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by Shelly on September 27, 2020 Leave a Comment

The 6 Best Family Activities for October

6 of The Best Family Activities for October. October is right around the corner and with it comes cool temperatures, colorful leaves, apple cider and lots of outdoor fun. For our family, October is as busy as December with lots of birthdays and fun fall activities. We’re big into Halloween too so we’re definitely ready to celebrate October.

I want to preface by saying that we will not be doing everything on this list this year because of the pandemic but are excited about being able to do them again in the future. Here are the best family activities for October.

1. Visit a Pumpkin Patch

I don’t remember a year where I didn’t visit a pumpkin patch. Even without kids, we’d visit the pumpkin patch a couple times each year. With the kids, I love finding the pumpkin patches that have one fee to enter and you’re able to stay and play on on the games as long as you’d like. A favorite around Indy is Piney Acres Farm where they have TONS of games, a corn maze, hayrides, and lots of beautiful pumpkins to bring home.

2. Watch Halloween Movies

Both my daughter and I watch Halloween and Christmas movies year-round. However, starting October 1st, we start the Halloween Movie Marathon where we watch at least one Halloween movie per week. I rounded up our favorites for kids 6 and under in this post. Lots of ‘kid-friendly’ lists seem to have scary movies or movies that may not be appropriate for younger kids, which is why I made this list.

3. Make Fall or Halloween Crafts

We have a couple tubs of Halloween decorations for when October rolls around but fall brings out the craftiness in me. I’m happy to light a fall candle, open the windows, throw on a sweatshirt, and get in some good crafting on the weekends. Some of my favorites have been this Halloween Street Sign, Fall Pumpkin Flower Arrangement, Fall Felt Leaf Garland, and this year’s Fall Mickey Pumpkin.

4. Bake some Fall or Halloween Treats

Nothing is better than sweats when the air gets cool. Which means treats are totally fine. All the pumpkin spice is super nice but I especially love baking with my kids. There’s just something about sharing our love of sweet themed treats that really brings us together. My all-time favorite Halloween treat is Candy Cookie Pizza. I used to ask for it as my birthday cake growing up because I love it so much. I also love this round up if you’re going to be Booing neighbors or going to a Halloween party.

5. Visit Local Fall Attractions

Where I live, you could easily fill each weekend with fall activities all over the city. Each year we try a new place but we love all the other traditions so much that we end up just adding more each year. Most of the places around Indy have their events free for members which is an awesome way to be able to have lots of fun without spending any extra before holiday shopping.

Some of our must-dos are Conner Prairie’s Headless Horseman, ZooBoo at the Indianapolis Zoo, The Indiana State Museum and Historic Sites (tons of different locations and events), and the Haunted House at The Children’s Museum. Not to mention all of the haunted houses, corn mazes, and amusement parks that celebrate Halloween.

6. Go Camping and Hiking

Fall has always been my favorite time to camp. The foliage is beautiful and the temperatures are perfect for all-day hiking and warming up with s’mores by the campfire at night. Growing up, we went to Spring Mill around Halloween and it was my favorite camping trip ever. Everyone decorated their sites with Halloween decorations and there was a hayride and a spooky ghost walk through the old mill. We’re so excited to incorporate these traditions into our own family and we’re starting this year with an October camping trip in our newly renovated popup camper The Popup Jungle. Brown County State Park is another awesome place to camp this time of year.

And if all else fails, visit Disney World. October is our favorite month to visit the Happiest Place on Earth and I am so bummed that we had to cancel our first family trip this year due to the pandemic. Thankfully, we still have lots of things to do (some from this list are still very safe). Let me know what your best family activities for October are for this year!

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by Shelly on August 2, 2020 2 Comments

Back to School | Why We’re Homeschooling

I want to preface this post by saying that whatever decision you are making for your family in regard to school during a pandemic is your choice. No one knows your kids like you and you’re the best one to make this decision. This post is my opinion on why we’re homeschooling with the BookShark curriculum for the 2020 school year.

I am working with BookShark on a series throughout the year. They graciously gifted me half of Sophia’s curriculum in exchange for my honest words on their program. The reason I’m working with them is that we enjoyed the BookShark curriculum so much when we homeschooled in 2018. We’re really excited to see what their Level B entails!

Homeschooling VS Virtual Learning

In our district, the choices for schooling were to do virtual learning until (at least) Labor Day, put your child in a private school, homeschool or unschool (that is what I’m calling schooling with no set curriculum while allowing your child to learn through curiosity and play). For a number of reasons surrounding the pandemic, we were not comfortable having our child go into a building for school.

Thankfully, we’d already homeschooled for a year when Lilly was born.
As a history of Sophia’s schooling:
-she started in Montessori at age 18months
-moved to a Montessori/Emilia Reggio style learning at The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis (pre-K)
-one year of homeschooling with BookShark (pre-K)
-one year in public school (Kindergarten).
At the time, each of these schools was perfect. I love something different about each one and she flourished in each location.

Why We’re Homeschooling

When we did BookShark for pre-K, both my daughter and I had a great year of schooling. She had fun, enjoyed learning, and really liked the flexibility. I loved not having any prep (aside from the supplemental schooling I chose to add), the free day on Fridays for adventures, and how well BookShark outlined everything in the instructor’s guide so I always felt confident in what I was doing as her guide.

Why BookShark?

There will be six posts in this series so I will go further in-depth about what I like about BookShark, how we organize our homeschool materials, what our schedule looks like, and more. Right now I just want to overview our love for BookShark from our previous year of homeschooling and our excitement for the school year ahead.

When I started researching I felt overwhelmed by the sheer amount of homeschooling curriculums. I quickly realized that I needed to have priorities that were most important. For our family, those were:
1. A secular curriculum
2. A 4-day program (to leave time for adventures)
3. Very little prep

Narrowing those priorities down made my search much easier. Not only did BookShark fit each of these descriptions, but they are also literacy-based and had additional hands-on options. For Sophia’s 1st grade school year she will be in Level B where she will study history (with an added hands-on element), geography, science (including physiology, animals, meteorology, electricity, and biology), language arts, math, and handwriting.

Why Does Bookshark Use Levels Instead of Grades?

I really enjoyed that BookShark chose to differentiate with levels rather than grade numbers. Their levels have a suggested age range so you know where to start looking. For example, 1st grade could be level A or B because they’re designed for ages 6-8. My favorite thing about homeschooling is the ability to make sure my child is mastering a subject before moving on.

Growing up, I often got left behind in math because I did not understand. It was always so difficult to catch up because I hadn’t mastered the basic foundation. People learn at all different rates. They should be taught at the rate they need to feel confident and curious in their education.

Why we're homeschooling with BookShark 2020

This school year we will definitely need some time to adjust to our new schedules. After a summer of simple 1 hr/day homeschooling, we will both need to adjust to the amount of time we’re focusing on school work. But that’s the great thing about homeschooling. It’s so flexible. There are 36 weeks. We are welcome to spread that out over 52 weeks if we need it. And that’s ok. Whatever your choice is for schooling this year, just remember, it’s ok to slow down.

I would love to know what you’re doing in the way of school for your children this year. I’m happy to answer any questions about our experience of homeschooling and what our school year ahead will look like!

Click the pink button below to request a catalog to learn more about their programs:

BookShark Catalog

Back to School for 2020 and why we're chosing to homeschool with BookShark.

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by Shelly on February 13, 2020 Leave a Comment

Water Safety Tips for Vacation

**This post is sponsored by Goldfish Swim School, though all opinions are my own.

Spring and summer break is right around the corner and that inevitably means your kids will be around water. Whether you’re searching for warmer weather at the beach or hitting up a hotel pool, your kids need to know how to be safe around water.

On Vacation

We just got back from vacation and I’m so thankful that we’ve been working on our water safety skills at Goldfish Swim School. During vacation, we were at a couple different locations that had pools, all of which were deep enough that my daughter couldn’t touch while having her head above water.

Because she’s a Glider 2 at Goldfish Swim School she’s working on turning over on her back while she swims to catch her breath. This was extremely helpful during this trip because she was calm enough to think ahead when she was running out of energy or air and turn herself over. She also had amazing confidence in the water which I hadn’t seen in her before.

Our smaller swimmer was excited to practice some of the drills she learned in class such as the otter float, jumping into my arms in the pool, and climbing out of the pool herself.

Swim Safety Tips for Vacation

Goldfish Swim’s TOP priority is swim safety and in class, we learned:

About lifeguards. What their job is and how to recognize them. TIP: Always know if and when lifeguards are on duty, and don’t swim alone if there are no lifeguards on duty.
Posted signs. Pay attention to posted swim times. The times may be when lifeguards are on duty or when the pool is open, but the times are listed for a reason – so heed them.
Scope things out. Check out pool first – for the depth throughout, any ledges on the sides to be aware of if jumping in, where ladders are, etc. At the beach, notice any boundaries and be sure to wade through the water and notice any drop-offs and what the bottom of the water is like.

These tips were especially helpful for us on our trip because we were in both indoor pools, outdoor pools, and the ocean. You can never be too cautious when dealing with water.

Stop into a Goldfish Swim School location near you today and sign up your kids for swimming lessons! They’re committed to providing WOW! customer service and they’ll have you and your kids celebrating some extraordinary results in no time!

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by Shelly on December 12, 2019 Leave a Comment

11 of the Best Gifts for Grandchildren from their Grandparents

Christmas is coming up quick! My parents require a wish list for the girls in October. Lilly (1) has all of her sisters and cousins hand me down toys so she’s impossible to buy for. Sophia (6) gets overwhelmed with where to put all of her toys but has a hard time giving any away. Is this sounding familiar? Gifts for grandchildren can be tough.

I wanted to be prepared this year and have a good list mixed with subscription ideas, experience ideas, and big-ticket item suggestions.

I’ve rounded up 11 of the best gifts for grandchildren from their grandparents, keeping in mind a large age range from 0-40 (grandkids grow up too!)

Gifts for Grandchildren

Subscriptions

Adopt a Fairy.

Adopt a Fairy Co. is a monthly subscription that comes straight from the Fairy Mountains. There are several levels but we really liked the monthly Fairy Flags. We would get a hand made flag to put in our garden and other areas around our home showing that fairies are welcome here. They came with fairy dust that we would sprinkle around the flag which would send our message of kindness to the fairies. This gift is great for boys and girls of any age that has imagination and wonder in their hearts.

Atlas Crate.

Atlas Crate is a monthly box subscription by Kiwi Co. Sophia started getting Kiwi Crate last year for Christmas and she loved it so much it will forever be on her Christmas list. Kiwi Co has various themed boxes for age 0-104 years. The Atlas Crate is a geography subscription that includes hands-on projects, creative learning, an atlas adventure book and a world of kid-friendly content.

Bookroo.

Getting packages in the mail is still such a joy for me. Combine that joy of receiving a gift with reading and you’re setting your little ones up as life long readers. With Bookroo Each book is hand wrapped and geared towards the ages of the children. There are 2-3 books in the picture book subscriptions and a chapter book for the 7-10 age group. With these books also comes an overview of the books and talking points to start a discussion with your child about the books.

Experiences

Goldfish Swim School.

I am a partner of Goldfish Swim School because I love their philosophy of safety being the main focus during each lesson. I think it’s so important that kids take swimming lessons throughout the winter to brush up or improve on their swimming skills for the summer ahead. Lessons begin as early as 4 months old and continue until they’ve mastered the skill. The 30-minute lesson has a 3:1 child to coach ratio making sure each child gets the attention they need to improve. Both my girls look forward to getting into the pool each week!

DIY Audiobooks.

If you’re looking for a DIY gift, you could record yourself reading their favorite picture books. My daughter looks forward to The Night Before Christmas each year because it has audio of her grandparents reading the book. If you don’t like the recordable options, put the audio on a CD so they can play them while they look through the books. Amazon has several options as does Barnes & Noble.

Local Attraction Membership.

This will vary depending on where you live but around Indianapolis, our favorite memberships have been Conner Prairie, The Indianapolis Zoo, The Children’s Museum and Defy Indy.

Bigger Ticket Items

Consumable art supplies.

I thought this was the most brilliant suggestion. It can get tedious to keep buying construction paper or play-doh or finger paints or stickers or watercolors or markers, but it’s the perfect gift from a grandparent!

Lego Sets.

There are Lego sets for everything these days! Our daughter especially loves the LEGO Friends sets because she was able to follow the instructions starting at age 5. These are great sets because once they build them they can have an imaginary play with them as shops and treehouses.

Outdoor Toys.

Think about what you liked playing outside as a kid. What kind of activities can get them outside? Maybe a basketball hoop, soccer goal or trampoline? These are great gifts that last a long time.

Dance Lessons.

I’ve found, with little kids, it’s difficult shelling out a lot of money for a dance class where they’re leaping over circles on the ground and twirling and not really ‘learning’ a lot. But it’s not about learning technique. It’s about learning how to listen to a teacher, stay quiet, follow directions, make friends and so much more. So many little kids see adults doing cool dance moves and want to be dancers. Give them the chance!

Piano (or another instrument) Lessons.

This is the longest-lasting gift you can give a child (aside from the love of reading). Sure, she may not be Motzart or Eric Clapton but giving them the chance to see is so cool. Again, they might not be great at it, or even really like it at the time, but they are learning valuable lessons in patience, grace, and practice. And who knows, maybe they’ll pick it up again later in life like my husband did!

So what do you think? Did any of these spark an idea? I’d love to know what you end up gifting, or as a parent, what you’ve received and loved?

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by Shelly on November 14, 2019 2 Comments

8 Tips for Flying with a Toddler 15 months-17 months

As the holidays roll around a lot of people will be flying to celebrate with families or for vacation. Our daughter is 16 months and she detests being strapped down.

Three-hour car rides to Chicago are literally torture to me because I still get that feeling in my gut that rips at me any time she cries. BTW, it’s not fair that this physical pain doesn’t happen to Dads!

I wanted to share some of the best tips I’ve been given and have learned from flying with toddlers over the past six years.

Tips for Flying with a Toddler

Some items in the list below may have an affiliate link. See disclosure for more info.

Snacks. Bring all your toddler’s favorite snacks. I choose snacks that take longer to eat but don’t fill them up. Think cheerios or dehydrated fruit and yogurt drops.
Baby carrier. Even if you are bringing a stroller (flying solo it was super helpful to be able to wear him at fussy times but also helpful to have his stroller to put her in so I could use the bathroom).
Overnight diapers. And disposable changing pad for the plane. It’s hard enough changing a kid on the floor of a plane so bringing a changing pad helps.
Toys. Whatever she is into right now. Right now she’s obsessed with books, cars and anything with tons of pieces like this shape puzzle set
or a deck of flashcards.
Pacifier or Bottle. Anything to suck on to help her ears adjust. If your child is nursing this also helps.
Personal seat. Many airlines charge now for 2 and under so you’ll have the choice to have them fly free. Paying that much money for a child that might not use the seat is insane BUT it will help your sanity if they DO sit and play in their own seat. I’ve had better success when they have their own seats (even if they fight and cry at the beginning while being strapped in).
Schedule an earlier flight. Most toddlers are happier in the mornings giving you a better chance at success. If you can’t book a morning flight, consider doing red-eye where they will be exhausted and hopefully sleep.
Get there early. They’ll be sitting on a plane for the next 2+ hours so give them a chance to run around a bit before boarding. Some airports even have little play areas now!

Let me know what other tips you have for flying with young toddlers. Communication is so difficult at this stage. They’re not yet talking but they can understand a ton! Keep in mind that your emotions rub off on them so the calmer and kinder you are, the calmer and kinder they’ll be.

Safe travels!

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