowly built up my collection, adding a book or two every year, stalking up when they go on sale after the holidays. Now I wrap up 24 of those books. We’ve got classics like “The Night Before Christmas” and “The Nutcracker.” We’ve got some wintery books, like “Frosty the Snowman.” There are also fun and quarky books, like “Saumari Santa” — which is a favourite around here.
We wrap up each book and put them under the tree. On odd days Alexie opens the advent calendar and Zoé picks a book, any book under the tree. The next day, we alternate. Once we open it, we put the books in our book basket (kind of like a reverse book basket) and we read them again and again over the weeks leading up to Christmas!
Here are the books that will be under our tree this year!
These are the books that we will be wrapping up this year. What favourite holiday books are on your list? I’ve always got my eye out for some new great books to add to the collection.
Every year during the month of December, we do an activity advent calendar. It’s become a favourite family tradition and something the girls look forward to each day.
Since we don’t do any homeschooling during December, this activity calendar helps keep us busy and entertained.
It does take a little planning. I try to match activities to plans we already have during the month. For example, Friday night is usually movie night, so it makes sense to schedule a holiday movie night on a Friday. Or maybe we have a concert coming up. Then I make sure that the activity calendar has “Go to a concert” on that day. While it’s a surprise for the girls, I write all the activities in my planner to help keep me organized so it’s not a surprise for me. I can also make any “educational connections” in my planner too. If we are writing letters to Santa, then it’s literacy. Baking cookies is all about math and science. Buying Christmas presents is about math, money and budgeting.
If you are looking for some ideas, I’ve got 40 here for you! Pick and choose which ones you like. You can also click here to download printable cards with the activities. Just print, cut out and fill your calendar. Done!
Send a nice thank you note to pastors/teachers/coaches
Donate to a charity
See the Nutcracker
Christmas carol sing-along
See a Christmas play
Volunteer
Make snow angels
What’s your favourite holiday tradition? Is it on the list? Let us know! We would love to add some other fun activities to our calendars in the years to come!
Lots of people like to go pick apples at an orchard once the fall weather arrives. Well, the sweater weather is here, but we don’t have to leave our house for apples. We are lucky enough to have a few apple trees right on our property. So we picked some of our apples and decided to make an “Alexie-friendly” apple crisp recipe.
With Alexie’s food sensitivities, we do a lot of baking. We have to make everything from scratch using some unique ingredients. But we like our special, seasonal treats. So we’re making a classic apple crumb that our whole family can enjoy together.
Eczema update
It’s been almost 7 months since Alexie got her food sensitivity diagnosis, and there have been lots of changes.
Our diet has changed a lot. Since Alexie is dairy-free, egg-free, nut-free and grain-free among other things, we have to get creative. “What do you feed her?” is the question we get the most. We basically live on fruits and vegetables and meat. We use quinoa a lot. From just quinoa, to quinoa pasta, to quinoa flakes. We also use a lot of cassava flour, which is a great flour alternative.
She doesn’t nap much anymore. Prior to her diagnosis, she was napping every single day. Like 3+ hours a day and still sleeping her whole night at almost 4 years old. Once all her scabs healed up (which took about 5 weeks) she gave up her nap. I think her body needed the extra sleep just to heal and fight infections. But now that her body is healed, she just doesn’t need as much sleep. She still takes the occasional nap but they are only about an hour long and maybe once a week.
Apple Crumble
6-8 apples (ours we small so we used 8 or 9)
2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 cup vegan butter (we use Earth Butter or Melt butter, soy-free)
Peel and chop apples. Toss with 2 tsp of cinnamon and place into a pie pan.
In a bowl, combine melted vegan butter, brown sugar, cinnamon, cloves, quinoa flakes, and cassava flour.
Spread on top of apples and bake in a 350*F oven for 30-35 minutes until apples are soft and the crumble topping is golden and crisp.
Allow to cool a little and enjoy!
Alexie really enjoyed her special dessert and actually we all love it. It’s nice to be able to have these fall recipes and traditions that we can all enjoy together.
Today we are answering the question, by showing you what a typical home day looks like for us, homeschooling a preschooler and a toddler in tow.
This is what I call “a home day”. We have a home day about 2-3 days a week. These are the days when we do some seat work, read lots of books and have lots of free, imaginative play. The other 3-4 days a week, we spend a good chunk of the morning out, usually at a playgroup, church or running errands and going to appointments.
But, on a home day, we spend most of the day at home. We might run to the store or our local library for a few minutes, but the rest of the day is spent at home.
This is typical for us. Some might be surprised at how little seat work we do in a day. But we believe in having a lot of real world experiences and hands-on learning. So between imaginative play, baking, chores and games, it’s a full day of learning.
Homeschooling isn’t easy. Add in a baby or toddler and it can be down right difficult. We know this from experience.
This past year, while we have been homeschooling Alexie, we also have Zoé with us. Zoé has been sitting next to us since the beginning. When we started homeschooling Alexie, Zoé was only 16 months old. But she has never complained and she actually loves the whole home education experience.
How do we do it? We’ve got 3 simple tips that you can implement to make homeschooling a little easier while you have a little one.
Consider Your Timing
With a little one around, timing is everything. Before you sit down to a block of seat work, make sure everyone (baby included) is well rested and well fed.
It’s also important to keep the length of the seated work short. We aim to keep any seated work limited to 10-20 minutes tops. This is about as long as a young child (under 6) can handle. This short block helps keep both kids focused on their activity and keep everyone happy.
Get Them Involved
Zoé goes everywhere with us. If we go on a field trip, she’s there. If we are doing an experiment, she’s there. If we sit down to read a book, she’s right there with us.
Having them with you means you can keep everyone entertained and involved. And you’d be surprised how much they will pick up. While doing our letter scavenger hunt at the park, Zoé ran around finding letters, repeating sounds back and having fun.
Be Prepared
Having a few activities to entertain your little one is key. I like to keep a few things aside that we usually only pull out during “school time”. Play-doh is popular around here. So are colouring, lacing cards and little figurines. Have something for them to do (that they love) while you work with your older child. This will help you focus on your older child’s work and keep everyone happy. I’ve even used a jolly jumper to keep Zoé entertained for a few minutes while we work on our worksheets.
Homeschooling with a little one can be challenging. But hopefully these tips can help make it a little easier.
We have a tradition. Every year for Mother’s Day, we get Mom some petunias for her front step flower box. Why petunias? Well they provide lots of colour, are easy to take care off and they handle the full day sun really well.
But in order to give Mom some flowers, we need to go and buy some flowers. Which means we need to go visit our local greenhouse…and the girls love it so much.
Once we had our flowers, we had to plant them in the planter. It’s always such a fun project.
And Mom totally loved her flowers! They are really livening up our front porch and adding a great pop of colour to the house.
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