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The Best Family Activities for January

The Best Family Activities for January- As the weather continues to get colder, grayer, and windier, many of us think we will be stuck inside. This year, after being stuck inside so often, I’m realizing that the winter is the perfect time to be outside as there aren’t as many people at the parks! Our family invested in fleece-lined pants, new hats, and new gloves this year so we never had the excuse of weather to keep us from exploring the outdoors!

This list of the best family activities for January is a list of things you can do to slow down this month. No matter what your family looks like, there should be items on this list for everyone to enjoy.

Family Hikes

Last month we took lots of night walks around different neighborhoods to look at Christmas lights. This month we’re exploring parks around us to know which ones will be our favorites in the warmer months. We compiled a list of local parks in our county and what their attributes are. We’re going to visit each one by spring (likely summer) and rank them. Once the nicer weather comes we’ll know exactly which park we’ll want to go to for creek stomping or hiking or who has the best playground!

family activities for october

Plan a Trip

Typically in January, as a travel writer, I am booking all of our trips with CVBs for the year. Last year all of our trips were canceled and we’re not comfortable enough to make the trips this year. What we are comfortable doing is planning camping trips! There are lots of ‘boondock’ type sites on HipCamp that we feel comfortable being further away from people. If you’re typically the one to make all the plans, make it a family activity this year!

Family Declutter Party

One of my favorite January activities is to declutter. In December we work on decluttering toys to make room for new toys coming in. Once January rolls around I like watching documentaries from The Minimalists and the TV show Tidying Up to get me in the decluttering spirit. It’s always a great reminder of gratitude and appreciation for what we already have. It’s also a great reminder on reducing waste and reusing what we already have. The Minimalists have a challenge where you remove one item the first day, two items the second day, and so on through the end of the month. Having your whole family in on this would be a great way for everyone to see exactly what items they have and what they can part with.

the best family activities for january

Family Goal Setting Party

Some of us make goals and we never share them with anyone. Why? When we share our goals that tell people what’s important to us. It lets them understand us and helps them be able to make sure they hold space for what’s important in our lives. Have a family pizza night and talk about your goals for the year (or month). Maybe do a vision board party or some other hands-on activity where you have your goals hanging somewhere for everyone to see.

Make a family plan for being better

Along with working on goals as a family, sharing what’s important to each of you individually, make a family plan for the year. Have everyone say what they’d like to see their family do together this year. Maybe you want to start volunteering at the food pantry once/month as a family. Maybe you’d like to host a community clean up for a favorite park. Perhaps you’d like to raise or save enough money to purchase a well in Ethiopia. There are lots of great family oriented goals you can work on little by little throughout the year, but you can’t do it unless you can see the big picture.

Family YES Day

Have a family YES day! Have pancakes for dinner. Get dressed up in your finest and break out the fine China for a tea party. Make a fort, pop popcorn and watch a movie. Go play at the park even though you have a house project to work on. Get a huge canvas and let everyone paint whatever they want on it. Just do something fun and say YES to all the things you so often say no to. Your kids will love it. You will love it.

What other traditions and family activities does your family do during Jamuary?? I’d love to know how you make this month special for your family.

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3 Steps on How to Organize Your Homeschool Room

3 Steps on How To Organize Your Homeschool Room- This post is sponsored by BookShark. I am a BookShark partner and a portion of our curriculum was provided by them. As always, I only work with companies that I have previously used as a product. We used and loved BookShark when we homeschooled for Pre-K and are very happy with their 1st-grade curriculum.

One of the questions I get asked the most is ‘where do you homeschool?’ I think people see the Instagram version of homeschooling where people have entire rooms dedicated to their learning space. But, in actuallity, you only need one shelf, one binder, and some basic supplies to have a really great homeschool experience.

Notice I didn’t talk about special desks or tables or where you’ll actually teach. That’s because it’s ever-changing. For science, we might be at the table or kitchen island. For reading, we’re often outside on the hammock or swingset. For writing, I like to have my daughter at her desk so her arm is in the correct position to learn letter work, but we pretty much do school on the floor of our reading room because it has the most sunlight.

You can homeschool anywhere and need only a few basic essentials to be successful in your journey. The three steps on how to organize your homeschool room are to have a shelf to hold your curriculum, a base stock of supplies, and a binder to keep your schedule organized. If you’re strapped for money, try finding these items on your local Buy Nothing Facebook group or NextDoor.

3 steps on how to organize your homeschool room

1. A Shelf to hold your curriculum

You could easily use whatever bookshelf you currently have to hold your curriculum for the year. With BookShark, all of the curricula could easily fit on one small bookshelf. We already had this 2×4 shelf in our basement that wasn’t being used well. Thankfully it fit here in our reading room and easily holds our Level B curriculum.

One thing that has helped keep things organized was to label each area with a subject. By doing this, my 7-year-old can easily grab the schedule, see what books we’re using, pull them out and mark the pages, and have everything set up for the day when we’re ready to start our lessons. This also helps in making sure all the books are put away in the right spot. Another benefit is that my husband, who typically doesn’t do lessons, is able to if I am sick. With the simple BookShark schedule he can pick up right where I left off and do school for that day.

This was a video I did of what a typical day might look like in our family. If you start at 6:50 you will see more detail of what our setup is and what materials we use.

how to prepare homeschool lessons

2. A base stock of supplies

We specifically chose a boxed curriculum so that I wouldn’t need to buy a bunch of extra supplies. For us, all we needed was a smaller binder, a huge box of No2 pencils, large lined paper (for learning to write) and we use white copy paper a lot as well. We already had this but I suggest getting a small whiteboard, dry erase markers, and some kind of alphabet manipulative like Bananagrams for different ways to learn sight/spelling words.

We also supplement in art, PE and music so if you don’t already have supplies for those subjects you would need to add those. I’ve learned if you wait until a month after school starts, you can get all art supplies for at least half off.

3. A Binder to keep your schedule organized

The final step in having an organized homeschool room is making a schedule. Our BookShark curriculum came with a giant binder that was divided into 36 weeks of the school year. Because it is so cumbersome they suggest putting 3 weeks at a time into a smaller binder. Doing this makes finding our week so easy to flip to for our lesson each day. As I said before, my 7-year-old gets out the school books so she’s easily able to access the schedule with this method.

In this post, I outlined how to easily set up a homeschool lesson. I also keep our attendance sheet in the front pocket so I see it and remember to do attendance each week. This may be a requirement for your state or county.

So before you think you don’t have the means or the space to homeschool, take these three steps and see that it can be.

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The Best Family Activities for December

The Best Family Activities for December- December is such a wonderful month full of cheer, giving, and family. It’s also full of baking and movies and music and pretty sparkly lights! The number of activities your town hosts is likely overwhelming each year. Some years we only add 1-2 new activities but my kids still want to do the same ones from the past so it ends up that we’re doing 4 events per week and it’s the end of December before we can blink.

This list of the best family activities for December is a list of things you can do to slow down this month. No matter what your family looks like, there should be items on this list for everyone to enjoy.

Holiday Lights Night Walk

Where we live, it doesn’t get snowy and slushy until January. We’ve been taking advantage of the clean sidewalks by taking a family walk after dinner to look at the Christmas lights. Each night we take a different way and let the kids choose where to go. We make sure to say hi to all of the blow-up figures and blow kisses when we leave. It’s very sweet and a way to have our kids feel like they have the responsibility of where we’re going.

the best family activities for december

Baking for the Neighbors

Who needs holiday candles when you can just bake?! We love making a few classic treats like peppermint bark and peanut butter kiss cookies along with a new recipe each year. I’ve learned to buy a few tins/tubs after the holidays when they’re on major sale and throw them in with the decorations when we put them away. The following year we’re already set to bake when we have the urge and run them around to the neighbors (which is also super fun for the kids).

Make reading special

Build a cozy fort, have a hot chocolate, or read by the fireplace. Make reading your holiday books or winter books feel extra special and cozy. Sometimes we’ll get all the stuffed animals together and read to them by the Christmas tree as well. TIP– This makes for a really cute photo!

Make cheesy crafts

I always loved making holiday crafts with tons of pom-poms, sequins, toilet paper tubes, and handprints. There are so many great options on my Pinterest page! Since we homeschool, we’re doing one week of Christmas School before the break. Each day we’ll do holiday-themed worksheets for math and writing. We’re also doing a few science projects and a cheesy craft each day. It’s a great way to just keep out the craft supplies all week and make a ton of fun crafts we can send to grandparents.

Learn a new hobby

December is a great time to try out a new skill like sewing, cross-stitch, macrame, or crochet. Even young kids love doing string crafts. One of my daughter’s favorite gifts was this sewing kit I made her.

Preschool Sewing Kit DIY perfect for young sewers just beginning. Fine motor skills, patience and focus are all used for this project.

With your new hobby, make some gifts for friends

Buying gifts off of someone’s Amazon wish list will guarantee that they like it. But will they be touched, inspired, and delighted by the gift? Try making them a gift. It will likely be one of the favorite things they receive this holiday season.

Movies, duh.

You could watch a new holiday movie each day and still not get through all of the wonderful films this holiday season. Between all of the classics, the fun kids movies, and the Hallmark movies, there’s something wonderful for each person in your family.

What other traditions and family activities does your family do during December?? I’d love to know how you make this month special for your family.

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5 Things You Must Know Before You Start Homeschooling

5 Things You Must Know Before You Start Homeschooling This post is sponsored by BookShark. I am a BookShark partner and a portion of our curriculum was provided by them. As always, I only work with companies that I have previously used as a product. We used and loved BookShark when we homeschooled for Pre-K and are very happy with their 1st-grade curriculum.

We’re at the halfway point of our homeschooling year for first grade. This time last year, I had no idea I would be homeschooling again. We really enjoyed homeschooling for Pre-K because of the situation we were in (new baby) but my daughter really thrived in her public school last year and she wanted to go back. We weren’t comfortable having her go in-person to school this year because of COVID. When I asked her this past week what she thought about going back to school next year or homeschooling she said she wanted to homeschool again! I am assuming I’m doing something right if she’s even considering it!

There are so many people struggling with having their children go back to the confusing schedules of remote learning or the complexities of in-person learning, and are leaning towards having their children homeschool for the second semester of the 2020 school year. I wanted to share what 5 things you need to know before you start homeschooling that really helped us when we were making this decision.

5 Things You Need to Know Before Homeschooling

Find out how to withdraw from your child’s current school

When we withdrew our daughter from her public school I sent an email to the principal and office administrator letting them know our situation and asked them how we needed to proceed. They had said the email was fine and the office administrator had later called to get a verbal agreement that we were withdrawing. That is all that was necessary at our school but your state or county may have different rules.

While you’re talking to the county, you should ask what requirements they have (including the state) for homeschooling. They may have a certain number of days you are required to teach or they may have certain tests your child needs to take. It’s different for each county and state so make sure you know both the state and county’s rules on homeschooling.

Determine what you want to teach your child

This may seem like common knowledge to a teacher but you are likely not a teacher. You need to determine what you want to teach your child. Where did they leave off and what do they have an interest in? I knew that my daughter loves science experiments and animals so I wanted to be sure there was a solid science lesson in whatever curriculum we used.

You might also want to teach them things that their school wasn’t teaching yet and you thought they should know. Over the summer we started working on learning coins and how to tell time. This year we’re learning American Sign Language. You don’t need to strictly use a curriculum to teach your child. Go off of what their interests are!

Research what cirriculum you want to use

This tends to be the step that many parents give up. It is overwhelming the amount of information there is on the different curriculums. Between blogs, videos, and friends’ suggestions there is so much to consume. BUT if you narrow down your needs, you can find what curriculum works best for you fairly quickly.

Do you want a faith-based program or a secular one? Do you want some subjects to be secular but not others? Knowing this will narrow down your search by a lot. We knew that we wanted a completely secular literature-based program. Having a literature-based program gave us the chance to really strengthen our reading skills from my daughter needing to sit and listen and read on her own each day. We also wanted to make sure there were hands-on elements of our curriculum (as that is how I learn best).

With BookShark, both science and history have hands-on elements. When we get to do science experiments and build crafts for history we truly understand the lessons we’re learning.

Find out what the return policy is for the curriculum

Despite all of the research you’ve done to determine the right curriculum, you won’t truly know it’s the right fit until you look through it with your child. You might realize it’s way too much prep work. Your child might decide they’re completely uninterested in the lessons. The number one goal is to have your child interested and intrigued by what you’re teaching.

Thankfully, BookShark is zero prep (meaning I can open the binder that day and be ready to teach the lesson) and they have a 30-day return policy.

Talk to your kid(s) about homeschooling

This is the most important thing you need to know before you start homeschooling. You must be on the same page as your child on why/how/when/where you will be homeschooling. You’ll need to navigate what it is like to be both your child’s teacher and parent. They will need to learn how to be both your student and your child. There will definitely be a transition period as you figure out your rhythm.

Just know that mistakes will be made, on both parts. Patience, grace, and empathy are the three biggest lessons I’ve had to work on as a homeschooling parent. Working together as a team will always be more successful. And you must always remember that homeschooling can be done anywhere, at any time, so feel free to work outside of the ‘normal’ school times.

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5 things you need to know before homeschooling

The Best Curriculum for History at Home| Hands-on History with BookShark

The Best Curriculum for History at Home This post is sponsored by BookShark. I am a BookShark partner and a portion of our curriculum was provided by them. As always, I only work with companies that I have previously used as a product. We used and loved BookShark when we homeschooled for Pre-K and are very happy with their 1st-grade curriculum.

We’re on week 14 of our homeschool year for first grade (level B). We’ve found a really good routine and feeling happy about what we’ve learned so far. The Holiday break is right around the corner and I think we’ll miss doing school!

Because it took me a few lessons to figure out how to use Hands-On History well, I wanted to share what’s inside the box, why we like it, and when to use the box with your lessons.

What’s Inside

The Hands-On History is an optional hands-on activity to help reinforce and document your students’ World History I studies.

  • Project supplies–except for a few household items such as scissors, stapler, markers, etc.
  • Instruction booklet–full-color, 92-page guide includes directions– with illustrations–for each step in the process. 

We love that everything is in a neat box organized in bags by their lesson. It’s easy to find what materials we need for each craft. The beginning of each lesson gives a little intro as to how the craft relates to the lesson you’re learning in history (which I read to my daughter). My daughter is able to read the simple instructions within the booklet that are written and have photos to show each step.

The projects included:

  1. Archaeology Set
  2. Chinese Dragon Puppet
  3. Clay Cylinder Seal
  4. Grecian Vase
  5. Laurel Leaf Wreath
  6. Miniature Yurt
  7. Roman Chariot
  8. Senet Board Game
  9. Trojan Horse
The Best Curriculum for History at Home

Why we like it

We really enjoy that there is a hands-on approach to supplement what we’re reading in our history books. Growing up, I excelled in classes that had a hands-on approach like Conceptual Physics, Chemistry, and Geometry. If I could physically see what I was learning, I was a much more interested and engaged student. Those are the classes that I remember today.

I knew that Sophia did not have a big interest in History. We did BookShark for PreK and she wasn’t very interested in that portion of our schooling. Knowing that I was thrilled to see that BookShark added Hands-On History as a consumable that we could add into our curriculum. We’ve both really enjoyed each time there has been a lesson that uses the crafts. It’s what we look forward to with each new lesson! It’s the best curriculum for history at home.

The Best Curriculum for History at Home

when to use it

Within the BookShark instructor’s guide, it shows which week to use the optional Hands-On History craft. However, doesn’t give a specific date, giving you flexibility to build it in where it fits for your week. What I learned was to read ahead a bit that week to see which day the book mentions what we’re building in our craft.

For example, when I saw we were going to be building a Senet game during our Ancient Egypt lesson, I looked through the books assigned for that week to see which day the book talked about the game before introducing the craft. That way, we have a base for what we’ll be creating.

I hope these three tips give you an idea of what’s inside Hands-On History and why you should add it to your curriculum. Especially if your child, or you, aren’t as engaged in History, it’s an awesome resource to become interested in this subject. Learn more about Hands-On History on the BookShark website.

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