Homeschooling Update: Thanksgiving Week Idea’s & More

Hello dear ones, I hope this post finds you all doing well! I just wanted to share a few fun resources for what you might be doing this week, particularly if you’re in the U.S.A. and are preparing for Thanksgiving. There’s also some great resources for everyone else, especially if you teach youth or children’s church. So, long story short, this is a list of things including but not limited to Thanksgiving.

First, The Puritan Network has a free curriculum based on the Reformed Christian worldview. The older Kayliegh gets, the viewer free resources are available, so I was excited to see this one. It includes Biblical survey’s, logic, history, and much more all free. It’s rare to find such a large amount of free lessons in Reformed circles, so make sure to bookmark this one.

For Thanksgiving, first a warning! There is an insane amount of ‘politically correct’ nonsense, borderline rewriting of history, which paints Puritans in a bad light for their belief in God being their authority. This is often done in comparison with the pilgrims, which are said to be more ‘open-minded’. It’s important to check free resources, sometimes they’re fantastic, but other times they’re free for a reason. Here’s a fun, free, worksheet that leaves out the PC stuff, and adds some math. Anytime we can mix math with science and fun, I’m on board! Of course, each year I recommend Kirk Cameron’s movie Monumental and watch it with Kayliegh. It does a tremendous job of showing what hardships led to Plymouth! I’ve likewise mentioned Kids Art Hub here before, and I’m going to do it again because this family keeps things clean while drawing some adorable stuff! Here is a list of all their thanksgiving videos.

This next resource I wanted to share is for all the homeschoolers studying music in any way, shape, or form. Musical Time Machine is a new YouTube channel created by a very sweet sister-in-Christ for her students. There are four episodes already available, and she’s currently working on episode 5!

As far as other updates go for Kayliegh, we’ve all been getting unpacked in our new home in our new assignment. This is an exciting opportunity for her to learn organization skills, as we allowed her to pack all of her stuff on her own this time. She now gets to unpack it and place things where she wants them. It was an interesting experiment to see if anything would break! Thankfully, she did a good job listening to advice on how best to pack breakable items, and nothing broke. That’s really all that’s new at the moment, besides the links listed above. I’d love to hear what kind of stuff you’re working on this week during the holiday. As always, beloved brethren, be good Berean’s and study to show yourselves approved.

Homeschooling Update: Reformation – Science – Birthdays

Hello dear ones, I hope this post finds you all doing well! I wanted to highlight a couple of different resources and talk a little about homeschooling during birthdays. That might seem random, unless you’ve watched Friday’s Not so Live MEGA List. At the end I shared some photos of Kayliegh growing up, and a silly video of her trying to get a gift open. It’s a tradition for us to make gifts difficult to open, it’s something fun she does when wrapping gifts for me or Justin as well.

Life can be full of distractions, but the great thing about homeschooling is that we can use every opportunity to learn. When holidays or birthdays come up, Kayliegh typically has a lot of trouble sleeping. I was the same way when I was little, often I would attempt to stay up all night so that I could still be awake when the big day dawned. All that ever came of that was that I’d fall asleep on accident and sleep in really late. Unfortunately, that’s not what happens with my darling daughter. She tosses and turns, then wakes up really early exhausted. frustrated, and even sometimes panicked about her inability to rest. That puts us in a bit of a bind with lessons, as she’s now distracted by the upcoming event and also quite grumpy. In those situations I pull out the easiest lessons I have, the ones that involve her favorite things like cooking or experimenting. We move slow when she needs to, take breaks when it seems to be overwhelming for her, and pick back up with the heavier lessons the next day. It’s important to remember, as homeschooling teachers, that our little ones will retain more understanding if they’ve rested well. Pushing through lessons on a few hours of sleep won’t accomplish as much as taking it easy for the day.

That being said, although this has literally never happened, Kayliegh slept well on the lead up to her birthday. This is due to the lingering fatigue from her having COVID, that gift that just won’t stop giving no matter how many times we try to return it. Still, she struggled to focus with all the excitement of her big double digit day, and with all the packing for our next move. What do I do when focus is waning? The same thing I do when she gets no sleep, except I can make the lessons more challenging. When you see that your kiddo is no longer picking up what your putting down, keep a few fun and education lessons hidden you your sleeve to bring them back down out of the clouds. For Kayliegh, this tends to revolve around Home Economics or Science. Slip in some hints about what’s coming up next, and suddenly you’ll have a little one ready to get through their math or piano class.

I haven’t had the chance to write a homeschooling update in such a long time! I wish I had compiled more links and resources. However, these two totally rock. The first one is free, and I mentioned it on that MEGA list I linked to up above. It’s Reformation worksheets, free to print and use to teach about why this month is so awesome! The owner of Theologia Gear also let me know that their shop is having a discount on all their products during Reformation month. That’s pretty exciting! The last resource I have for y’all is not free, but is incredible. Jasmin Davis from The_Clever_Decorator recommended Apologia’s (no connection to Jeff Durbin’s Church) science curriculum when she joined me on the program to discuss evolution. Kayliegh is officially at the point where there is far less free worksheets available, and the lessons are far more complex. So, I did it, I actually paid for a full years worth of curriculum. Yup, that’s right my friends, this is the first time I’ve had to do that. Why? Because there is an insane amount of free curriculums out there for elementary school ages. It gets less and less the older they get, right when the secular evolutionism begins to build. Apologia’s curriculums all follow a Biblical view of Creation. As we learn about anatomy, the end of each chapter brings it back to Gods Word! It’s wonderful! That’s it, that’s my update, hopefully it was a little helpful. As always, beloved brethren, be good Berean’s and study to show yourselves approved.