Yesterday I mentioned a Christmas party we had with our homeschool friends. My friend, Kelli, hosted the event and did an amazing job planning and orchestrating a rotation of activities to accommodate our large number of kiddos! She arranged areas around her home for four stations: story, craft, cookie decorating, and games. She took care of the story time and asked three more of us mamas to take the other stations. I was assigned the craft station, so I planned a craft that would go along with the book Kelli would be reading in her station. The Year of the Perfect Christmas Tree, by Gloria Houston, is a heartwarming story about a little girl, Ruthie, and her parents living in the ... Read more
Teach Them Tuesday: Thanksgiving at American Village
If you live in Alabama and have had the privilege of visiting American Village in Montevallo, you know what a fantastic educational experience it is. My kids and I have been four times and it has never failed to exceed our expectations. Our "First Friday" group--a homeschool co-op we do field trips with on the first Friday of each month--recently participated in American Village's Thanksgiving program for our November field trip. We enjoyed a day of inspiring American history and lovely fall weather! I have a few photos to share from this most recent trip, but be sure and check out my post from a previous visit for details about American Village and photos of its beautiful colonial buildings ... Read more
Pumpkin Patch Cookies!
My son and I are in a field trip co-op this year which means the first Friday of each month we go some place interesting, educational, and fun with a bunch of great friends! The moms take turns arranging each field trip, and I had the months of September and October. September was supposed to be a trip to a museum and a historic home at our state capitol. Unfortunately, our tour was canceled by the museum a few days before due to a certain virus which shall remain nameless. For our October field trip I had planned a day at a farm and pumpkin patch down the road from our house, and it just happened to fall on the first day of October! There's no place we'd rather be on October 1st than ... Read more
School Day Breakfast and Beverage
I mentioned in a post about our first week of school that, because we didn't have as much as much expense in curriculum and other materials this year, we got our two homeschoolers a back-to-school gift. Each gift cost $25 at Target, and both gifts make the work of our hands a little lighter when it comes to school morning breakfasts! Our son loves a good breakfast sandwich! My husband bought him a breakfast sandwich at a drive thru one morning on their way to the city dump, which is a total guy thing! Ever since then, he's enjoyed making them at home. So when my husband and I were on a date at Target (because our dates are either to Target or Dollar General these days), and he spotted ... Read more
Teach Them Tuesday: Homeschool Highlights of the First Week
We had a fun first week of school here at our little home academy! As with every year, I prayed all summer about our upcoming school year. And, as always, God resolved every question, concern, and decision I took before Him, and got us off to a great start. I love homeschooling my kids and am so thankful for the journey we've experienced together, and, because of that, I can easily get excited for the start of a new year. Here are a few highlights of our first week: We always have a "Pre-First Day of School" on the Friday before our first whole week. This is just a fun day when we take first day photos, hand out school surprises, set up new notebooks, go over the year's plan, and have ... Read more
Swiss Family Robinson Feast
For a summer read aloud with my son, I chose the unabridged Swiss Family Robinson. I LOVE this book. The unabridged version includes so many amazing details that abridged versions omit. It is packed full of inspiring adventure and countless character-building lessons. I’d need a week of posts to cover them all! We read this with my girls one summer when they were younger and concluded the reading with an island party that included a seafood feast, oceans crafts, silly lobster hats, and watching the Disney Swiss Family Robinson movie. We’ve held such fond memories of that summer read aloud with our girls, that I knew I wanted to read it again with my son. Of course, we repeated the ... Read more
Teach Them Tuesday: First Day Traditions for Homeschoolers
This Friday starts a new school year for our us! We sure like our little family school! It's been quite an adventure for the last 12 years with sooo many fun memories made! One of those memories is our back-to-school tradition, and today I'd like to share with you how we make the first day of school special and a success. I have many photos from all of our first days of school, but almost all of them have my kids in them (naturally) and I don't post photos of my children on the blog. First of all, I had to come to realize years ago that cramming in a special breakfast, back-to-school buckets, first-day photos, notebook-making, and a full day of schoolwork in each of our subjects was ... Read more
Summer Farewell Tea
It seems so hard to believe that summer break is drawing to a close. My kids and I have been trying to get in all the last bits of summer fun with individual groups of our friends and family before school schedules start. We make a point to get together with my niece and sister-in-law, and another mother/daughter duo a few times a year to enjoy artsy teas, outings, and lessons for the purpose of indulging our inner hopeless romantics, haha. Realizing we'd not yet managed to work in a summer activity with them, we quickly pulled together a back-to-school tea. We all homeschool (except for my oldest daughter who is in college), and both my niece and our friend are beginning their senior ... Read more