Elf On The Shelf Just this phrase causes parents to fill with excitement or cringe in despair.When my youngest son was almost 4, our elf, Jingle, entered our life. The fun begins. At this time, I had an in-home daycare for about 2 years. I had never heard of Elf on the Shelf.One day, 2 of…
Category: Homeschooling
Christmas Season
With Thanksgiving now behind us, the flurry of the Christmas season has arrived with gusto. Every TV station you turn on is full of commercials advertising “must-have” items for Christmas.Every store you walk into has the unmistakable Christmas songs playing, not so subtly, in the background.Talk with almost any child and they will be filled with…
THANKSGIVING FINGERPLAYS FOR CHILDREN
Thanksgiving fingerplays are a great way to interact with younger children. These fingerplays help children with gross and fine motor skills, improve memory skills, and help them to visualize stories, all while having FUN! Here are my favorite Thanksgiving fingerplays: I’m A Little Turkey (sung to the tune of I’m A Little Teapot) I’m a…
Pour Art
This last week, my family was given the privilege of attending a pour art workshop.I am not an artsy type person, but when I heard about this opportunity, I jumped on board.With the responsibility of scheduling, organizing and chauffeuring all of my children around, I’ve found that I generally sit on the sidelines and watch…
NaNoWriMo
Have you heard of NaNoWriMo? I hadn’t, until a couple of years ago. I wish I’d heard of it when all of my kiddos were younger. So, what is NaNoWriMo? Here is the link to their website, and it explains it all really well: https://nanowrimo.org/about This is great! They give you so many ways to…
CHAMELEONS
Recently, my son and I began a unit study on chameleons. Of course, a large component of studying chameleons is learning about their special characteristics, including, but not limited to their ability to change colors. I asked my son why he thought chameleons would change colors. His answer was “to try to fit in”. Long…
APPLE KITCHEN FUN
My family just loves apples. As soon as the weather starts to chill, we start making plans to get to different area apple orchards as often as possible. Besides the adventure of picking our own apples, we start dreaming up some apple kitchen fun. Each year is a little different. Here are some of our…
APPLES
Every September, I like to add in a short unit study on apples. I do this to take advantage of all the fun apple orchards in my area that we love to visit as a family. Some of my favorite apple activities include:Fingerplay/felt board song:WAY UP HIGH IN THE APPLE TREE Way up high in…
KEEPING BABY AND TODDLER BUSY
Keeping the baby and toddler busy while trying to work with the older children can be a frustrating challenge.There were days where I felt like there was nothing I could do with my older children because the youngest ones were so time-consuming.I’m going to share with you some of the different ways I’ve found through…
RAISING BILINGUAL CHILDREN
When I was pregnant with my first child, friends and family continually asked me if my child would be bilingual.My husband’s first language is Spanish and mine is English. At first, I wasn’t sure what we should do. I began to do some research into the advantages of raising bilingual children. The research poignantly pointed…
