Our BBQ Adventure Through the Southeast

I had to think a bit about this week’s topic, but then I realized I had never shared the details of our BBQ through the states adventure.

First, you should know that I am from Eastern North Carolina which means that BBQ is a noun and not a verb. BBQ is made from pork that has been slow roasted on a large grill or ‘pig cooker’ , pulled or chopped, and topped with a vinegar based sauce.

Our BBQ Adventure Begins

This spring our family was blessed with the opportunity to travel to Lake Charles, LA to help with some disaster relief. Most of the group from our church flew into Louisiana, but our family made the drive and turned it into a new family adventure.

We decided that we would take most of the food for breakfast and lunch but eat out each evening of the trip down to Louisiana. Our family loves BBQ and as a bonus it is normally a fairly reasonably priced dinner.

So, we decided to try to eat BBQ in as many different states as we could along the way. Many southern states have their own style of BBQ (North Carolina has an ongoing Eastern and Western style BBQ war).

On the first day of our trip we were in North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia. We have had South Carolina BBQ before and we really were not huge fans of their mustard based sauce, but everyone should try it once.

Since the first day was a long day of travel, we ended up just picking up food from a drive through and not getting BBQ in Georgia.

Alabama

Our second night we had our first BBQ of the trip in Alabama. We scoured the internet to figure out what BBQ locations were on our route, family friendly, and had good reviews. We also wanted a place that was more local than chain.

We found The Meat Boss and I am so glad that we did. It was a friendly local place, with good food, and outdoor seating. That was the perfect set-up for a big family with a tired and messy toddler. They offered pork and beef along with a wide variety of sauces. We tried a variety but focused mainly on the white sauce which is typical of Alabama BBQ. Honestly, it was one of the best meals of our trip and we would definitely eat it again if we went back through Mobile. We even bought a bottle of their sauce to bring home and share with family members.

Louisiana

In Louisiana we ate most of meals without team and enjoyed some local cuisine including boudin and crawfish. We also had the chance to enjoy some jambalaya and gumbo. However, we still wanted to try a little Louisiana BBQ.

Our friends helped us out by picking us up a BBQ sandwich from a local restaurant. My son ate most of the sandwich, but we all tried a little bit. It was pulled pork, with a little more smoke than in North Carolina. It was enjoyable but not something we would go out of our way to eat again.

Texas

When people talk about Texas BBQ, they are most commonly referring to beef brisket. While we did not have to travel through Texas, it was only about thirty minutes from where we were staying in Louisiana. Since the children had never been to Texas, we decided it was worth a little side trip.

Before leaving, we researched BBQ restaurants in the Texas. We found one that looked like a great mom and pop place to get brisket. Unfortunately, when we arrived that Sunday for lunch they were having a special that day for crawfish and did not have any brisket.

Thankfully we found another local restaurant with brisket. The brisket was tasty but not the best. It was tender but the sauce was a bit too smoky for my taste. We feel like we might not have chosen the best place to try it, so we are thinking that we will try Texas brisket again if we ever make it back to Texas.

Tennesse

Tennessee BBQ is best known for Memphis ribs. We decided to grab a lunch of ribs in Memphis on our way to visit family in Nashville as a stop on our journey home. We picked Corky’s because they were open for lunch, close to our path of travel, and had good reviews. While they also have pulled pork sandwiches, we focused on the ribs.

They had three different styles of ribs: wet (BBQ sauce), dry (dry rub), and muddy (both). We got some of each and shared them so that everyone could try them all three ways. We needed to get to Nashville that evening, so we ate them in the car. It was a bit messy and I wouldn’t necessarily recommend that part of our decision, but we did really enjoy the ribs.

As a North Carolina girl through and through, I still can’t really consider the ribs BBQ but they were very good and I would happily eat them again.

Home Sweet Home

Finally, after almost two weeks on the road we arrived back in our home town. It was dinner time when we got back and we were too tired to cook. So, we decided to finish up our BBQ through the States tour in our home town. We picked up BBQ from the Smithfield’s BBQ restaurant. It was delicious as always.

All in all, we really enjoyed our adventure, but my favorite BBQ is still the North Carolina style BBQ cooked by my daddy or my husband using my grandfather’s special sauce recipe.

Is your home state known for a particular style of BBQ? What is your favorite style of BBQ?

Check out the other BBQ Posts by clicking on the graphic below.

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Under the Stars: Connecting with Your Teens

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The Review Crew is talking about “Under the Stars” this week. My first thought was of course to talk about astronomy or space, but the more I thought about it the more I wanted to go a different direction.

I want to talk to you today about connecting with your teens. As my children have gotten older, life seems to have gotten even busier. I have to make a conscious effort to connect with my children.

What does that have to do with under the stars?

I have found that often the best time to connect with my teens is at night. As they slow down after a long day, they seem to be more ready to talk and open up.

Since we have four children, ranging in age from 15 to 3, night time is also a time when the younger boys are in bed and I can spend more focused time on the teens.

My two teens! I love finding ways to connect with my teens.

How Do I Connect

First, we love reading together. Sometimes this is me or my husband reading aloud. Other times, we all read the same book on our own time and then use our time together to discuss the book. This might be a non-fiction book like Do Hard Things or it might be a fun novel like when I read the Christy Miller series with my daughter.

Sometimes, it is just a time with special snacks. By special I do not meal expensive or complicated. Just something they enjoy that you can have together while you chat. For example, my son loves root beer floats. Simply scoop the vanilla ice cream into a glass and top with root beer.

If you live in a place where it is safe to walk at night, that can be a lot of fun with teens. You can walk, talk, and look at the stars. Sometimes the act of walking and being side by side and not looking at each other can make your teens feel more comfortable opening up.

Explore a new hobby together. We all have different interests and hobbies, but finding something that you can do together is a great way to connect. My daughter and husband both sew and create our historical costumes. My son joined the Continental Line Unit of our local historical site with my husband and it is a great way for them to connect.

Listen, Listen, Listen: No matter how you are spending your time with them, make sure to focus on listening. Often what they have to say may seem trivial to us, but it is important to them. When we take the time to listen to those things, it encourages them to tell us when there are important or difficult things going on in their lives.

What About Stars?

If you were really hoping for information about stars and astronomy, I have to recommend that you check out Journey Homeschool Academy. They have a fun free summer stargazing course, and they also offer full astronomy course for elementary and high school level students.

Check out the other Under the Stars Posts by clicking on the graphic below.

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Not Consumed is having a huge back-to-school sale with products up to 25% off. We love their Bible studies. Through 7/19/21

Fun and Inexpensive Staycation Ideas

Our family loves to travel and vacation but it isn’t always practical. Sometimes finances are tight, sometimes there are life events that make traveling more difficult, other times it just doesn’t work out with work schedules. When you need a fun break, but can’t get away it is time for a staycation.

Day Trips

If you need to keep it inexpensive and close to home, but are willing to drive a little bit you can be a tourist in your own home town. heck out local parks, aquariums, museums. You might even take a tour of your town if there is one offered. It can be fun to see things from a different perspective. To save a bit of money you might look at memberships that will allow you year round access or might even be reciprocal. For example, we have a membership to our local aquarium that also gets us in free to another local bird park and our state zoo.

You could also plan a picnic at a local park, a day at the pool, or a trip to a local bakery for some special treats. All fun, different, and reasonably inexpensive (compared to traveling for vacation). Since you are staying close o home you could make it even more special by inviting friends to join you.

At Your House

In some cases, you may want to plan to completely stay home for your staycation. You can still make it a special time full of family memories.

Food

When I think about family memories, food is often a special part of them. A little planning can allow for your staycation food to be a fun experience and also give you a little break.

Picnics are lots of fun and as a bonus they tend to not make a big mess in the kitchen. Win-Win

Campfires can make some glorious memories and are a great opportunity to roast hot dogs and marshmallows, or even get a bit fancier with a full meal cooked over the fire. Our family loves chicken fajitas or hamburger foil meals for campfire cooking.

Nothing screams summer fun like an ice cream sundae bar. I highly recommend setting this up outside for less clean up. You can get a carton or two of ice cream and all your favorite toppings. By doing it this way you can save money over going to the ice cream store.

Another fun and simple meal is pizza! You can order delivery or buy frozen crusts and make your own. It can sometimes get a little messy but it is so much fun.

You could also pick a different location and make food from that location. For example, you might choose Mexico and make mexican food. Then you could do a virtual trip to Mexico with some fun online videos or books about the country.

A staycation is a great time to buy all your favorite junk food and maybe relax your eating standards just a bit. We planned ahead and added some great snacks to our subscribe and save orders for the summer, to save money while adding in some special treats. A few of our favorites were Zevia, Dye-Free Ice Pops, Veggie Straws, and these individual packs of Oreos.

Activities

Water fun is always a big hit with my children in the summer. If you do not have a pool, there are still plenty of inexpensive options. For younger children a splash pad or small inflatable pool can be loads of fun. Sprinklers are great for younger and older children.

These water shooters are inexpensive and have provided hours of fun for my children. We also like them better than water balloons because there is less clean up.

A staycation is the perfect time for family bike rides. Since you have ore time that you might normally have, you can go for longer rides, explore your neighborhood, and maybe even find a new picnic spot.

Stargazing can be a lot of fun and might be easier on a staycation when you can stay up later and not have somewhere to be the next morning. If you have a telescope you can certainly use it, but you can also see plenty with just your eyes. You can grab a blanket and lay down in your backyard and see what you can see. There are free apps available for most phones to help you determine what constellations are in the sky above you. If you want to learn a little more you can check out this free summer astronomy course from Journey Homeschool Academy.

For a break from the sun or a bit of rainy day fun, you can set up a fun craft station. You could try a new craft like latch-hooking or paper quilling if you have older children. Younger children might enjoy a play-doh station or some new watercolor pictures. Even just breaking out the coloring books and coloring a picture with your children can be a special memory.

You could even just pick a fun family movie, pop a bag of popcorn, and settle in for a relaxing family evening. We enjoy using Prime Video for free movies or our subscription to Up Faith and Family for some inexpensive family friendly options.

Have you ever had a staycation? What fun things did you do on your staycation and what recommendations do you have for other families? Be sure to check out what other Crew Members had to say about Staycations!

CTC Math Algebra (Review)

Disclosure: I received this complimentary product through the Homeschool Review Crew.

When my children were in early elementary school, I loved teaching them math. We would break out the manipulatives and had so much fun learning to count, measure, add and subtract. However, I realized that I really did not enjoy teaching math once we reached pre-algebra and I needed to find online classes for the upper-level math courses. My daughter is going into Algebra I thinks year and excited to try CTCMath.

She started about a month ago with the pre-algebra review portion of the algebra course. One of the first things that we noticed was that she was able to take a pretest on the different review sections and test out of the portions she where she was already proficient.

She really appreciated this because she was able to skip a section of the review and not feel like she was wasting time going through lessons in which she was already proficient.

Each lesson included video instruction, digital questions, and an additional worksheet with more problems. Those could be completed and checked online. I chose to have her complete the video instruction and digital questions for each section. I did not require the extra worksheet unless she was struggling with a topic and needed additional practice.

From the parent dashboard, I could have gone in and assigned her specific lessons to complete. However, I chose to just let her begin at the first lesson and work her way through, skipping what she could with the diagnostic tests. This made it very open and go from a parent perspective.

My daughter said, “I liked the program, it made sense. It gave me questions to answer. I didn’t like that there was no review in the questions that were asked and there were no second chances. If you went back and redid a lesson it averaged the two instead of giving the higher score.” She did not like that, ” When I got it wrong it told me it was wrong but did not show me what I did wrong.”

When I asked my daughter what students she thought this program would work well for she said, ” This program is good for students that like to work independently.”

While we did the Algebra course, CTCMath starts in kindergarten and goes all the way through high school level math. This makes it ideal for families that want to use the same program all the way through or for all of the children in your family. The parent dashboard would make it very easy to keep track of multiple students progress.

Overall, while I wish there was a little more feedback on incorrect responses and more review woven into the daily lessons, we liked this math program. My daughter has decided to continue to use it in the fall for the rest of her Algebra I course. I encourage you to check it out at CTCMath and also to click on the link below to see what other Crew Members thought about the levels they reviewed.

Home School in the Woods Timeline Set (Review)

Disclosure: I received this complimentary product through the Homeschool Review Crew.

My children love using products from Home School in the Woods to supplement our history studies and I have really been wanting to more consistently include a timeline in our history. So, I was very excited to try out Timeline Set: Resurrection to Revolution (0 -1799 AD) this summer and see how it would work for us next year.

The files are digital which made it super easy to print what I needed to print when I needed them. It also gave me the flexibility to use the figures in several different ways. There are over 280 different figures included in the set.

There are four different formats for each figure, so you can use the one that works best for your children. The first two formats are sized for notebooks. Both format includes the picture, name, and date, but the second format also includes a text description.

The other two formats are the same as the first two, except that they are larger for wall timelines. We have been working mainly with the note-booking sized figures but I love have the option to put the timeline on the wall.

The most obvious use for the timeline figures is creating a timeline to go along with your history studies. This could be done on the wall, in a time-line journal, or even as a DIY project in a plain notebook. We plan to use the figures that coincide with our history curriculum and a notebook to create our timeline as we go through our history course next year.

However, this summer we tried out another fun way to use the figures, a game. We printed some of the figures with the text included. Then we cut the text apart from the figure itself. We pasted the two parts on opposite sides of a notecard.

Once you have the cards made you can use them like flashcards or have competitions to see who can name them the fastest.

You could also print just the figures and do a memory matching game with younger children. Another option we enjoyed was to make our own timeline game. We modeled this after a similar card game that my children had played in the past. Paste the figures on one side of the card and the dates on the other side.

The children have to place the figure in the correct order on the timeline without looking at the back of the card. Once placed the other players can check the placement using the dates on the back of the card.

We had lots of fun trying out these timeline figures and look forward to continuing to use them as we start back to regular school schedule in the fall. I think they would be great for any aged student because of the variety of ways they can be used.

In addition to Timeline Set: Resurrection to Revolution (0 -1799 AD), Home School in the Woods has timeline sets for other time periods as well as other history resources. The Review Crew reviewed a variety of different products, so be sure to click on the graphic below to see what crew members thought and how they used their products.

Making Lists: Our Summer Reading

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This week the Review Crew is talking about writing lists and it got me thinking about what types of lists I regularly write.

I have to-do lists, curriculum lists, chore lists, book lists, grocery lists, and more. Life sometimes feels like a big series of lists and check-boxes.

One day I might unpack that thought a little more but today I thought I would share a list of some of the books we are planning to read with my children this summer.

First, my husband is currently reading the Lord of the Rings trilogy with my seven-year-old. He certainly could not read it on his own, but he is really enjoying listening to his father read it and talks about it often.

Next, my older children and I are reading In His Steps together this month. We each have our own copy to read and then we will come together to discuss it. I read it many years ago and I am excited to revisit it with them.

I am looking forward to reading Wednesdays in the Tower aloud to everyone except the fifteen-year-old. We read the first book in that series during the school year and they loved it.

Finally, we are finishing listening to the Chronicles of Narnia as a family. This is not the first time we have listened to them, but this is the first time the younger children have heard it all straight through. We started while we were on a missions trip back in March and did over 20 hours of the 33-hour audio version. We will be finishing them up as we do a little traveling and riding over the summer.

In addition, we will be reading plenty of picture books with the younger boys but I do not have a set list for those at the moment. We will read whatever we have on hand or they pick out at the library. If you have any suggestions for good summer-themed picture books, please share them in the comments.

Make sure to check out what the other Crew Members had to say about making lists!

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If your feeling a bit overwhelmed with homeschooling and all the decisions and options, check out this boot camp with Kerry Beck that is live next week!

Journey Homeschool Science has some great online summer camps coming up soon! They are a fun way to keep the learning going for the whole family.

Wise Up: Middle Grades Bible Study (Review)

Disclosure: I received this complimentary product through the Homeschool Review Crew.

The middle school years can be challenging, even for homeschoolers. It is a time of growing up, hormonal changes, and often social issues. As I help my children navigate these challenging times, we lean on God and trust his word to help us to guide them. I was really excited when I read about Wise Up from Positive Action Bible Curriculum and the chance to review it.

Wise Up is a Bible curriculum that goes through the wisdom of the book of Proverbs. It is designed for students in grades 6-8 and includes a student workbook and a teacher’s manual.

I was excited to try it, but honestly when it first came in the mail, I thought I might have made a mistake. It was a thick book with dense looking material. While we don’t mind deep study, I also knew that we were ready for a summer break.

We normally continue with Bible study through the summer, but in a lighter more devotional style. I was afraid my daughter would resent the extra summer work.

However, I had no reason to be concerned. We got started and she enjoyed it so much, that the week she was at church camp she took her book with her. She wanted to work in it during her personal devotional time.

The curriculum is split up into 35 lessons, each one designed to take about a week. Each week includes a teacher lesson that is done with the student and student exercises that the students complete independently. There are also weekly quizzes that can be used with the program.

For our family, Bible curriculum is more about learning and growing than grades, so we made the decision to skip the quizzes. However, if you needed grades or had a student motivated by grades they would make a great addition to the program.

They also included scripture memorization work that can be used with the course. We did not use that part this summer because we were already currently working on a scripture memory plan but we may add it in the fall when we finish our other program.

The teacher’s manual had three different sample schedules, three-day, four-day, or five-day. Since we were doing it over the summer, we modified the three day schedule. However, for the lessons we do in the fall I will probably use the four or five day schedule. I really appreciated how easy it was to customize.

I found that it worked well for me to do all of the teacher directed work for the week on one day, then I could let her finish the lesson exercises at her own pace during the week.

The teacher’s manual provided me with everything I needed to know to teach the lesson. Each lesson has target truths that they want the student to learn. For example, in lesson three one of the target truths was “A wise person knows how to handle conflicts.”

It also gave teaching strategies, a script you can read for the lesson, and additional teaching suggestions.

The manual also included the pages from the student exercises with answers, which makes grading and discussing easier.

The student exercises had the students digging into different Bible passages and answering questions, completing charts, and filling in blanks. While much of it comes directly from the scripture, there were also questions that allowed them to reflect on those principles in their own life.

Overall, I loved that Wise Up had my daughter digging into scripture, dealing with difficult but important topics (pride, courage, fear, righteous thoughts, and sins of the flesh) and that it was well laid out. The only negative I found was that it could feel a bit overwhelming at first, but once we got into it we found it easy to use. We plan to continue slowly working our way through it over the summer and then including it in her regular school work in the fall.

Be sure to check out how other Review Crew families used it in their homes by clicking on the graphic below. You can also check it out at Positive Action Bible Curriculum.

Volcanic Panic Reading Success Online (Review)

Disclosure: I received this complimentary product through the Homeschool Review Crew.

We have had the privilege of reviewing Volcanic Panic Reading Success Online from EdAlive over the last few weeks. My seven-year-old has struggled with reading and I am always looking for fun ways to encourage him to work on his reading skills.

Volcanic Panic Reading Success Online is an online game that works on reading and spelling skills. It was easy to get him set up and started on the game. When we started the game he could choose to play against another player or play against the computer.

The game had a die that was spinning and you clicked on it to determine the number of spaces that you moved. Then it would ask the student a question.

One of the first things that I noticed as he started playing was that he could click a button that said the question was too hard. This helped the computer to tailor questions to his level. The computer also read the questions aloud which was really helpful in allowing him to play independently. Too often I have seen him get messed up when he had to read the instructions because he did not fully understand the instructions.

We had him play against the computer since he was the only student. We were able to choose the number of players and turns.

There were different styles of questions. For some questions they would drag letters to boxes to spell the words. There were letters for him to choose from and then blanks to show them how many letters are in the word.

Other questions had the student finding the correct word to fit into a sentence. The computer would read the sentence and then the student had to choose from several words in the word bank. Other times they would give you two sentences, with one word being different, and you had to choose the right one.

Another type of question had them choose a word that best described the picture. For example, it showed a small rat and asked which word described the rat. It gave choices like big and small.

Overall, we found this to be a great way to keep my son working on reading during the summer months. He felt like it was a fun game and would ask to play. I do not think that this game replaces reading instruction, but it does support the instruction and I think it helped reinforce the new skills he has been learning in his regular reading curriculum.

I would recommend Volcanic Panic Reading Success Online for students that need extra support in reading or as a summer enrichment activity for any beginning reader. It would be a great way to help prevent that dreaded ‘summer slide.’

You can go to EdAlive to find out more about Volcanic Panic Reading Success Online and also to find out about their other games. Some of our Review Crew also reviewed Baggin’ the Dragon Maths Online and Words Rock Online. Be sure to click on the graphic below to read more reviews and see what Crew Members thought about the different games.

My Personal 2021 Summer Reading

I normally like to sit down and plan out some fun summer reading for myself towards the end of May. Somehow, it is already almost the end of June, but I am finally making a good list and getting excited about my summer reading.

In years past, I spend most of my reading time during the year on non-fiction books. Several years ago, I decided that I wanted to get back to reading a few more books for fun and decided to try and read some fun fiction each summer.

When I took up my summer reading for 2020 the world felt really stressful and crazy and the light fiction was a great stress reliever. I was enjoying it so much that I have continued reading quite a bit of fiction over the last year.

Fun Fiction

I have enjoyed reading some of Robin Jones Gunn’s books with my daughter, escaped to Pleasant Creek, Indiana with the Amish Inn Mysteries, and enjoyed the Amish community in Pinecraft, Florida with the Pinecraft Pie Shop Series.

I normally prefer real paper books, however, I also discovered the convince of kindle books on my phone this year. Most of my reading time happens after my children are in bed for the evening, and sometimes my lap was keeping my husband awake. However, the dimmer light from the phone did not bother him.

This also meant that I almost always had a book ready to read wherever I went. This was great for times when I had five or ten minutes of waiting. I normally would have filled those with scrolling social media, but now I can get in a few extra minutes of reading.

Digital Options

I did a free trial of Kindle Unlimited and enjoyed it so much that we have been purchasing it ever since. I have been mostly reading fun Christian fiction though they have a wide variety of books. My daughter is also enjoying the subscription and has been reading some of my old favorite Janet Oke books. We find it to be a great value for the number of books we are reading each month.

I have not read the Janet Oke books in many years, so I am hoping to spend some time this summer re-reading some of those books so that I can have better discussions with my daughter. She really enjoys reading the books I have read and then discussing the characters.

In addition to continuing the habit of reading fun fiction (and showing my children that reading for fun is good even as an adult), I have several books that I want to read over the summer.

Non-Fiction Reading

I have been working on Women of the Word (Jen Wilkin) and look forward to finishing it. It is a great book that is discussing what good Bible study should look like and gives some pros and cons to various methods of study. While I have not agreed with 100% of her opinions, it has been very good content and theologically sound thus far.

Next, I am grateful to have the opportunity to review Help Your Kids Learn and Love the Bible (Danika Cooley). I am looking forward to reading more about how we can help our children learn more about the Bible. So far it has been an easy read with great information, but I am only a couple chapters into the book. I will be sharing a full review on the blog in a few weeks.

I found out about Women at War (Jan Greenwood) through a new ministry that we are starting at our church. I have seen women all to often battle against one another and even be cruel. I would like to say this is all with-in the outside world, but it happens more often than it should even inside the church. I am looking forward to reading this book about healing those relationships to see how I might be able to help others heal their relationships.

Audio Option

Finally, I am listening to Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World. The first bit of it was a bit heavy on the academia but once you get through that it seems to be going more into ideas and strategies to help with focus and blocking time. Once I am finished, I may have my teenagers listen to the books as well. I think sometimes we all struggle with trying to do too many things at once and not doing any of them well.

I would love to hear more about what you are reading this summer or if you have read any of these books. Share your thoughts in the comments!

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Deals and Freebies

If you have not tried SchoolhouseTeachers.com, you don’t want to miss this busy bee sale! A great price for summer enrichment or for next year!

Happening NOW! Check out these wonderful FREE summer courses from one of our favorites: Journey Homeschool Academy! We loved their biology course this year and are excited about the free summer courses. Summer Stargazing and Backyard Bugs

This Saturday! FREE Writing Conference, June 26th from IEW! They are a great writing program and have a lot to offer. This conference is completely free

Savoring Summer

Since many of our group-style activities were canceled last summer, my first instinct was to say yes to ‘all the things’ this summer. Camp, 4-H activities, American Heritage Girls and Trail Life, Violin camp, church activities, and on and on. I could easily have my children enrolled in something different all summer.

These activities are fun and wonderful in their own right. Many of them are educational or encourage spiritual growth. There is nothing wrong with participating in any of them and honestly, we are doing several over the course of the summer.

However, I realized pretty quickly that if I filled up our calendar with all of those structured activities I would be missing out on some of the best parts of summer.

When I started thinking about the memories that I wanted us to share this summer, my mind didn’t go to classes and structured activities.

Summer Memories

I thought about hours spent playing in the pool and splashing in the sprinkler.

I thought about picnics on the front porch complete with plenty of juicy watermelon.

Friends coming over to play and fellowship together.

Lazy days at the river with sand in my toes.

Time spent together working in the garden and enjoying the fruits (and vegetables) of our labor.

Evenings spent relaxing on the front porch while the children entertain us with their instruments.

Curling up on the couch (or outside in the hammock) and reading good books together.

Concluding Thoughts

There is nothing wrong with having some structured activities in the summer. I am grateful that we can offer so many opportunities to our children. We just need to be careful to leave time for summer fun, creative exploring, and relaxing family times.

I want my children to look back and remember the fun times we had together. To learn to enjoy just being with friends and family without the pressure to always be doing something specific.

I am grateful that the country is opening back up and opportunities are available, I just don’t want to forget the positive lessons learned during our time at home last year.

There is much to be gained from quiet days at home and busy is not always better.

Resource Library and Affiliate Disclosure

Resource Library

Deals and Freebies

If you have not tried SchoolhouseTeachers.com, you don’t want to miss this busy bee sale! A great price for summer enrichment or for next year!

Have you signed up for #LifeSkillsNOW? This is such a fun and beneficial program.

Life skills help kids be confident, capable, and ready for anything.
Your kids and teens will build critical thinking and know deep down that they can do hard things.
Productive screen time instead of passive scrolling
The #LifeSkillsNow Screentime Promise: We promise to give your kids the shortest amount of (productive) screentime possible, and then OFF into the real world.
Expose your kids to topics you’ve never thought about (and might not know yourself).
Bridges the gap in traditional education with practical life skills, critical thinking, tech savvy habits, and understanding money

If your feeling a bit overwhelmed with homeschooling and all the decisions and options, check out this boot camp with Kerry Beck that is live next week!

Journey Homeschool Science has some great online summer camps coming up soon! They are a fun way to keep the learning going for the whole family.

Category: Uncategorized

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