Halloween Homeschool Ideas

Halloween is almost here!  If you need some simple, last-minute, no-prep homeschool Halloween activities for your kids, you've come to the right place! I love celebrating holidays and special days in our homeschool, and creating moments of everyday joy.  You'll find ideas galore for Halloween crafts, printables, and learning activities to make the weeks leading up to Halloween fun and festive! Haunted Village Luminaries These sweet Haunted Village Luminaries  (from my Etsy shop) look so great on your mantel or windowsill when the sun goes down. They print out on regular paper.. and then you can use them in so many ways! Print. Roll sides to make a tube. Tape or glue.  Print. Cut out the houses and decoupage to a glass jar. Print. Cut out tops of houses, leaving a strip of paper. Tape ends. I used an index card to add width in my pictures below. Use battery votives for that spooky glow! Make Delicious Halloween Snacks There are lots and lots of pages of sweet Halloween snacks ou

Free Affirmations Daily and Monthly Planner

Are you waking up every morning, struggling to remember what's on the to-do list, feeling behind before your feet even hit the ground? Let's get all those to-dos, appointments, and things to remember out of your head and onto paper, my friend. You won't believe how great it feels! You've tried planners, you say? You have a stack of pretty, unused planners sitting in your closet? Hear me out. This is different - and better! (And did I mention free?) What if your planner could inspire you, reduce your stress, and let you be creative? What if you looked forward to a bit of morning time that also helped you calm the chaos and reminded you how wonderful you really are? My Affirmations Coloring Planner can do all that. Yes, really! This is not just a planner... it's a coloring planner! Grab some of your kids' crayons, your favorite sparkly gel pens, whatever you've got and color a page that inspires you that day. Even 5 minutes spent on creating is good for your

Let's Stop Pretending We're Perfect

Let's just stop. Let's just get real and give up this trap that we all seem to fall into... of making our lives look perfect online. Pretty Instagram posts, bragging about our kids' achievements on FB, writing blog posts that look like life is always put together and photo-worthy. We all know that's not true. We do.  We know that social media is a highlight reel , and bears no resemblance to everyday life. But yet. But yet we all fall prey to the comparisons, the critical thoughts about ourselves (or jealous thoughts of others). So I'm giving up that trying-too-hard, perfectionistic, over-researching, anxiety-ridden way of walking through life and homeschooling. So, I'm giving up perfectionism. Real life: my kitchen table is almost always full of stuff. I have a desk, but it makes my wrists hurt because it's not at the right height. So my laptop is always here, surrounded by bills, paperwork, and last week's science camp supplies. This is a good day, act

Cinco de Mayo Homeschool Fun

One of the things I love the most about homeschooling is the ability to learn about and celebrate other cultures in a playful way. Every month, you can find unique holidays to celebrate and explore as part of your homeschool. Creating mini-celebrations can infuse your weeks with joy and create amazing memories for you and your kids. Today, I've put together some fun ideas for learning and celebrating Cinco de Mayo in your homeschool . Let's Get Colorful! Bright, colorful decorations can set the stage for your Cinco de Mayo homeschool celebration! Here is a video on how to make papel picado banners with tissue paper and string! I also love these beautiful Papel Picado Banners from Honestly Yum  that are so simple to make with crepe paper streamers! What a clever idea. Drape them, criss-cross, over your walls for a beautiful Cinco de Mayo backdrop. And here is a tutorial about making giant tissue paper flowers (sometimes called fiesta flowers)! SO PRETTY! I couldn't love thes

15 Tasty Ways to Enjoy Leftover Ham

Oh, ham, how I love thee. 💖 We eat the traditional foods on holidays over here. At Easter, dinner is ham and scalloped potatoes. I just love this meal! We usually add in green beans, rolls, and last year I did a tropical fruit salad, too. Sometimes we change up the sides a little bit, and I have been honing my scalloped potato recipe over the past five years. I'll share that in a future blog post! But the ham? It's non-negotiable. I'm a big fan of making too much food on holidays . Easter cooking is a lot of work, and I want to be able to eat for at least a couple of days from all those hours in the kitchen! So I get a big, big ham. This year, with the quarantine, I didn't have to go quite so big since it's just my husband, my daughter, and I (and she doesn't eat ham... silly child). But we'll still have plenty of leftovers, and I went searching for some delicious and different ways to use them. By the way: if your family doesn't want to eat lots of da

Kim's Giant List of Homeschool Awesomeness

Last week, our local public school superintendent announced that all schools in Washington state will be closed until April 24, 2020 (at least) in order to hopefully slow the spread of the CoVid-19 virus. We live just outside of Seattle, so this news didn't come as a huge surprise. As I read my feed on Facebook I'm seeing school closures all over the country, also! So I wanted to put together some ideas, helpful posts, links to learning sites, and other encouragement for families that find themselves suddenly thrown into the world of having kids home all day, every day. First, let me say this: Please, please do not try to replicate school at home during this time. While your kids can -- and will -- learn during this forced break (they learn all day, every day), you don't have to panic and try to keep up with the amount of material they covered during a day in public school. Instead, my biggest piece of advice, given from the depths of my heart and everything I've learne