I can tell we are having a good break from school because I am starting to get "the itch" to get back into our normal homeschooling routine :) (Does anyone else feel like that after a break?) I have been looking at curriculums and thinking about how we are going to do things this next year. But, in the meantime, we are still enjoying our summer unschooling break and the busyness of summer gardening.
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I have discovered a new favourite blog :) Fran's World of Discovery is a blog after my own heart! Here is what Fran says about her educational philosophy: In my world, education is interesting, the choices are endless and everyone learns at their own pace, in a way that works for them While searching for strawberry recipes I read Fran's post about strawberries and saw that she has written an ebook called Strawberry Craze. When I contacted her about it she generously sent me a copy of her ebook to review. To be honest, when I first saw this ebook I thought it was something different. I was expecting it to be more of a child-friendly strawberry recipe book. Now that I have read it I know that while there are easy strawberry recipes in it, this book is so much more than just a recipe book! It is full of fun, hands-on educational activities to learn all you can learn about strawberries!
I posted before that we don't do much formal school work over the summer, but we don't take a break from learning either. We are summer unschoolers :) Here are a few of the things the children have been doing this summer, besides helping in the garden.
Do you have any LEGO lovers in your house? My kids love LEGO! With each birthday and Christmas the goes by, their collection continues to grow as it is something that my husband and I are both happy to encourage. There are so many benefits to playing with LEGO! Let me share with you one way we are using LEGO in our homeschool.
Are you or your child an aspiring writer? All my life I loved to write! When I was a kid I dreamed of being an investigative reporter, but I loved all kinds of writing! When I was a teenager I was blessed by a man with a local paper who allowed me to get some experience by writing for his Free Press. I wrote human interest stories, which I loved doing! I also wrote the Teen Chat column for awhile. When I was pregnant with our first child I finished my first, and only, novel, and sent it away to a writing contest. I did not win, but it was an amazing experience, just to know I actually finished writing an entire novel! That manuscript was mailed just a few days before Princess was born. After becoming a mother, writing definitely went on the back burner :) It was not until September 2013, when I started this blog, that I became serious about writing again. I wish I had worked harder at it when I was younger. I still dream about being published somewhere other than my own blog, and am hoping to branch out more by being a contributing writer with other blogs, but it is still something that has to sit on the back burner for me. Being a wife and mother comes first, and everything else just has to wait, for now :)
My oldest daughter has an incredible imagination and makes up stories all the time! She is my daydreamer, and is very much like I was when I was her age! I want to encourage that creativity in her and have been trying to help her get her stories down on paper (or the computer). If writing becomes a passion for her, I want to encourage that and do what I can to help her become a published writer, if that is what she wants. Do you have a dolphin lover in your family? We do. Princess LOVES dolphins! We did a unit study to help her learn about dolphins, but we also use her interest to help her keep learning all the time and having fun while we do it :)
In my last post I shared with you some ways my kids want to give to others this Christmas. I also promised that I would share some ideas with you of things you and your children can make to give away for Christmas too. Here are some of the cute crafts that my kids have made that your kids might want to try making too :)
This year an over-riding theme has been coming up over and over again... At Thanksgiving I reviewed The November Planning Pack for Children, which included a list of ways to bless others... I had the opportunity to review the book, Why We Give Gifts at Christmas Time... The Christmas play our children are involved in is called We Three Spies and is about the Christmas Intelligence Kids (CIK) who give gifts in secret at Christmas time... All of this has led to some interesting and heart warming discussions and prayer with my children :) They have such big hearts and are so eager to jump at the chance to help someone! God has taught me so much through the faith and kindness of my children! My goal for Christmas this year is to really focus more on giving to others with my children! Here are 5 ways we have thought of to give to others together.
This is the last post in this series, for the moment :) Princess has finished her first cake decorating course! She wants to continue with the rest of the courses, but Course 2 won't be for a couple of months, so we get a break for awhile.
This is the third post in my series about my 8 year old daughter's cake decorating course. (You can find the first two posts on my Pinterest board, Cake Decorating.) Princess is taking a cake decorating course on building buttercream skills at Bulk Barn. In her first class she baked and decorated cookies. In the second class she learned how to put filling in and decorate a cake. Her third class was focused on decorating cupcakes.
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