Summer Plans: Rhythms and Routines

Last summer we had the ‘summer of reading‘. I tried to incorporate as much reading, both on my own and, with the children as I could fit into those three months. It was a great turning point in helping me make more time for reading, which I enjoy, but had pushed to the back burner. I am pleased that the focus on reading has stuck and I find myself reading more and more. This summer I plan to still incorporate lots of reading, I will even have a post next week about our summer reading plans. Today, I want to focus on reestablishing rhythms and routines in our lives, just like how I reestablished reading in my life.

Rhythms and Routines-4

The devastation caused by Hurricane Florence, and the time we have spent focused on relief efforts, made this a year like no other. I have no regrets about the time we spent helping with those efforts but it did cause us to lose some of our normal rhythms and routines. My goal this summer is to get those things back on track and well established so that it will be easier to stick with them when the new school year begins again. I’ve found that time management is much like diet or exercise. All are challenging to establish, but once they become a regular part of your life it is so much easier.

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My Bible time has been more hit or miss than I’d really care to admit lately. I have been working through studies with the children, going to church, and such but my personal time has suffered from a lack of routine. Some weeks I did a good job being consistent and other weeks not so much. I’m really praying that I can be consistent this summer and make it into a firmly entrenched routine that is easy to carry over into next school year. I’m looking forward to spending some time meditating on the word and using my coloring Bible. I also want to make sure I am working on helping my older children strengthen their daily quiet times. They listen to the daily audio Bible app but I plan to help them start journaling about what they are learning while they are reading/ or listening.

My children have had chores for many years and some of those chores have continued throughout this past year. The dishes have been done, toys put away, laundry turned, animals fed etc. However, I have found that as we got busy many of the chores started being done with less attention to detail and others fell to the wayside. We are going to spend some time during the first part of the summer re-teaching chores so that the expectations are clear. I am also planning to create a checklist to help me do a better job monitoring chore completion. I am hoping that by working on this, while not also balancing school, we can get back into good habits that are easy to continue once the school year begins again.

Finally, I have to get a firm handle on my fitness. I have been working on it off and on and I have seen improvements but I am still not as consistent as I need to be. While I have been walking three or four mornings a week with my younger two children (they get outside and I get exercise. Win, win!) I need to be more consistent about adding in some strength training. I have loved the workouts that I’ve been doing with Fit2B. They have such a variety and I now just need to make sure I am utilizing them more frequently. I have set a goal of doing at least four of their workouts each week. I plan to bring out some special toys for the baby to play with during that time to keep him occupied and get my workout in before breakfast each morning. My children also enjoy the children’s workouts and I may try to join them for some of those to combine exercise and a bit of family fun! (They are having a 25% off sale through 5/18 with code mothersday25off.)

If we can get into the consistent habit of these rhythms and routines, it should make the 2019-2020 school year flow much smoother for our family. It will allow me to better balance schoolwork with the other important tasks for the day. I know that once something becomes habit it is much easier to maintain.

What rhythms and routines do you need to work on this summer? In addition to all the fun summer activities, what can you do this summer to make next year smoother?

Resource Library and Affiliate Disclosure

When you sign up for the Schoolin’ Swag free resource library you will get a link and password to the library, we are adding to the library each month with new items. You will also get a bi-weekly newsletter email to keep you up to date on what we have going on.

Resource Library

This post may contain affiliate or referral links, including Amazon affiliate links. As always I will never recommend a product that I don’t believe in and you will never be charged more for purchasing through our links. It does help pay for the costs associated with the blog.

Deals and Freebies

Schoolhouse Teachers is also offering a great sale!

May Sale

Fit2B just announced they are having a Mother’s Day sale! Use code mothersday25off for 25% off! We use this for both my personal fitness and some of our PE for the kids (all included in one membership). A great way to get you safely moving and incorporate fitness into a busy day.

Free Makeover Your Morning 5 Day Challenge! This is a great way to help re-focus and get your day off on the right foot.

Harry The Happy Mouse (Free on Kindle)

Illustrated Would You Rather Book (Free on Kindle)

Enrichment Studies has a great free fine arts memory match game this month!

Free Help Your Child’s Memory Book from All About Learning Press!

Pre-K Farm Study Ideas

My sweet, sassy, short-attention-span five-year-old is enthralled with farms and farm animals. I decided that I wanted to spend a couple weeks doing a farm-themed unit study with him for his ‘school’.

He just turned five, so he is not officially in Kindergarten yet, but he loves the idea of ‘doing school’ like his older siblings. I want to encourage his love for learning without burning him out with too much work, so this was a perfect way to get him actively engaged in something that he loves, work on a few skills, and spend some time together.

*Some of the links in my posts may be affiliate links; see below for more information. *

I spent some time each day working with him on different farm activities and then gave him some free time to play and explore using his farm toys and the other farm activities that I put together.

Farm-Themed Preschool Activities

One of his favorites was harvesting letters. I took out our set of magnetic letters, some black beans that we had for a sensory bin, and a couple of toy tractors that he had in his farm set. Then I put the beans and the letters into a large metal pan (you could use any deep dish).

I explained to him that the beans were ‘soil’ and he needed to use his tractors to ‘harvest’ the letters that were planted in the soil. He would scoop up the letters, and then we would talk about what each letter was before putting it into the bucket and scooping up another letter. He thought it was great fun, and it helped him get a little practice with his letters.

Next, we did some shadow matching, puzzle making, and cutting practice as a part of this fun on the farm printable pack from the multitaskinmom.com. We did not do the entire pack but picked a few activities that he would enjoy each day.

Preschool Farm-Themed Art

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We added in some art by using these fun preschool-level You Are An Artist Barnyard Art Lessons. He did the chick hatching out of the egg the first day and then did all the rest of the lessons the next day because he was enjoying them so much.

I pulled them up on the computer, and he was able to work on the independently while I was helping my older children with some of their schoolwork. (If these art lessons look like fun, check out my other post about farm-themed art lessons. )

Farm-Themed Books for Preschoolers

Throughout the week, we read a variety of farm books. Some of my favorites are the Usborne On the Farm Shine a Light Book and Farm Animals. We also have Baby’s Very First Tractor Book, which I read with both my five-year-old and the baby. Another farm favorite in our house is the Otis series. These fun books about Otis the tractor get requested over and over.

Life on the Farm for Preschoolers

For a more hands-on component of our study, my five-year-old helped his older brother tend our chickens and plant some squash and pepper plants in the garden.

If you do not have room for a full garden, it would be lots of fun to plant a small container garden. You could plant lettuce which grows fast and can be harvested multiple times, or our family favorite, tomatoes. Herbs also tend to do very well in containers.

Independent Play Farm Toys for Preschoolers

For some fun independent play, my son has a Fisher Price Little People Farm set as well as a variety of other farm toys. He can use his imagination to set them up and ‘play farm.’ He loves to build farms and create stories of the events that are going on at the farm.

I am blessed that my older son is gracious enough to often get on the floor and play with him. It is a great bonding experience for them. While we have cleared out a lot of his toys because he was struggling with cleaning up and clutter, the farm set has been a staple for several years.

Farm Field Trip

Finally, I scheduled our unit study around a fun farm field trip. We had some friends invite us on a field trip to an alpaca farm. My son loves llamas, and I knew that since they are so similar, he would really enjoy the alpaca farm.

We were able to see the different alpacas, learn about how they care for and groom them, and see various products made from alpaca wool. My five-year-old really enjoyed it, and my older children are dreaming of starting an Alpaca farm.

As luck would have it, our church also had a farm event going on during our study. One of the generous families from our church invited all of the families with young children out to see their farm. We were able to pet a cow and some sheep, take a hayride, and hang out with the chickens.

This was a great time with friends and perfect for our farm study. If you do not know of a field trip in your area, check with local farms. Many of them will welcome scheduled groups to see their animals or crops. You can also contact your local cooperative extension to see what activities might be available.

We had a great time with our farm unit study, and we hope you get some ideas to help you teach your children about farms. I would love for you to share any other ideas you have in the comments!

Resource Library and Affiliate Disclosure

When you sign up for the Schoolin’ Swag free resource library, you will get a link and password to the library; we are adding to the library each month with new items. You will also get a bi-weekly newsletter email to keep you up to date on what we have going on.

Resource Library

This post may contain affiliate or referral links, including Amazon affiliate links. As always, I will never recommend a product that I don’t believe in and you will never be charged more for purchasing through our links. It does help pay for the costs associated with the blog.

Deals and Freebies

Schoolhouse Teachers is also offering a great sale!

Fit2B has some great fitness programs for the whole family.

Free Makeover Your Morning 5 Day Challenge! This is a great way to help re-focus and get your day off on the right foot.

Harry The Happy Mouse (Free on Kindle)

Illustrated Would You Rather Book (Free on Kindle)

Free Help Your Child’s Memory Book from All About Learning Press!

The Tummy Team has some very reasonably priced online rehab programs or esessions. I am excited to be getting a course to help me get back to being in my best health! I have loved the other courses that I have taken from them, and they are so helpful and supportive. I know this one is not directly homeschool related, but it affects so many moms that I wanted to share.

Freebies and Deals, Deals, Deals

I had several blog posts that I had hoped to share with you this week, but life has been busy. I think this is one of the busiest times of year as we wrap up all of our spring activities, finish the school year and prepare for summer! I am so excited for summer and the chance to relax with the kids as well as get caught up on some blogging and share some great ideas and resources with you. I have several fun things in the works that I can’t wait to share.

May Deals and Freebies!

*Some of the links in my posts may be affiliate links see below for more information. *

I did want to take a few minutes to tell you about some great deals that are happening right now. I didn’t want to spam you with too many deals posts so I put them together right here. I encourage you to bless others as well as our family by sharing this post with other mom’s that might benefit from these deals.

First, The Ultimate Homemaking Bundle is on sale this week! It is only available for a short time and is an amazing deal. The bundle includes 104 products worth $2,294.37. This includes 30 eCourses & Videos, 28 eBooks, 25 printable packs, 16 workbooks, 3 summits & 2 membership sites and some really great bonuses! You may be thinking that you really do not need that many items and you would be correct. Most folks can’t and won’t use all of them, but at less than $30 for the whole bundle, using even just a few items can save you money! We are really enjoying the bookroo bonus, the Fit2B bonus (if you are not already a member you can get 2 months for free or get a $15 store credit for current members), and the soap from Puro Co. I am also loving some inspirational printables and can’t wait to try out some of the homeschool planning sheets as well as the homeschool conference workshops this summer as I reset our homeschool for next year. I encourage you to take a look and see what courses and printables might be helpful in your homemaking. this would be a great early Mother’s Day present.

Second, The Tummy Team is having a 35% off sale! This makes for some very reasonably priced online rehab programs or esessions. I am excited to be getting a course to help me get back to being in my best health! I have loved the other courses that I have taken from them and they are so helpful and supportive. I know this one is not directly homeschool related but it affects so many moms that I wanted to share.

Third, The Productive Homeschooling site is now up and running and offering special pricing through May 10th! You may have heard of NotebookingPages.com but they have opened a new site with notebooking pages, apps, and so much more all on one easy to use site. They even have some great free resources. I encourage you to check them out and see what they have to offer.

Finally, Schoolhouse Teachers is also offering a May sale if you missed out on the April $1 sale. You can get a monthly subscription for $9.95 or a year for only $99. If you want to know more about Schoolhouse Teachers you can always check out my post about our hobbies.

May Sale

Freebies!

Enrichment Studies has a great free fine arts memory match game this month!

Free Help Your Child’s Memory Book from All About Learning Press!

Free Makeover Your Morning 5 Day Challenge! This is a great way to help re-focus and get your day off on the right foot.

Harry The Happy Mouse (Free on Kindle)

Illustrated Would You Rather Book (Free on Kindle)

FREE Writing About Books: Book Reports and Beyond from Write Shop!

FREE: Check out this great new FREE resource for classical and Charlotte Mason education! Classical Christian Education & Charlotte Mason. Great for folks already homeschooling or if you have friends that are looking into it!

Resource Library and Affiliate Disclosure

Resource Library

How to Get More Out of Your Nature Walks

One of my goals with our nature walks is that my children learn to enjoy nature; however, I also want them to learn from their walks. Some days they seem to want to run down the trails as fast as possible, and they miss everything around them. I do not want to make our walks a chore, but I want to help them be more observant about their surroundings.

*Some of the links in my posts may be affiliate links; see below for more information. *

Simple Hiking Activities

We can do some simple activities while we hike to help them. One great activity for all ages is the ‘pick three things’ activity. I simply ask them to find three things along the way that they find interesting. They can either collect those things or take pictures, depending on what they find. Then when we finish the hike, everyone gets to share what they saw. We also enjoy trying to find something from each color of the rainbow. This one is easier in spring and summer but can be done anytime.

As the seasons change we love to go on hunts for various seasonal signs. So early in the spring we will go on a hike looking for signs of spring. We look for the first flowers blooming, leaves on the trees, birds building nests, and other springtime signs. We can do the same thing at the beginning of each season.

Deer Track

Ant Hill

Looking for animal’s signs is probably the children’s favorite hiking activity. This can be as simple as finding tracks on the path, seeing birds nests, or holes/burrows in the ground. As the children got older we also looked for things like scratches on the trees, scat, and plants that had been partially eaten.

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Helpful Tools for Nature Study

We also have edible wild food cards and a collection of nature guides. We can choose one of these before we hike and focus on finding various varieties from with-in that guide. So, if I take the trees book, we can see how many different trees we can identify. We also have a wildflower guide, mammal guide, and even a fungus guide. (Though harvesting fungus is another ball game for which I am not yet trained.)

For my older children, they will sometimes bring their nature journals and colored pencils or chalk pastels and choose something to draw. I have found that doing nature-based art lessons beforehand helped them feel better prepared to draw what they saw. I am always very careful to not expect perfection but to have them just enjoy the process of drawing what they see.

One final simple way to keep children engaged and learning on a nature hike is to give them a magnifying glass. This does not have to be an expensive tool; sometimes, you can find them at the dollar tree. I have found that children, especially young children, can often spend hours looking at ants, bugs, leaves, and more with the magnifying glass that they would simply overlook if they were hiking without it.

Make it an Adventure!

All of these activities keep things fun while helping them learn. They feel more like an adventure than a ‘school assignment’ but they become so much more aware of their surroundings and develop a love of nature. Does your family enjoy hiking? How do you engage your children on hikes? I always love new ideas and I would love for you to share in the comments.

Resource Library and Affiliate Disclosure

Resource Library

This post may contain affiliate or referral links, including Amazon affiliate links. As always I will never recommend a product that I don’t believe in and you will never be charged more for purchasing through our links, and it does help pay for the costs associated with the blog.

Deals and Freebies

Schoolhouse Teachers is having a sale.

Starting August 31st all of Evan Moor’s Daily Practice titles will be on sale 20% off!

Free Makeover Your Morning 5 Day Challenge! This is a great way to help re-focus and get your day off on the right foot.

Harry The Happy Mouse (Free on Kindle)

Illustrated Would You Rather Book (Free on Kindle)

FREE Historical Fiction from Write Shop!

CrossWired Science (A Review)

CrossWired Science is unlike any science program that I’ve used before. We had the unique opportunity to review this program while it was still in development. I had the privilege of reviewing the Sound, and Fluid Dynamics projects. Typically, the programs I review are completed and on the market. Reviewing a program that was still ‘under construction’ was a very different experience. There were times when it could be frustrating because a quiz might not be ready or the schedules were not published. However, the really neat part about reviewing a product that was not fully complete is that the Review Crew was able to give feedback as we worked through the projects. The folks at CrossWired Science were very receptive to feedback and made a lot of great additions to the program during just the few weeks that we worked through it.

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*Some of the links in my posts may be affiliate links see below for more information. *

One of my favorite additions that they made during the review period was a suggested schedule. I think that the schedule really helped me to get a better idea of how to plan this curriculum into our school days. I felt very overwhelmed when we first started using the program because there was so much information. Once I had the schedule it made it a lot easier for me to understand how to best utilize all they had to offer.

We focused on the Fluid Dynamics project which covered a variety of topics including rocket aerodynamics, fin types, avian lungs, bird feathers, flight, insect drinking and the space station. The Sounds project includes topics like how ears work, sonars, ultrasounds, and bird songs.

The program has a variety of components. My children really enjoyed the core video lessons and the included quiz that was completed and graded online. This was beneficial to me as a parent because it allowed me to check and be sure they understood what they were learning.

crosswireddevotional

Next, they have the Digging Deeper and Gold Dig components. As they state on the website, “The Digging Deepers and the Gold Digs are heavily illustrated with fun, beauty and quite stunning “concept pictures”.” These were a great way to go deeper and learn more about a particular part of a concept. My children went through the Gold Dig components about bones and learned a lot of interesting information.

In addition, there are research links to help them dig further into a variety of topics, field trip ideas. At this point the field trip ideas are mostly general science field trips but they are developing this section with more specifics. Throughout the curriculum, they point science back to God, but they also have specific devotionals included at the end of each project. They also offer suggestions for books, audio CDs and other materials to extend your studies as well as other science activities. They give a wide selection of experiments that you can choose from to go with the related topic.

The program offers a wide variety of information and opportunities from which to choose from, much like a buffet line. For some folks this is great, because you can pick and choose what you want to learn and leave out what doesn’t interest you or work for you. However, for others, it maybe a little overwhelming and a little too disconnected.

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If you want a program that gives you a script and walks you through every step, this probably is not the right fit. However, if you want a program that gives you lots of resources and tools and then allows you the flexibility to use it how your child works best, this could be a very good fit for your family. I even see this as a great resource for unschoolers, because it would be very easy for a child to just go to the site and spend time learning and digging into the topics of interest. Right now they only have the two projects that I reviewed, however, they are adding more daily and will eventually have twenty-four of those projects. They even have plans to take the first two even deeper. Their long-term goal is to provide a curriculum that will cover all of science from pre-kindergarten through chemistry.

Overall, this is an up and coming curriculum that will have a lot to offer for many homeschool families. It is a program that allows for flexibility in both content and scheduling. and keeps a God honoring view of science. They are still working hard and adjusting the program to make it a better curriculum

. While I struggled a bit with the variety that was offered, my children really enjoyed having lots of choices. They are hoping to complete the other project over the summer in their own time. I suggest going to the website and taking a look to see if it might be a good fit for your family. They even have a sample unit available. As an added bonus, CrossWired Science is generously offering my readers a $5 discount. Just go to CrossWired Science and use the code: dp18. Be sure to click below and check out the reviews from other Crew members.

Resource Library and Affiliate Disclosure

Resource Library

Exploring Hobbies on a Time and Money Budget

When it comes to hobbies you might call my children, ‘jacks of all trades’. They love learning new things and tend to prefer to dabble in multiple hobbies rather than focus on one thing in particular. In many ways I think this is a blessing and a very positive experience for them. It helps to make them well rounded, prepares them for many situations, and allows them to try out a bunch of different things to see what they enjoy. However, if we are not careful, it could get quite expensive and time consuming to keep so many different plates spinning.

*Some of the links in my posts may be affiliate links see below for more information. *

In order to balance our desire for them to have many experiences with the need to manage our time and money wisely, we have found a few programs that balance those concepts.

One key to managing our time wisely is that we do several hobbies together as a family. This keeps us from having to go in several different directions at once and allows that hobby time to also be quality family time. For example, our family is interested in history and more specifically Colonial and Revolutionary War era American history. We love to take day trips to various historic sites and learn about history but even more, we enjoy being a part of living history events. We volunteer with our local historic site, Tryon Palace, and participate in various events. The children love to dress up in colonial attire and teach others about history. We love that they are learning and we get to spend time together as a family.

Another way we have found to help use our time wisely is to find programs that can be done at home. This minimizes travel time and allows various children to be working on different projects at one time. This helps us to be able to have them each work on hobbies that they enjoy without making me feel like I am spending my days running them from one practice to another.

For their interest in art, we use the You Are An Artist Chalk Pastel classes. These are recorded art lessons that use either chalk pastels or acrylics (new) to help with a variety of beautiful artwork. I love that we can fit in their desire for more art with a teacher that can help them, without ever needing to leave our home. The lessons typically take us about 20 minutes. These also meet our criteria for using money wisely because the supplies are very inexpensive and by utilizing the Clubhouse you have access to a wide variety of lessons for everyone in the family for one low monthly price. If I were paying for in person lessons, I would only get one short lesson per month for one student for the price I am paying to get as many lessons as they want to take for all three of my students (the 4th is only a year old so no art lessons yet).

Music has never been my gift but both of my children expressed interest. Years ago my son tried guitar lessons but the drive back and forth got to be difficult with the other small children. I also had to entertain them in the car while we waited for him and that was no fun. Eventually we stopped lessons. However, this past year I found a solution to their interest in music. My son is working through a subscription to Guitar360 Method. Since it is a lifetime subscription, he can take his time and work at his own pace. He works on it when he has time and interest. My daughter and just recently my 5-year-old son, are taking violin lessons through Practice Monkeys. There program is also online but is different in the fact that they can go online Monday through Thursday at their appointed times and take part in a fifteen minute lesson along with other students of their same level. This allows the teacher to offer feedback and them to ask questions. If we cannot make it to the live online class, we have access to the replay so that they can still practice. This has been a really great fit for my daughter. I’m still not sure how my son will do at his young age, but as it is a family subscription, I felt I did not have anything to lose by letting him try.

A boy and his pig!

My children enjoy being outdoors, working in the garden and with our animals. We have chickens, ducks, and bees that we keep year round but they wanted some experience with other animals. We were already involved in 4-H which is a great program that offers a variety of opportunities from science, art, public speaking, and more. Through 4-H we have connected with various chicken and livestock shows for them to begin growing their knowledge in those areas. 4-H has programs in place to help children of set the costs of raising and showing the animals to make it more accessible to all children. They even have programs to help students who want to raise animals but do not have the space to do so. We have found 4-H to be a great way for our children to explore a variety of different topics with minimal cost. The other benefit is that all of my children from 5-18 can do this together.

Finally, my secret weapon, our annual subscription to SchoolhouseTeachers.com. Schoolhouse Teachers offers over 400 different courses. Many of these are more standard core classes, such as English and math, but they also offer a huge number of electives that can help your child explore various hobbies. I love these because when my child shows an interest in something, I can give them resources without any added expense or commitment. If they enjoy it they can keep working further, if the interest fizzles out, they can move on without the worry of wasted money.

For example, my daughter recently spent $25 to buy herself a digital camera at a yard sale. She is really enjoying taking point and click pictures with it but wants to learn more about the different settings and how to take better pictures. This month was super busy for us but next month she is going to begin working through one of the photography courses that they offer. I could also have them take the homesteading course (or selected lessons from the course) to help them with their animal and gardening projects. This summer I am hoping that they can work through a few lessons in the heritage crafts course to add to their knowledge and skills when we do living history events. There are so many different options for various electives, music classes, and art classes. They are all included in a single family membership (either monthly or annually), you can start and stop them at any time, pick and choose from the lessons as needed. I love the flexibility to offer my children a virtual ‘buffet’ of learning opportunities to allow them to explore their interests without breaking the bank or becoming a full time chauffeur.

I am so grateful for the opportunity to offer my children a wide variety or experiences to allow them to explore their interests and gain new skills without busting our budget or wasting all of our family time. I hope that this gives you some ideas. I would love for you to share with me in the comments about what you use to help your children pursue their hobbies.

Resource Library and Affiliate Disclosure

Resource Library

Deals and Freebies

Schoolhouse Teachers is also offering a great sale! If you want to give it a try, your first month is only $1 or you can get an entire year for $111. My daughter is getting ready to use a photography class from our subscription to help her learn more about her new (to her) camera.

April showers

Free Makeover Your Morning 5 Day Challenge! This is a great way to help re-focus and get your day off on the right foot.

Harry The Happy Mouse (Free on Kindle)

Illustrated Would You Rather Book (Free on Kindle)

Only A Few Days Left to Sign Up For the Free Independent Play Challenge:

It sometimes seems that the kids need you ALL. THE. TIME!

It’s okay to just want 20 minutes of quiet… so you can get things done.

Join the FREE Independent Play 5-Day Challenge!

Kids in the Kitchen: Knife Skills

When people watch my children in the kitchen, one of the most frequent questions I get asked is, “Aren’t you worried about them using a knife?”. While safety is very important and we are always reminding them to use their knives safely, I do not worry because we have spent the time upfront to make sure that they have the knife skills they need to safely do the job. There are a few keys to good knife skills for children that will help them be able to use knives appropriately in the kitchen.

*Some of the links in my posts may be affiliate links see below for more information. *

Choose the Right Knife for the Job

This is one area that is challenging for a lot of parents. How do you choose the right knife for the child and the job? First, we need to understand that ‘dull knives’ are not the solution. This particularly applies to knives that are supposed to be sharp but are not and in cutting things that do not cut easily. If you are trying to cut something with a dull knife you are more likely to slip and cut yourself.

When we start our children with a knife (somewhere around 2 or 3 depending on the child and their interest/development) we start with a butter knife and a lettuce knife. While a butter knife is not a particularly sharp knife, it is not designed to be sharp, and is used to cut things that are soft and easily sliced. This works great for soft fruits and cutting up veggies on their dinner plates. For harder vegetables and fruits that need a sharper knife you can use a lettuce knife. I love these knives because they will cut right through many foods but will not cut your child. As soon as we introduce them to these knives we begin instruction so that they learn to use the knives properly and safely.

As they get older and begin to use regular kitchen and chef’s knives, we make sure they are kept clean and sharpened. You want them to be able to slice what they are cutting and not feel like they have to ‘hack’ at it. It is also beneficial to choose knives that fit well in their hands so that they are able to handle them comfortably. My two older children both received a Sabatier-K chef’s knife for Christmas a couple of years ago that works very well for them. It is a high quality but reasonably priced knife that fits well in their hands. We purchased ours from their outlet store but they are also available on Amazon. At 11 and 12 they can both do any cutting that is required for the meals that they cook.

knife skills pintrest

Quality Instruction

Instruction is vital to good knife skills. While a young child’s fine motor skills may not allow for perfect knife skills in the beginning, you do not want bad habits to develop. For older children or if you need a little refresher yourself, Alton Brown has an episode titled American Slicer that can help with knife skills.

You want to make sure they learn to curl their fingers under and away from the knife, to have a good surface to cut on, to cut or peel away from their bodies, and to be aware of what is around them as they are cutting (make sure baby’s hand isn’t on the cutting board, etc). They need to learn not to run with the knife, to carry it point down like a pair of scissors, and not to swing it around like a toy.

When you begin teaching about knives it is important that young children understand that they may only use the knife with permission and under supervision. As they get older they can be allowed more freedom.

Practice

It is really important that we give them opportunities to practice. It can often seem easier and certainly quicker to just take care of it ourselves. However, giving them multiple opportunities to practice will help grow their skills and confidence. Like many life skills the more they practice the easier it will become, just be sure to continue to monitor for safety until you are confident that they are consistently using the appropriate safety measures.

Teaching children to use knives can feel scary at first but it is a life skill that is so very important. Accidents do happen, but proper training and experience greatly decreases the risk! I highly encourage you to take the time to teach them well and enjoy the shared time in the kitchen. What kitchen skills are you wanting to teach your children?

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Deals and Freebies

Starting August 31st all of Evan Moor’s Daily Practice titles will be on sale 20% off!

Little Women is only .99 on kindle right now! (Amazon prices subject to change always check before purchasing.)

FREE Baby Yoda Art Lesson from Nana!

If you are looking to add some new electives or switch up some of your classes, SchoolhouseTeachers.comis having a great sale, that is over 400 courses to use with all of your children for one low price.

Free Makeover Your Morning 5 Day Challenge! This is a great way to help re-focus and get your day off on the right foot.

Harry The Happy Mouse (Free on Kindle)

Illustrated Would You Rather Book (Free on Kindle)

Free Help Your Child’s Memory Book from All About Learning Press!

What is New With All About Reading?

Testing out All About Reading's new color edition level 4

If you have been following along on our homeschool journey, you may already know that one of the programs that we love and are most loyal to is All About Spelling. My oldest taught himself to read (with a little help from the leap frog videos) at the age of three but struggled with spelling. We had tried traditional spelling books, word walls, copy work, and other assorted programs and styles until I was at a loss. Finally, I found All About Spelling and it really clicked.

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At that time I did not switch over to All About Reading because both my oldest and my second child were already reading well and I was not looking for another phonics program. However, my third child will be five in a few months and start ‘Kindergarten’ next year which in our home means we will at least introduce him to a phonics program and see how things go. Depending on how he does with it, we may keep going or we may hold off a little longer until he is developmentally ready. In looking at various programs I have been highly considering All About Reading. I know that I will be using All About Spelling with him when the time comes and I love the idea of the two programs that are set up with similar styles and working together for an all around literacy program.

All About Reading's new color edition review

Knowing that I was considering it for next year, I was very excited to learn about their new color edition. The color makes it very visually appealing to young learners and can help with engagement. In addition to the full color activity books and heirloom quality readers they have also fully updated the teachers manuals with full color and an additional 56-72 pages of material per level.

I wanted to dig a little deeper and I was given the opportunity to try a sample lesson. I used a lesson from the level four program and gave it a try with my daughter. I knew going into it that it should be a review for her but I wanted to see how the style worked and what she thought of the new activities. She really enjoyed it and thought that the game she was able to play was a lot of fun. She told me that she thought the reading program was, “cool”. For this particular game she had a set of word cards that had a gopher on one side and the word with another gopher on the opposite side. She had to pick up each card, read the word on the card correctly and then she could place the card through the slot on her paper that made it appear the gopher was going into his hole in the garden. It was quite simple but as she stated she really enjoyed it and it made the practice more fun.

The lesson we worked on taught the ph phonogram. First with the flashcard and repeating after the instruction that ph says /f/, two letter /f/. Then after a bit of review and practice you moved onto reading words using that phonogram and the other letter tiles. First together and then independently. Once you felt they had grasped the concept you could move onto the activity and further review as needed.

All About Reading is a great systematic way to teach phonics. Much like the spelling program it goes through each step making sure to teach both the rules and the exceptions. They do a good job incorporating various learning modalities throughout the program. I have found that even though I have memorized how to read or spell a word, there are rules that they teach that I never learned. This new updated program keeps all of those positives and adds in some extra helps for you as the teacher and the addition of the beautiful full color pages. I highly recommend that you take a look and see if this might be the right reading solution for your family. You can even try the sample lesson!

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Deals and Freebies!

My Snowman Paul is Free on Kindle and many others in the series are less than $1.

Are you looking for a free Bible study that your whole family can enjoy? The Proverbial Homemaker is offering up a study of James that is FREE for a limited time.

Did you join us last week for the FREE five day activity challenge?

To keep the fun going, and keep making memories with your kids, Jamie has a program called The Activity Room that I know you’ll love, so I have to share about it just a bit, plus it is only open for enrollment a few times a year and enrollment JUST opened TODAY.

What this means for you, right now — is that The Activity Room is open for enrollment only through this Thursday, January 24th. After that time, she’ll close down to focus on her members and won’t open the doors again until May.

Changing Up Curriculum Without Overspending!

It is January, a new calendar year, but for most folks the middle of a school year. It is often a time we reevaluate what were are doing in our home school to see what is working well and what needs some tweaks. Sometimes we can make minor adjustments and see big changes. For example, I shared last week about how I switched my son from regular chalk pastels to chalk pastel pencils and renewed his love of art. However, sometimes you need to make bigger changes. It could be that the spelling program you are using just is not working for your child, or they are frustrated and not understanding math because of the way it is presented.

How to stay flexible and change curriculum without wasting money.

*Some of the links in my posts may be affiliate links see below for more information. *

It can seem so simple to change things up on one hand, but I also know that curriculum can be a financial investment. It can feel like a waste to toss aside old curriculum without using it and purchase more curriculum (which may or may not be the right fit). However, continuing on with a curriculum that is not working is not just wasting money but time. So how do you manage to not waste money or time and still have the flexibility to find the right fit for each child?

One solution is to buy used curriculum. If you can find the curriculum you want used you can save money upfront. Assuming that it is not a consumable product you should also be able to sell it when you are finished or realize it is not the right fit for your family and recoup much of your investment. You can ask around on your local homeschool Facebook groups or e-mail loops, your local homeschool store (if you are lucky enough to have one), or check online at places like Amazon or eBay.

What if you want even more flexibility or do not want to hassle with buying and selling curriculum? You might want to the ability for your children to pick out some of their curriculum based on interests or to add electives as the year progresses. This is where a family membership to Schoolhouse Teachers can be the perfect solution. They have a variety of classes for each grade level in most subjects with a total of over 425 courses for the whole family. This means that if you are working through one of their 7th grade literature courses and decide it is not quite right, you just switch and take a different one. All of the courses for ALL of the students in your family are included for the same low price. You can also combine courses or just do certain lessons depending on what you need for your child.

I personally use a combination of both of those approaches to give me flexibility to work with what each of my children needs, to change things up as we go along, and yet to stick to a reasonable budget. We use math from other programs, but love the literature courses on Schoolhouse Teachers. I love the fun hands on courses for my preschooler and enjoy being able to give my children access to instruction in a variety of electives based on their interests.

If you were looking for an inexpensive way to change things up or just wanting to add in some fun electives like music, drama, bread making, photography, homesteading, graphic design, or wild life adventures, you should consider a membership to Schoolhouse Teachers. Right now they are running a great special that makes their already good value even better. You can get access to all 425+ courses, World Book resources, and lots of parent resources for your entire family for only $90 a year. You can pick and choose as many or as few courses as you would like and change them whenever you see fit. You can do lessons from various courses or do the entire course straight through.

Resource Library and Affiliate Disclosure

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Deals and Freebies!

Starting August 31st all of Evan Moor’s Daily Practice titles will be on sale 20% off!

The NEW color edition of All About Reading is ready to order!

Free Help Your Child’s Memory Book from All About Learning Press!

Happy Birthday AA Milne

Growing up we did not have satellite or cable television, but my aunt and grandmother both had a satellite dish (you know, the big ones that looked like UFOs). When I went over to their house, I loved watching the television show Welcome to Pooh Corner.

I have so many fond memories, and when my children were old enough, I was excited to share the characters of Winnie the Pooh and his friends with them as well. The show is no longer available, but the books that inspired them are a great place to start.

happy birthday aa milne

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Happy Birthday A. A. Milne

January 18th is the birthday of the man who created the wonderful imaginary world of Winnie the Pooh, AA Milne. What better way to celebrate his life than to read some of his wonderful stories.

There are several different books and collections written about the bear and his friends. I have included links to those in the resources list for your convince. If you do not have any of them, several of them are less than $2 on Kindle or Audible.

In addition to the stories that he wrote, we really enjoy the book Finding Winnie: The True Story of the World’s Most Famous Bear. (As of this posting, the book is only $1.71 on Audible, but prices are subject to change.) This book is a great story about the bear that inspired the Winnie the Pooh stories, as well as an introduction to World War I. It is a picture book, but even my older children enjoy it.

Art and Food Ideas

If you want to do something a little different, you could try a new recipe with honey (Pooh’s favorite food). You could also try this free Winnie the Pooh art lesson by the wonderful folks at You Are An Artist Chalk Pastels.

If your children are a little older, you could also watch the new Christopher Robin Movie, I have not yet seen it, but it does have good reviews on plugged-in.

I hope you have a chance to study AA Milne and his wonderful books. Winnie the Pooh is such an enjoyable addition to any childhood and a great way to revisit memories of when you were younger.

I had a $5 credit on Audible and a lot of errands to run today, so for less than $1, I picked up The House at Pooh Corner, and we will be listening while we ride.

Take a few minutes today and read a book, listen to a story, draw a picture, or try a new recipe. Who was your favorite character from the 100 Acre Wood?

Winnie the Pooh Resources

Free Art Lesson

Winnie the Pooh (only .99 on Kindle)

Audible Dramatization of Winnie the Pooh and The House on Pooh Corner

Now We Are Six

Finding Winnie

Christopher Robin Movie

Pooh’s Library

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This post may contain affiliate or referral links, including Amazon affiliate links. As always, I will never recommend a product that I don’t believe in, and you will never be charged more for purchasing through our links. It does help pay for the costs associated with the blog.

Deals and Freebies!

Journey Homeschool Academy is offering sale if you need a new science program! We love their high school programs and plan to try their elementary astronomy next year.

This is a great resource for lots of amazing printable materials from pre-k to 12th grade and they are offering 40% of lifetime access.

My Snowman Paul is Free on Kindle, and many others in the series are less than $1.

Are you looking for a free Bible study that your whole family can enjoy? The Proverbial Homemaker is offering up a study that is FREE for a limited time.