It takes a village to raise a child. Luckily, we aren’t afraid to ask for help.
The other day, Alexie wanted to do some painting. And she decided to call her grandpa, a retired art teacher to come over and paint with her. He happily agreed.
While he was over, he and the girls got busy painting. Papa talked about watercolor techniques. He showed them how to pick up the paint with their brush, how to use water properly and how to use color in a their art.
We’re so happy that Papa could come over to visit and I’m sure that he’ll be back to teach some more art lessons.
We have a little holiday tradition. Every year, since Alexie was only a few months old, we’ve made a special homemade ornament. We make three ornaments, give one to each set of grandparents and keep one for ourselves as a little memory. We’ve made a couple different ornaments over the years, including salt dough handprints, monogramed blocks and glitter footprint balls.
This year we made some cute little fusilli pasta wreaths with a photo in the centre. They turned out so cute and were really easy to make!
Using a glue gun (and adult supervision) we glued some pasta around the edge of mason jar lid. Really you could use any firm circle shape. Then, we used some green spray paint to paint the whole thing green. Next, we cut out a picture to fit the hole in the middle and glued it in. Add a hook, and you’re good to go.
These ornaments were a hit with the grandparents this year. We know they loved the photo in the middle. And they’ll make a great keepsake on our own tree, year after year.
We have a bit of a strange Valentine’s Day tradition.
Every year we splurge on really nice steaks from our local butcher and make a fancy dinner for our family. Steak, garlic roasted potatoes, sauteed mushrooms, green beans and some kind of fancy dessert. We eat by candle-light and make a fun night out of it. And then we do something most people would consider strange.
We plant tomato seeds.
You see where we live, we have a super short growing season. Now that doesn’t mean that we can’t have an awesome little garden, just that we have to plan well and if we want to use our own seeds, then we have to start early.
So we start planting our tomatoes on Valentine’s day. It’s a little unconventional but it works for us and it makes a unique family tradition. We use our heirloom seeds that we collected the year before and start a whole bunch of tomato plants. We’ll use what we need, and give the rest to our family in the spring.
One of the things that I love the most about homeschooling is allowing our kids to fully explore things that interest them. We aren’t restricted to what is grade-appropriate or to the schedule of a school day.
Take Alexie for example. She is facinated with space. Planets, stars, astronauts, rocket ships. She loves it all.
So when the 2019 Blood Moon Lunar Eclipse came around, we just knew that it was right up Alexie’s ally.
Actually, being totally honest, this started with a mistake that we made. We told Alexie about a pink moon around her birthday back in July 2018. But, that particular lunar event was visible only to the other side of the world. We missed it and she was super disappointed. Oops!
We found out about the next one, double-checked that it would be visible in Ontario and then we told her. She was super excited this time.
Well the night came and it was freezing (-40C….yup). But, Alexie was so excited. We put her to bed and woke her up around 11:30pm. Dad bundled her up and they headed outside to see the Blood Moon Eclipse.
It was an incredible learning experience. And then she went right back to bed and fell asleep. The nice thing is, she got to sleep in the next morning.
It was a cold, snowy day and we had no interest in heading outside. So we stayed inside and got to work building a fort!
We usually get dressed every day, but every once in a while, we like to have a PJ Day and just relax. But that doesn’t mean that the learning stops.
Fort building is a great activity for little kids. It fosters creativity and imagination. It has all kinds of engineering aspects and it’s a great way for them to build something life-size.
Forts are a great way to make other activities exciting, too! Want to know what’s more fun than reading? Reading in a fort, of course! A fort is a great place to do puzzles, read or colour.
This Christmas, we decided to make a few homemade ornaments. And, we got the girls involved! Alexie was happy to get messy and Zoé thought the dough tasted pretty good.
Using a mix of applesauce, cinnamon, cloves and ginger, we mixed up a little spicy dough that smells wonderful. We rolled it out and cut it out with some cute cookie cutters. Baked in the oven until they are hard, we strung them up with some string and placed them all over our Christmas tree.
This is a great hands-on activity for kids. It’s a great way to practise fine-motor skills, and baking is just real life chemistry! We love making our own ornaments as a little Christmas tradition and this was such a fun activity.
We love books and reading. The girls constantly have their noses in books. Not that we have a problem with that. We love that they love to read because it’s a great way to learn!
Alexie has a goal of learning how to read this year, which means we need to learn our letters first. So we’ve been reading lots of alphabet books lately. Here are some of our favourite letter books.
Chicka Chicka Boom Boom – A fun book that goes over the letters not only once but twice. The letters climb the tree, fall out of the tree and then start again. It’s bright, colourful and engaging which is a win for us!
Animalia – This book is beautifully illustrated. Each page features a poem using words with only that letter, and the illustrations are filled with things that also start with that letter. The challenge is to find all the words that go with the corresponding letter, and then you still have to find Graham (kinda like “Where’s Waldo?”).
ABC of Canada – We love a good Canadian book! This one is filled with Canadian landmarks and icons. It’s bold lines and colours make it a fun read and it’s just a super patriotic series.
Dr. Seuss’s ABC – A classic, that cannot be forgotten. This book is silly and fun and it’s a classic.
The Awful Alphabet – This book is so funny. They find the worst possible thing that start with each letter. It’s disgusting, gross and amazing. It’s a different type of alphabet book which makes it a fun alternative to other alphabet books.
These are some of our favourite alphabet books. We’ve read each of these numerous times and I’m sure we will read the again, because they are really that great.
Here in Canada, we get a lot of snow. But often it’s too cold for us to really get out there and explore it. So, sometimes, we bring the snow into our house instead!
A big bin of snow, some scoops and spoons and a towel is really all you need. And it is a load of fun. It’s a great sensory activity, allowing children to explore different textures and feelings. The snow feels cold, wet, soft, crunchy. This helps kids develop their curiosity and a love of exploration.
We also paint the snow! Adding a few drops of food colouring to a small cup of water and a paint brush are all you really need. We used primary colours and allowed the girls to not only paint the snow, but also see how the colours mix together and what colours they make. This is a great bonus activity.
And, the clean up on this activity is so easy. I just throw the bin of melted snow in the front yard, use the towel dry up the kids and any spills and that’s it! This simple activity entertained our two kids (preschooler and toddler) for almost an hour. So, it’s really a great activity that is cheap, easy and super entertaining for the little ones.
Leaving a glass of milk and a plate of cookies is a cornerstone Christmas tradition for most families. Growing up, I always looked forward to putting the cookies out on Christmas Eve. I was always a little particular about what cookies Santa got. They had to be the tastiest, cutest cookies I could find.
And, of course, they had to be homemade.
Making the Christmas cookies became just as much of a tradition as putting them out on Christmas Eve.
This year, we got busy making some very special cookies for the Old Man in Red. We considered many recipes but finally decided on these Peanut Butter cookies with Dark Chocolate and Sea Salt. Dad was really adamant that these were one of Santa’s favourites. So, we got busy making them.
They turned out really good. They were easy enough to make with 2 little girls, but were special enough that they would make Santa feel extra special when he came to our house.
Baking has so many great educational components and aspects. We’re reading a recipe and directions, doing fractions and chemistry, and it’s really packed with hands-on (not to mention edible) lessons. Let’s not forget life skills! Kids need to learn these valuable skills and you can easily start them young.
I can assure you, Santa took a couple really big bites out of them on Christmas Eve!
One of the great things about all the snow we get is that it becomes very easy to see the tracks of the animals in our area. Alexie recently found some rabbit prints and that started a fun little learning adventure.
We got a great book from the library about tracks and the animals that make them. “Who was Here? Discovering Wild Animal Tracks” was a wonderful book. It had a page with a picture of the tracks and a little riddle to help you figure out which animal made those tracks. It really helped get Alexie primed for the next part of our project.
We headed out for a little nature walk. We went on search of tracks in the woods near our house and we found some. It was a great activity for the kids and Alexie really got into it. We managed to find some small animal tracks like rabbits and squirrels and some bigger tracks, too!
Next we made some of our own tracks using some paint and cardboard. We made little footprint stamps using the side of our hand and then we painted the girls’ feet and let them make their own tracks.
This was such a simple learning experience but it was a lot of fun!
