Homemade Christmas With Children

The best Christmas memories are made by hand. 

And if that is true, then perhaps the worst Christmas memories are those made when we spend the majority of the holiday season in department stores without our children, trying to purchase toys that will be played with for a few days and then forgotten. 

I love gifts, and giving them is important to me, but often the gift that our children most long for is the gift of our undistracted time.

On the other hand, many of us envision making things by hand as just another distraction from our children. When these gifts are difficult projects that must be done solo, we are again forced to choose between time with our children, or time doing something for them, but not with them.

Last Christmas, I did spend a few hours away from my children. We had a theme of "used or homemade" for Christmas gifts which meant that I would take a few children at a time to hit up thrift stores, or I was sewing simple gifts for them such as capes and doll blankets.

This year, we are forgoing elaborate (or thrifted) gifts that our children will open in favor of an ultimate field trip. We are heading to Africa at the first of the year to do ministry to children and families, with a stop in Ireland on our way to celebrate Christmas with a beloved aunt and uncle.

However, we still want to have a few gifts on hand for grandparents and friends, and since this year we are on a tight budget we chose to make a few of these gifts.

These are a few of the simple gifts that we made;

Rolled Beeswax Candles

You need:
Beeswax Sheets
Wick

• Carefully cut your beeswax sheets in half lengthwise. 
• Cut your candle wick to fit.
• Place wick at the edge of the beeswax and carefully fold over the first roll.
• Finish rolling tightly.

Our two sheets of beeswax made 4 thick candles. You could also cut the beeswax in thirds for thinner candles or cut in quarters for short candles.

Essential Oil Bath Salts

Soaking in bath salts is a great way to supplement your body with magnesium and get better sleep.

You need;

1 32 oz package epsom salts

essential oil (we used Young Living Lavender Oil)

pint sized mason jars

Christmas fabric and ribbon

• Pour your epsom salt into a large bowl. You could also add himalayan pink salt, dead sea salt, or other mineral rich salts.
• Add about 15 drops lavender essential oil.
• Stir well to combine.
• Use a scoop to pour bath salts into jars.
• Cut circles from your holiday fabric that are slightly larger than your jar lid. We used a gallon size jar lid as a template.
• Place fabric over lid and then screw on jar ring. 
• Tie ribbon around jar ring and add a gift tag if desired.

There are loads of other possibilities for homemade gifts, bean soup in a jar, cloth doll, a simple cape, or even potted plants such as geraniums that you start from a cutting. 

We can turn the tide on Christmas expectations, and create a holiday celebration that is defined by precious moments spent with our loved ones.

Do you want more alternatives to shopping this Christmas (or online shopping alternatives)? Check out this post

If you are struggling to figure out how you can pay for Christmas, please check out my new course, Bountiful Homeschooling. When you use code, "Budget" the course is only $18 and all proceeds go to a project we are doing in Tanzania, Africa this January. Not only do you get inexpensive help with your budget, but your purchase goes towards helping others.

This post has affiliate links. 

Cultivating Joyful Homes

Homeschooling can sadly be a joy killer. While spending our days with children should naturally bring tons of lightness and joy into our lives, it is easy for us to get preoccupied, worrying about doing enough, and then create an atmosphere of tension instead of fun.

It doesn't have to be this way though. 

When we begin to break down what our children really need to know, and when we begin to get a vision of the long view of homeschooling, we can start to realize that this pressure that steals the fun out of our days with our children is just a mirage. 

Think about it? What do you remember from your school days? What lessons stick out to you?

Here is another question. What do you want your children to remember from their first few years of school?

When we put these questions and their answers into perspective, we can realize that there are only a few things that we really need to do in the first few years of school.

What are these things? 

• Reading aloud
• No pressure phonics
• Some math or counting
• Some stories about history
• Some stories about science
• A few projects each week
• Plenty of time to play outside
• A few chores each day

When you add in some devotional time, and a responsive parent, you have a recipe for academic success. All of the pushing that public schools are imposing on children is not producing brighter children, what it is producing is burnt out children.

Hop off that hamster wheel and start enjoying these precious early years.

Here is a post with some great information about delayed academics.

Here is another post about joy.

This post talks about how some children teach themselves to read.

This company sends out monthly projects.

My preschool curriculum, The Peaceful Preschool, is a great way to cultivate more learning fun in your home. It could easily be adapted to use with a kindergartner or first grader, simply adding a chapter book read aloud, a phonics program and a math program.

Do you need help with figuring out how to pay for homeschool resources? This course is full of practical advice for building a life you love and living within your means. Best of all, 100% of proceeds go towards ministry to families in Tanzania, Africa.

This post contains affiliate links. Thanks for your support.

Narration For Evaluating Reading Comprehension

When we first began homeschooling, we purchased a reading curriculum. The curriculum featured a reading passage and then pages and pages of workbook exercises to evaluate the comprehension of what was read. This worked okay with my oldest child, who loved to write, but the next students were bored to tears by this work.

Around this time, I discovered the works of Charlotte Mason. Especially The Charlotte Mason Companion, by Karen Andreola. This book helped me to see that reading comprehension could be checked by having the child tell back in their own words what was read. This became a favorite  method for checking reading comprehension as well as a wonderful way of working on speaking and listening skills.

                                    

In this short video, my daughter and I demonstrate a few examples of how we do narration.




If you would like to know more about narration, check out this post from Simply Charlotte Mason.

My son and I are enjoying this project of making videos about homeschooling, but we would love some feedback. If you have any suggestions for how we could improve, or have a question that you would love answered in a video, would you leave a comment below?

Thanks for reading and watching!

https://youtu.be/QKsRnC0FciE

2015 Curriculum Plan

   

                   

            

As we soak every moment out of summer, I am simultaneously planning and purchasing for our upcoming school year. This year I will officially have five students, although my oldest student is only in my school this year, because I discovered through trial and error that trying to get scholarship funds to a Christian college is much easier if you are applying as a freshman than as a transfer student. For this reason, my oldest son will do one more year of high school to better prepare him to transfer as a freshman, and hopefully get some financial help with his schooling. I will update next year, with the results of this experiment

I will also be sending my other high school student to community college with the oldest three. This is another experiment. Only time will tell if it is a good one. He took an online class at the community college last year and scored well, so I feel it is worth a try to let him take two days a week of classes with his older siblings. Although I am presently not willing to send my children to public school (aside from my spiritual objections, I feel that high school wastes a lot of time) I do believe that older boys especially might benefit from the instruction of someone other than their mother as they grow. Especially this mother. I love teaching the younger years, but because I tend towards being a little better at relationships than consequences, having the experience of a classroom with a teacher who doesn't love them, might benefit my kids as they grow. So far, it has worked well for my students, and we will see how this one does.

Without further explanations, here is the plan.

                              

1st Grade Boy

Math Mammoth, Level 1

Prescripts Scripture Cursive

Spell To Write and Read/All About Spelling

Explode The Code Book 2

    

Rod and Staff Reading, Grade One, readers only

Mystery of History, Ancient Times

    

Apologia Flying Creatures

    

4th Grade Girl

Math U See Delta

Bible Copywork

 Jr. Analytical Grammar

I.E.W. Ancient History Writing Lessons

Spell To Write and Read

    

Memoria Cursive

Ancient History Reading List

Mystery Of History Ancient History

Apologia Flying Creatures

8th Grade Boy

Life of Fred Algebra

                                             

Bible Copywork

Jr Analytical Grammar

 (I will do this as a class with the younger sister,

 followed by Jr. Analytical Grammar Mechanics or R&S Grammar)

Theme Essays with Co-op

I.E.W. Ancient History Writing Lessons

Ancient History Reading List

Apologia General Science

Studies in World History-Stobaugh

                                             

  

10th Grade Boy

Algebra-Community College

Theme Analysis with Co-op

Ancient History Reading List

Beginning Painting-Community College

Philosophy 1 (audit Community College class with older siblings)

English 1A (semester 2)

Studies in World History-Stobaugh

Spanish 2-BJU

12th Grade Boy

Study hard for SAT

Chemistry- Community College

Geometry- Community College

U.S. History

The children also do martial arts and ballet for physical education, as well as music lessons, for, well, music.

For science and history, we will focus more on notebook pages with illustrated and written narration than on using tests or worksheets to assess their progress. We will do experiments and hands on work in our co-op.

For Bible, I am using Long Story Short and The 18 Inch Journey as my curriculum. We will also be reading through the Old Testament and copying Bible verses. 

                                            

    

This post has affiliate links. 

Bountiful Vacations on a Budget

Vacations with a large family can take some serious logistics, especially when you are trying to have fun on a budget. Many of our vacations involve camping, which is not as rustic as it sounds because we have a small travel trailer that we haul along with us, but there are a few months of the year when camping is not so comfortable.

Living on a small farm with a couple of little dogs has caused us to be strategic about getaways. It seems to work best for us to be gone for just a couple of days at a time, this also seems to work best with the varying work schedules in our home. 

With kids in college, we also are having to think about school schedules when planning vacations, something that was not an issue when all our children were homeschooled. With three of our students freshly finished with a semester of college, we took an opportunity for a short getaway. It always feels like it might be our last vacation as a family because our oldest is getting so close to being out of the home, so we are trying to make the most of these moments, and still stay on a budget.

Our recent getaway was planned a few months ago when the dates became available for Home School Days at the Monterey Aquarium. This is a fabulous program where the normally twenty-seven dollar tickets are free for the adults and students in our party. This makes a location that would normally be out of reach for us, suddenly affordable.

We also wanted to stay an extra day or so, so that we could explore our favorite tide pools in Pacific Grove, so we booked two nights at The Sea Breeze Inn.  This is an older hotel, but the linens have been upgraded and they have a family cottage that works fairly well for us, at a very affordable price. With our family size, we would normally have to rent two rooms and spend upwards of $200 a night, but this particular room was less than $150, and we were all able to squeeze into the available beds, I know some big families let kids sleep on hotel floors, but I can barely stand to see my children sit on a hotel floor, much less sleep on one.

We arrived at our hotel in the afternoon and then went straight to the beach. Unfortunately we had missed low tide, but the rocks were still beautiful for climbing on, and the salty waves and cool breezes were refreshing after the several hour car ride. 

After rock hopping along the shoreline, we went out for a pizza dinner. We had packed a few snacks for lunch, and I do mean just a few, so by the time our pizza arrived, we were like a pack of ravenous wolves. We ate at Gianni's, which was just okay. It is a cute little restaurant but we are used to ordering Mountain Mikes with a coupon or Little Caesars so the $27 dollar pizzas were a bit steep, if I was going to be spending that much, I would much rather have been eating at my sister's fabulous wood fired pizza restaurant. We ordered two extra large pizzas and had some leftovers which were promptly eaten for breakfast.

Back at the hotel, we discovered that our heater was not working. We didn't feel like moving or having a workman in the room with our big crowd, so we cranked the heat up in the adjoining room and cuddled up to stay warm. Having this inconvenience somewhat dimmed our enjoyment of the hotel however, and with the added blessing of pouring rain, we decided to check out in the morning and head home the next night after our aquarium visit. Our vacation was supposed to have involved two nights in a hotel, but our beds at home are so comfortable, and our home feels so sanitary, compared to the hotel that we decided to switch gears and just spend one night away.

After a night of rest, albeit in a chilly room, we checked out of the hotel, with the manager trying very sweetly to get us to stay one more night. We headed to the aquarium and enjoyed a few hours of wandering through the exhibits. The older three children decided to skip the aquarium and walk around town, so we had the fun of exploring with just 6 of us. Although I missed my big kids, it was nice to be able to focus on enjoying the younger four. 

After exploring the watery exhibits we ate our packed lunch and then met the big kids at Starbucks for coffee and cocoa. It was cozy to hang our there while the rain poured down outside but finally we braved the elements to get back in our big van. My husband gave us a sweet tour of the lovely old homes in Pacific Grove, while each of us pointed out our favorites. Then after an hour or so of exploring we met up with friends at Phil's Fish House for some delicious fish and chips. 

With our tummies full, we headed home into the night and crawled into our own cozy beds, determined to treat the next day like a vacation as well. Although our trip was short, it was a sweet little time of reconnecting with each other, and exploring one of our favorite created places, the beautiful, rocky shoreline. Although, we have taken cheaper vacations involving our travel trailer, and our own trailer cooked food, when compared to a weekend at Disneyland, this vacation was very budget friendly.

For more tips on bountiful living on a budget, check out my book!

What are your best tips for vacations on a budget?

Bountiful Homeschooling On a Budget

I am doing an online book study with the book 7: An Experimental Mutiny Against Excess by Jen Hatmaker right now and it is a fresh reminder of why I wrote the book, Bountiful Homeschooling on a Budget. So often, our decisions about money are based solely on what we want or can afford, and we often neglect to consider how our financial choices glorify God, or how they don't, whatever the truth may be.

So, over the next several weeks and just in time to help you save for the holidays, I am going to be highlighting some key ideas from the book.

                                                

One of my favorite ideas for saving money on homeschooling is to form a learning community with local friends. Homeschooling is so much more fun in community, but if you are trying to do it on a budget then many organized co-ops such as Classical Conversations may be out of reach. 

As well, there may be a particular learning focus that is important to you, and so a one size fits all approach is not going to be in the best interest of your family.

We have had a homeschool co-op in some form for over ten years, we started one when we lived in the Northern California foothills, grouped up with some homeschoolers while in Mexico, and have one in our current little town as well. 

Some years, the focus has been on science and other years we study history. We are currently working our way through Early American History and having a blast with a small group of local friends.

For myself, the areas of learning that are really hard for me to cover are art and science experiments so when we have a co-op we make sure to have those areas covered. This has also saved me lots of money on art and science classes as we have been able to learn from other moms in our community those skills which we might lack.

              

Interested in forming a co-op but not sure where to start? 

Here are a few easy tips to get you going.

1. Find a few friends who are interested in getting together to learn. Usually 3-4 families is optimum for an in-home co-op.

2. Set up a meeting to discuss the schedule and expectations. I usually plan a year's worth of topics at the beginning of the school year. For instance, we might meet once a month and cover a chapter in a science book at each meeting or we might cover a different time in history at each meeting. 

 

3. Plan who is responsible for teaching. In our co-op, we usually have rotating duties which include; hosting, art instruction, geography and snack. In our science group we would assign a different mom to each science book group (some children were in high school textbooks, others were in elementary Apologia books).

4. Give each mom a calendar and then form a Facebook or other group to keep the moms in the loop about where you are meeting and what they are responsible for.

Having our own homeschool co-op has saved me thousands of dollars and hours of time. I did check into Classical Conversations one year, but with a family of my size and even with working as a tutor it would have been very expensive and even more time consuming. For now, forming our own co-op has been a wonderful and creative option for learning in community and gaining new skills. 

If however, Classical Conversations is the best option for you, I know some excellent tutors and directors. Comment for more info.

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Bountiful Homeschooling On A Budget

I published a book. It has been a long held dream of mine to write a book, but taking care of my children, homeschooling and writing articles has taken most of my time so that book writing and marketing was just an idea in the back of my head.

The thing that finally made my dream a reality was seeing the persistence that my 12 year old son had to publish his book, Finding Joy In a World of Sorrow. He found a self publishing website, wrote the book, and I finally came in at the end to briefly edit it.

Fun at a local park

I have had many ideas for book, I am passionate about so many things, so choosing a topic to narrow in on was one of the hardest parts initially. However, my workshop on Homeschooling on a Budget provided a good framework for my first book.

My book, Bountiful Homeschooling On A Budget is not an exhaustive reference, but it is an entertaining, short book that is full of ideas for saving money as well as inspiration to know why you might want to save money.

Homemade Fun

One chapter is about saving money on household goods and I talk about how often our children have so many toys and playthings that their imagination and resourcefulness is hindered. This morning I was given hope, that despite my children's many toys, they still have an imagination.

My youngest daughter, seven years old, looked through a craft book and found the idea of painting rocks. She spent time painting with her younger brother, painting the rocks into an entire family complete with grandparents. She then painted bricks to be beds and a kitchen and then drew a chalk house on the patio to play in. Although she has a small doll house, what excited her more today was to build her own with rocks and chalk.

Your family can have the blessing of living on less so that you have more to give also, and this book may help you get started.

                                                             

I will be speaking on Bountiful Homeschooling On A Budget this Saturday at the Valley Home Educators Conference  and giving away a free copy of my book to one of my workshop attendees. It just might be you!