Making time for the important things in life
My wonderful family gave me a trip to the Royal Ontario Museum for Mother’s Day. Can I just say that it is SO much fun going to a museum with children who have learned some history? We arrived with an agenda: mummies and dinosaurs. But on our way to the Egypt section, we had to [...]
Two weeks ago we decided to start our girls on a month-long moon observation adventure. This was prompted by an activity in RS4K Pre-Level 1 Astronomy, which we decided to tweak and extend. Jumping off from the RS4K lab notes, I created a moon observation worksheet for our young astronomers. We started our observations on [...]
A year ago I shared our early experiences with All About Spelling. I thought I’d share an update on it; after all, we’ve now used it for over a year. Now in Level 3, our tile board is a lot busier (and messier) these days. And we use the tile board regularly, but not as [...]
Our recent dinosaur study has been giving rise to all sorts of interesting questions from our girls. Hubby and I had planned out what we thought they would be ready to understand in terms of deep time and origins questions. Really, after learning that the dinosaurs lived long ago and that they weren’t alive today, [...]
Last year, when Tasha was in kindergarten and showed an avid interest in writing stories, I decided that I needed a program to help me support her in her writing. I picked up the first writing program that I found and launched it. It ended up being a poor choice, and we both suffered through [...]
On the whole, our first year of official homeschooling has been brilliant, rewarding, and successful beyond our dreams. In almost every subject area, I am amazed at the progress that has been made in just months. And then there’s science. With science, I’m amazed at all of the wonderful things we COULD learn if only [...]
Recently 5 year-old Charlotte came up to me and gave me a big hug. “Mom, I think I love you.” Having had my coffee that morning, I picked up on the think in that statement and raised an eyebrow. She kindly explained: “I can only think I love you, because you know, this could all [...]
We’re still here. I’m still writing / blogging every day … in my head. I’ve realized that homeschooling takes a lot of time. (Surprise!) Sourcing local food and cooking from scratch also consumes huge chunks of time every week. And life with little people just doesn’t leave many free minutes. I have so often mentally [...]
On Saturday morning, our daughters beg for the news with Dawna Friesen the way some kids might beg for cartoons. (This is probably because, lacking a TV in our house, they don’t even know about Saturday morning cartoons.) They tumble downstairs in their pjs and hunker down in front of the computer, asking to watch [...]
A few years ago, my husband and I picked up the Take-Along Guide Caterpillars, Bugs & Butterflies. (As an aside, this is a wonderful book for children and adults who want to learn about common insects.) One of the included projects, titled “Capture a ‘Bear’ for the Winter,” directs young naturalists in capturing a wooly [...]
