“Help Your Kids Learn and Love the Bible” (Book Review)

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

*Includes affiliate links; see disclosure below*

I recently had the opportunity to review Help Your Kids Learn and Love the Bible by Danika Cooley. Reading the Bible is nothing new in our home, but I knew that we had slacked off over the summer because it was no longer attached to our school day, and I also wanted to see if there were any new ideas for ways to increase the amount of scripture in our home each day.

I am so glad that I took the time to review this book, and I found that it gave me some fresh ideas for Bible time in our home as well as the encouragement that I needed to get us back on track. While this book is a great tool for a homeschooling family, it is also really great for any family that wants to help their children “learn and love the Bible.”

About the Book

This paperback book, published by Bethany House Publishers, is just under 200 pages and divided into 11 chapters which are split into three sections: You’re the Leader, Faithful Reading, and A Daily Walk.

You’re the Leader

This first section discusses ways that we can include scripture in our days. It also spends some time talking about different age groups and how to approach scripture among those ages. For example, your Bible time with a preschooler will look different than what you would do with your teenager.

Faithful Reading

In an age of social media and a time in which there is much emphasis on interpreting things based on your feelings, I felt that this section was much needed. It spent time talking about reading the Bible in a way that is faithful to the words. This means understanding the context of the words, the literary genre of the particular book of the Bible, the history behind the book and who wrote the book, and understanding how it all fits into the overarching story of the Bible.

A Daily Walk

This final section was full of practical hands-on advice. There were ideas for making the Bible fun and easy to understand for young children, tips on helping with Bible memorization, and suggestions for praying through scripture.

There were also some great suggestions for being consistent even when things are challenging and working around unexpected delays and distractions.

Our Experience

In our family, Bible time is fairly consistent during the school year because we do it as a part of our school day, and it happens automatically. However, I realized that we tended to be less consistent during the summer when those anchors were not in place. Reading this book was a good reminder, and we started using breakfast as the anchor for our daily Bible time.

I wanted to ensure that our summer reading was simple and easy to implement because I knew that summer can get busy and there is much less routine. We started in the middle of July by reading a chapter from Proverbs each day to correlate with the day of the month.

We were all pleasantly surprised when our preacher challenged the whole church to do the same thing for the month of August. I love it when God works things from different parts of our lives together as a reminder that He is working in all of it.

We are also using some of the suggestions in the book to be more diligent in our scripture memorization. I feel like this book was very encouraging to me, and I look forward to seeing how implementing the strategies will positively impact our family.

Conclusions

Overall, I recommend this book for any family that wants to teach the Bible in their home. It would also be great to use as a church to support families in their efforts at home. I am strongly considering trying to use it for a book study in our church because I feel like many families struggle to make Bible time consistent in their homes, and it is vitally important that church not be the only place our children learn about the Bible.

Whether you are brand new to including the Bible in your home or you have been teaching the Bible in your home and just want some fresh ideas or encouragement, I think this book is great for all families.

Don’t forget to click on the graphic below to see how other Crew families used Help Your Kids Learn and Love the Bible.

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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 updated on what we have going on.

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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.

Proactive Perimenopause Fit2B Course (Review)

*The links in this post are affiliate links, shared because I truly believe in the Fit2B program and use it myself. *

Almost all of the reviews that we do on the blog revolve around homeschool curriculum, but sometimes I like to branch out and review products that are focused on moms. Today, I have the privilege of telling you all about Fit2B’s new Proactive Perimenopause course. And, while you’re never supposed to ask a woman her age…it is a real thing that ladies between 35 and 50 have to face.

This course is a series of lessons that include blog posts, instructional videos, and even workouts. They are designed to help you understand perimenopause and to give you strategies and information that will help you go through it with strength and function.

I have been enjoying working my way through this course. There is so much wonderful information and it is done in a way that makes it very easy to skip to the sections that I am most interested in and to start and stop as needed. As a busy mom of four children, that is really important for me.

The course is divided into the following sections:

Workouts

This section includes 10 different workouts to help you get strong or stay strong. The workouts align well with the content of the course and give you options for getting started at an easy pace and working your way up to more challenging workouts.

Rehab

This section features Kelly Dean from the Tummy Team. I have had wonderful experiences with online Rehab from the Tummy Team and highly recommend their programs. In this course she does not go into a lot of rehab specifics but talks about why you might need rehab or prehab (work to strengthen yourself now before the effects of menopause and aging). She has lots of great information and some recommendations for workouts and other resources to help.

Fitness Over 40

I absolutely love this section because Beth takes the time to dispel many myths about fitness and aging. She talks about how fitness can help you, things you can do as you get older to continue to stay strong and functional. My favorite quote from this section is, “You need to eat and exercise to be strong and sturdy and confident in your own skin, because we can’t afford to set any other kind of example for the next generations.”

I want to stay strong and active and set a good example for my children. I want to be able to hike with them and play with my grandchildren one day. I love that this section gives me fitness strategies to make sure that I can do those things.

Skin and Scars

Confession: I have not spent a lot of time taking care of my skin. I know that I should do more, but I just use sunscreen at the beach and do a basic face wash. I am excited to learn more about how I can care for my skin as I age in this segment. I want to be able to feel good in my skin without spending hours with special creams and potions. I love that her tips focus on healthy skin and not just appearance

Fighting Foods

I have not finished this section, but I am excited about it. I have been working hard to lose a bit of extra weight and increase my health over the last few months. I have been talking to my husband about how much more challenging it is now that I am older. When I was in my twenties, I could easily modify my diet for a bit and add in some extra workouts and any extra weight seemed to just melt away.

As I approach forty in a couple months, that is no longer the case. As I looked over this section of the course I was pleased to see good content on fats and carbs that was balanced and did not go to extremes one way or the other (which seems to be the trend lately).

This section focuses on good nutrition for balancing hormones and being healthy after 40. I really appreciate the part on balancing hormones because that has been something I have been trying to work through prior to this course.

Spiritual Self- Care

This section is a blog post full of ideas about how to work in spiritual self-care during busy and challenging times. I really appreciated that it was simple ideas that do not take lots of time or money to implement.

Difficult Diagnosis

While we all hope that we won’t face a difficult diagnosis, it is always good to have resources and strategies to help us face it if we do. This lesson covers building a support team, advocating for your health care, and self-care during/after a difficult diagnosis.

Knowing What’s Normal

One of the things I have learned from Beth at Fit2B through the years is that just because something is common, does not mean it is normal. In other words, just because many women experience a problem, it does not mean that it is normal and you just have to live with it. Often things that are considered ‘normal’, like bladder leakage, are common but not normal and can be corrected with rehab or exercise.

This section helps us to understand what is normal and what is common but not normal. It also includes strategies and information to help us to overcome those symptoms that are not normal.

Managing Mood and Motivation

This section is one that I am really looking forward to digging into. I know that this is an area where I need some work and I am excited to have some strategies to help. I also really appreciate that they go into some of the physiology behind the changes to help understand why our moods and motivation are affected.

It is really important to me that I work through the challenges with my mood and motivation so that I can be the best mom, wife, friend, etc that I can be to all of those that I care about. I feel like this section will help me work through some of those issues.

Proactive Pelvic Floor

This section is done by a pelvic floor therapist who does a great job explaining the function of the pelvic floor, symptoms that show problems with the pelvic floor, and strategies for strengthening the pelvic floor.

This really goes well with the knowing what is normal section because so many of the symptoms may be considered normal in popular thought. However, those symptoms show problems that can be addressed and corrected which leads to better functioning.

Thank You Gifts

This section is full of great little extra gifts and information for the contributors of the course; including a variety of printable PDFS and even discount codes for a prayer journal and Tummy Team Rehab.

Conclusions

I have been using Fit2B for my fitness for several years and I love how Beth does really fitness for real women. I love that this course tackles hard topics in an easy-to-understand way and a safe environment. So often we assume that the problems we are facing are just ‘a part of growing older’ and that there is nothing we can do to help.

If you are in perimenopause or just getting to an age where you know it is getting closer, I highly recommend this course. There is so much great information that can help you move into this next stage of life with strength and function. Having the knowledge and understanding of the changes in our bodies can make this transition so much easier. Be sure to click on this link to find out more about the course and check out all of the other courses and workouts offered at Fit2B.

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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.

Staying Cool in the Summer Heat

*Some links are affiliate links, see disclosure below*

The ‘dog days’ of summer have arrived. Tomorrow’s forecast has us at a high of 96 degrees with the humidity at 91%. This means it is hot and muggy outside. Some days that means we spend a bit more time inside, but whenever possible I still like the children to spend at least a few hours a day outside.

To stay cool in the heat, we have to be creative. I wanted to share a few of the ideas that we have used to stay cool on these hot summer days and still let the children get outside and burn off their energy.

Water

Before last year, we did not have a pool but we still wanted to use water to keep us cool. When possible we would go spend time at the river. This allowed us to cool off in the water, but also the air temperature around the water is naturally cooler than the temperature a little further inland. So even if I wasn’t in the water, it did not feel as hot outside.

However, many days the river just wasn’t an option. So we got creative at home. We have used water tables, splash pads, and sprinklers to cool off and enjoy a bit of time outside. Of course, no summer in our family is complete without some slip n slide fun!

Our Summer Bucket List! (Free Printable) has additional water fun ideas, as does Our Summer Bucket.

Frozen Treats

We love to eat something cool when it is hot outside. Ice cream is always a big hit, but that can get expensive and has lots of calories. However, we have found popsicles to be a great compromise. Sometimes I buy the natural popsicles from the store, but we often make our own. This allows us to lower the sugar content and make them mostly fruit, yogurt, or juice.

I always loved the little freeze pops growing up, but my son could not eat them because of the food dyes. A couple of years ago we found these reusable tubes to make our own. We enjoyed them, but if you want to make it even easier I have found dye-free freeze pops. This year I found these yummy freezer pops from Juicy Juice that have no dyes in them. They taste great and you can even save on them by adding them to your Amazon subscribe and save.

Fans and Shades

Truthfully, I am generally more sensitive to the heat than my children. My boys would play for hours but I don’t always want to sit out there with them and sweat. My husband has helped me come up with a few solutions that keep me a bit cooler while they are playing.

First, we have an outdoor ceiling fan on our front porch. Honestly, I was a bit skeptical about how much difference it would make but I was wrong. It makes sitting on the porch so much more pleasant during these hot days. I can sit and read while the children play in the front yard. It is like always having a nice cool breeze.

This is the sunshade in the goat enclosure.

Second, we found these great sunshades and put one up over the playset. The shade lets me sit or play with the children and still have protection from the sun. In addition to making it a bit cooler, it also provides some protection from sunburn. the shades come in different shapes and sizes to fit your area. We have one over the playset and on for our goats in their pen.

Conclusions

All in all, the days are long and a bit hot, but there are plenty of ways to cool down and still enjoy time outside as a family. The more time my young children spend outside, the better their attitudes, the cleaner my house (less time for them to make a mess), and the healthier we all tend to be. I am grateful for the chance to cool off and spend time playing with them outside.

How hot is it where you live? How do you cool off in the summer? You can click the graphic below to see how other Crew Members are staying cool this summer.

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.

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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.

Fermentools: Making Pickles Without Vinegar (2021 Review)

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

Our family loves living on our little mini four acre homestead. We grow gardens, raise animals, and have plenty of room to play. While we are not nearly serious enough to raise all of our own food, we do enjoy being able to raise what we can and teach our children about where their food comes from. As a part of this we enjoy finding ways to preserve our harvest. We enjoy canning, freezing, and dehydrating, but we are also learning about fermenting. We were given the opportunity to review a starter kit from Fermentools to help us with our fermenting.

Last year, we also were able to try out their starter kit to make some delicious kraut. Over the course of the last year, I have played around with the timing of that recipe until I found a combination that was strong enough for my husband’s taste buds but not so strong that my children didn’t like it. I loved that I could make it my own way to work for our family.

With this new kit, I wanted to branch out and try fermenting some additional vegetables. First, since we had an abundance of cucumbers from our own vines this year, I decided to try fermenting my own pickles. I had a hard time imagining that I could truly make dill pickles without vinegar.

In the interest of full disclosure, the first time I tried to ferment this dill pickles, I made a mistake and they ended up soggy and gross. I had to send that batch to the chickens.

I did a little research and realized my mistake. When I added the salt to the water, I did not mix it well enough and a lot of it settled to the bottom of the pitcher it was in. This meant that there did not end up being enough salt in the pickle jars.

The second time around, I was much more careful to make sure that they had plenty of salt and the pickles turned out much better. I was amazed that they went from cucumbers to pickles in just three to four days.

I love that the starter kit included not only the accessories that I needed to get started but also the right salt for good fermenting. All I had to add were a wide mouth jar, water, and whatever veggies I was going to ferment. It also included an instruction manual and the Fermentools website has tons of recipes that you can use.

We are currently working on fermenting our own ginger ale and my children are super excited to give it a try. It should be a fun and healthy treat for them.

Overall, we really enjoyed the Fermentools starter kit. Whether you have lots of veggies in the garden that you need to preserve, you want the health benefits of fermented foods, or you just want to try a new hobby, this kit is a great way to get started with fermenting. It is a simple way to start on a small and easily manageable scale.

I know that the members of the Review Crew tried a variety of recipes with their kits and encourage you to click on the graphic below to see what they tried and how they used their kit.

Greg Landry’s Homeschool Science Study Skills(Review)

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

As a homeschool mom, it is easy to wonder if I am teaching my children everything they need to know. The reality is that I cannot teach them everything they will ever need to know. However, I can teach them how to learn and how to find out information on their own. One of my goals for my children, is to make sure they feel well equipped to continue learning after they leave our homeschool. Note taking, study skills, and test preparation can be a big part of success in high school and collegiate level courses. Since I really wanted to work on those skills with my high schooler, I was grateful for the opportunity to review the study skills course from Greg Landry’s Homeschool Science.

The full course title is Student Success Skills / Studying / Measurement / Lab Reports and it provides a half semester of high school credit. This course is geared for students in grades 7-12. ( I think it is perfect for high school freshman, though it could easily be used by anyone in that age range.)

This course includes a brief introduction and seven additional video sessions. Each session covers a different topic including:

Taking Notes, Note Sketching, and Studying
Test Taking
Measurement and the Metric System
Temperature and Graphing
The Scientific Measurement and Lab Reports
Scientific Notation and Magnitude Perspective
Statistics, Probability, Accuracy, and Precision

The videos are about 25-30 minutes in length and Mr. Landry begins each session with prayer. There is a study guide to accompany the course that can help guide the students through each session.

I had printed off the entire study guide and given it to my son at the beginning of the course. However, I realized as he was going through it that it included both blank pages that he could fill out and those same pages already completed. Going forward, I would give my student the blank pages and then, once it was completed, let them use the filled in pages to check their work.

“Overall I thought the student success skills course was a good course. I enjoyed the fact that it is much more video based and has a small amount of reading to go with it. I also enjoyed that the lessons were not so long that it got boring. I appreciated the fact that the PDF had charts for things like the metric system so I could go back and see the information while not in the lecture.” Matthew, Age 15

As a parent, I think that this study skills course is a great way to help students learn valuable skills that will help them be successful in their other courses. While some of the course is specific to science, many of the skills will transfer to any course material. I would recommend this for any high school student that needs some support in those areas and even those that are doing well because I think it will be beneficial in learning throughout their academic career or even for trade courses or hobbies.

In addition to the study skills course, the Review Crew looked at a variety of the science courses from Greg Landry’s Homeschool Science. This included other Self-paced 7th-12th grade half-semester classes courses and more from elementary through high school. You can click on the graphic below to see all of the reviews and find out how other families used these courses in their homes.

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.

Resource Library and Affiliate Disclosure

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Deals and Freebies

Use this link to get 15% off at Thinkwell Math! It was a lifesaver for us for Geometry and I look forward to using them for Algebra II next year.

SchoolhouseTeachers.com is running an amazing BOGO sale, 2 years of over 400 courses for the entire family for only $179. If you want to know more about SchoolhouseTeachers.com you can check out our review. SchoolhouseTeachers.com Review 2021

If you are looking for some fun new hair accessories for you or your daughter, this is a great sale! Check out all of the options using my link for great discounts. www.lillarose.biz/schoolinswag

FIT2B is running a great special on their new Perimenopause Course for moms! I am just starting to go through it but there is so much wonderful information, exercise options, and more for that stage of life!

Under the Stars: Connecting with Your Teens

*Some links in this post are affiliate links, please see disclosure below*

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.

Resource Library and Affiliate Disclosure

Resource Library

Deals and Freebies

Use this link to get 15% off at Thinkwell Math! It was a lifesaver for us for Geometry and I look forward to using them for Algebra II next year.

The Ultimate Homeschool Bundle is on sale now! For less than $40 you get almost $2000 worth of products from preschool through high school and products for parents. We are excited about the variety and especially excited about some of the bonuses (Bookroo, eguitar course, and more). This sale is only good through July 19th so check it out!

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.

About the Book

You’re the Leader

Faithful Reading

A Daily Walk

Our Experience

Conclusions

Workouts

Rehab

Fitness Over 40

Skin and Scars

Fighting Foods

Spiritual Self- Care

Difficult Diagnosis

Knowing What’s Normal

Managing Mood and Motivation

Proactive Pelvic Floor

Thank You Gifts

Conclusions

Water

Frozen Treats

Fans and Shades

Conclusions

Our BBQ Adventure Begins

Alabama

Louisiana

Texas

Tennesse

Home Sweet Home

Deals and Freebies

What does that have to do with under the stars?

How Do I Connect

What About Stars?

Deals and Freebies

Day Trips

At Your House

Food

Activities

More Summer Fun Posts