Dash Into Reading {Curriculum Review}
My experience teaching kids to read has been exciting, frustrating, humbling, and amazing… all wrapped into one. After using and loving the All About Reading program all the way through with my first, I assumed I would always use that…
Celebrating Seasons {Booklist & Calendar of Firsts}
As our calendars were cleared of virtually everything else this past year, we have thoroughly enjoyed observing the changing of seasons. I love the gentleness and predictability, and my kids enjoy the anticipation of what each new season will bring.…
Phenology Wheel Basics for Nature Study
Phenology wheels: maybe a niche topic, but a beautiful one! Phenology is the study of seasons and the cycles of nature. An phenology wheel is a visual representation of that study, using a segmented circle to represent periods of time.…
Book Lovers’ Free Printable Bookmarks {for Valentine’s Day}
Happy Valentine’s Day, book lovers! My kids enjoyed creating handmade valentines for our homeschool v-day exchange, and it got my creative juices flowing. I designed bookmarks to include with our valentines, and I think they turned out so cute! I’m…
Valentine’s Day Rabbit Trails {Handicrafts & Books About Mail}
Ah, rabbit trails! I love them when it comes to following the spark of your child’s interests and imagination… I’m not talking about urban dictionary’s idea of rabbit trails here: “the veering off subject or of the point of the…
Backyard Bird Count and Bird Book Roundup
We are so excited to participate in the Great Backyard Bird Count! The event’s tagline is “connect to birds, to nature, and with each other” which sounds perfect for my crew! How cute that this takes place near Valentine’s Day…
Valentine’s Day Books and Traditions
I haven’t always been a fan of Valentine’s Day… too many lonely Valentine’s Days probably scarred me. But when I became a SAHM with two little ones and was attempting to survive long cold winters, a mid-winter celebration full of…
Poetry Teatime Tips
My kids and I have enjoyed hundreds of poetry teatimes together. I first heard of this beautiful idea when my oldest was 3 (he will be 8 in a few weeks!). Quite frankly when I first learned about it, the…
Cozy Winter Picture Books
Last winter we officially had 0.4″ of snow, according to a google search. In my kids’ memory, it was 4 snowflakes total. What a bummer! In my area, we don’t typically get a lot of snow, but we can usually…
Hawks and Birds of Prey Picture Books
This particular booklist represents a bit of parenting irony. I have a mild to moderate fear of birds. And yet, my 7 year old has decided that he wants to be a falconer when he grows up and we have…
Favorite Family Read Aloud Books
There’s no simple way to rank the Top Picks of our family read alouds for the year. But we tried! On New Year’s Eve we reminisced over the books we’ve read the last 12 months. I printed my seasonal book…
Gingerbread Stories and Spin Offs
There are loads of fun gingerbread stories out there! In fact, this is my THIRD post of gingerbread books! This year I saved gingerbread for January. It’s hard closing the door on the festivities of December, so this was a…
Family Read Alouds {Sept-Dec 2020}
This season of reading saw us revisiting some old favorites and meeting some new classics as well. In particular, the My Side of the Mountain series captured my boys’ hearts and led to a deep dive into the world of…
Car Scavenger Hunt- Christmas Lights! {Free Printable}
Necessity is the mother of invention, and this mother needed to invent some reasons to get my wild kids out of the house in the evenings! The “witching hour” that they talk about with babies seems to just morph with…
Books We Read All Year Long
While I’m obviously an advocate and fan of using your local public library, there are books that we’ve been so glad to have as part of our permanent collection. These often started out as books that we checked out of…
