Crafts

Crafting with Children at the Holidays

Holidays offer such a wonderful opportunity for crafting and creating. Thoughtfully handmade decorations and gifts always seem to have a willing recipient or admirer, and there is something special about creating something that will be seen and enjoyed by others. Whether you are someone for whom crafting comes naturally or someone who wants to find a way to make more creative opportunities for your children, there are many ways to weave crafts and activities into the holiday season. Continue reading »

Candle Making: An Autumn Craft

Longer hours of darkness are settling in on our part of the world with the fall season, and we could use a little extra flicker of light.

Candle making is the perfect autumn craft. The process is creative and rewarding, and the candles you and your kids make together are an autumn antidote to the days’ low angled sunlight and early arriving nights.

If I have a deficit as a homeschooling mom, it’s that I’m not very crafty, and I don’t enjoy or excel at handwork. However, making candles with my sons was one of our more successful craft endeavors, so I’m sure you can do it. Continue reading »

Creating a Calendar with Children

A great project for the New Year is making a calendar with your little ones. I’m talking about making a calendar the old fashioned way, using fresh heavy art paper and your favorite combination of markers, colored pencils, oil pastels, or other media. I first got this idea from the Oak Meadow first grade curriculum, a Waldorf-inspired curriculum which I loosely followed from time to time and adapted for other ages as my family grew. Continue reading »

Surviving Project Day

I realize that many of you reading this are free-spirited, artsy, Pinterest-devoted die-hard project people, and that the best part of your homeschooling lives involve doing hands-on activities with your kids. Good for you – I applaud you. And I hate you. Just a little bit. Continue reading »

Background of orange popsicles and orange slices with text 20 Fun Things to do this summer; TheHomeSchoolMom

20 Fun Things To Do During a Homeschooling Summer

Whether you school year ’round or take a break during the summer months, June, July, and August are the ideal time to jazz up your homeschooling with a bit of extra fun. Warm weather, sunshine, and summer breaks from regular-year activities all make the middle of the year perfect for a little excitement! Camps and swimming are pretty par-for-the-course for many families, but there are just so many things that homeschoolers can do to get the most out of summer and make some wonderful memories. Here are 20 fun ideas to get you started: Continue reading »

Fun Ideas For a Homeschool Valentine’s Day

We homeschoolers just love to make things educational, but even die-hard academics have to take a break from time to time and just have some fun! With a day set aside specifically to show our loved ones just how much they mean to us, there’s no better time to get creative and simply enjoy our kids. Here are some fun ideas to make a homeschool Valentine’s Day special. Continue reading »

Cures For Cabin Fever

Stuck inside? Might as well extract some fun out of all that togetherness. For true cabin fever recovery, try something you’ve never done before. These fun ideas are excerpted from Free Range Learning by Laura Grace Weldon. Continue reading »

Making Father’s Day Special

Dads: We love ‘em, we need ‘em, and it would be a whole lot harder to homeschool without ‘em! June 19, 2011 gives us the chance to tell our dads just how important they are to us! Whether it’s simple or involved, kids can do something special for Father’s Day, and learn at the same time. Continue reading »

Fun Family Christmas Projects

If there’s ever a time to put aside the books and break out the project supplies with the kids, it’s Christmas! With all of the emphasis on baking, making crafts, decorating, learning the history of Christ’s birth, and establishing family traditions, Christmas for homeschoolers is like sitting down to a buffet of children’s enrichment. Even if you homeschool with academics throughout the month of December, be sure to save some time in the day for some special family projects that will bring the family together and make the season meaningful for your children!