Need to get some help keeping up with the housework? Trying to teach your children a regular cleaning routine? Room by Room Cleaning Checklist Chore Cards for Kids…FREE PRINTABLE via Walking in High Cotton
Continue Reading...5 easy ideas for all-ages history unit studies. Perfect for relaxed summer engagement, homeschooling, or unexpected crisis learning. via Walking in High Cotton
Continue Reading...Boy, the world is quite a mess lately, hmm? Our kiddos are home full-time until September and Mr. Fix-It and I are both Essential workers at our off-homestead jobs, so our house has been kinda reeling lately. A little bit of organization goes a long way! We have always done summer home-learning activities, but I had to look over my previous activities and make some adjustments for this new phase of Crisis-Schooling. It’s not really the same as homeschooling. I’m not trying to cover a complete school year or curriculum. … Continue Reading…
Resources for a Unit Study on coal mining communities, including FREE Amazon and YouTube video list, website links, book lists, and templates for student projects and reports. Perfect for grades 4-8, but could easily be aged up or down to suit a general family unit study as well. via Walking in High Cotton
Continue Reading...October is apparently coming in with a heat wave this year! We’ve been in the 80s and 90s for a week now and not a speck of rain on the horizon. The fields are looking parched instead of lush with that late Fall rush of green. A few of the trees pretended to turn leaves, but really, Fall is coming in about the same as June. We even have enough humidity that we have foggy mornings without clouds! We spent the weekend at football on Saturday and my phone overheated … Continue Reading…
We went from 60s and barely 70 degrees last week to the first week of Fall jumping back to the mid-80s. Ugh. The nice thing is that the weather has been dry since Hurricane Dorian blew through so it’s been easy to be outside. Even mid-80s isn’t too bad if there’s a breeze. And the evenings are definitely cooling off. Being out at football practice 3 days a week I’m noticing the daylight slipping away earlier and earlier too. We had a bit of a rocky start to the school … Continue Reading…
Fall is in high gear around here. The sheep are moving into breeding season and doing all kinds of crazy, unpredictable things like getting stuck upside down on the compost pile and accidentally locking themselves in the chicken house while trying to steal chicken food. We’ve been checking on them more than normal lately to try and keep up with their shennanigans. Football and Volleyball season are also rolling along for our two oldest and this week we also had the local county fair going on. The Ladybug is in … Continue Reading…
The start of September means the start of the official school year around here. We’ve got a 10th, 7th, and 6th grader here this year! It’s also the start of all the fall sports, back-to-school events, and launch into the holidays time. My 2-year planner ends in December, so the start of school was a good time to switch over to a new one. This time I went with a 5 year planner and I’m very happy with it. I spent $4 to add spiral binding at Office Max and … Continue Reading…
We’ve been asked several times what we packed for Scotland and how wet we got–especially since we packed light and went carry-on only. Well, we didn’t get wet at all. {smile} They had an amazingly clear, dry, spring heat wave while we were there. We packed for chilly, soggy, weather and ended up needing more tee-shirts and zero rain coats! Packing light for Scotland in the spring can be extra daunting for plus size travelers. The unpredicable weather and bulkier clothes can seem impossible to fit in a backpack! But … Continue Reading…
Do you have a kiddo that loves comic books? Or a kiddo that hates chapter books? A reluctant or struggling reader–easily overwhelmed by page after page of text? I do. I have 2 actually. And I am SO GLAD we discovered a variety of clean, appropriate, quality graphic novels on the market today. Fiction, non-fiction, and even adaptations of classic literature that use Shakespeare’s original text! They’ve been a huge help in keeping our dyslexic and reluctant readers engaged in independent reading–when standard chapter books were failing in a flood … Continue Reading…
I have to admit, we did not eat summer squash very much growing up. Ok, can I be honest? Actually, never. I don’t remember my mother ever cooking yellow squash. I do remember having it with other people, but not at our house. Mr. Fix-It’s family grew it and they ate it all summer long, but he doesn’t remember much variety in the recipes. So I guess the good news is that we don’t have any old family recipes we have to throw out or overcome to try something new! … Continue Reading…
Consult a Doctor for health advice! For the love of green grass, use common sense and all the health care professionals available to you (meaning NOT ME) when making healthcare choices for your family! Do you find essential oils and natural health care interesting, but totally overwhelming? (I did!) Do you want to get started but feel paralyzed by all the choices, recipes, and jargon? (I did!) Are you worried about having to buy all. the. things. to get started and every recipe or idea you see seems to include … Continue Reading…
We’ve been harvesting mulberries lately in the evenings. We have 3 big mulberry trees on the edge of our top field that get loaded with berries every spring. It’s a bit of a fight to get them before the birds do! Over the years we’ve used different methods to collect berries–from the kids eating them all without telling me, to focused foraging efforts. The easiest way is for someone to climb the tree and shake them all out onto a tarp. I’ve seen folks also use a sheet, but then … Continue Reading…
We decided to travel carry-on only when we went to Scotland for a week last month. We ‘re used to traveling pretty light, sharing a bag, and we weren’t trying to go extreme minimalist. We just didn’t want to check any bags. I’ve had my luggage lost. Not fun. With carry-on only travel, they can’t lose your luggage. Also with the flight delay fiasco we faced trying to get to Scotland, not having to worry about any checked baggaging was a H-U-G-E relief! But there were some real challenges too. … Continue Reading…
May can be a tough month for me. The farm is very busy, the kids are bursting with energy from the good weather and the end of the school year in sight, and I struggle not to be constantly reminded or linger on the loss of my parents. Mother’s Day is always a struggle for me–trying to focus on being a momma, and not the fact that I don’t have a momma. Trying to appreciate everyone else’s mother even though all I desperately want is my own momma. And the … Continue Reading…
