I had a great Christmas this year! But…like always, we left many things till the absolute last minute! I had a terrible migraine Christmas Eve so Dave was left with a lot of last minute magic to make happen. We weren’t even finished with the wrapping…*head desk*
Here comes the awesome plan!
A customized Christmas planner/to-do list ready in time to use for next year! Be on the lookout for a .pdf to purchase in June! Along the way – I’ll be sharing tips and tricks to kick start your holiday and keep in high gear!
This planner will be for a kid-friendly, family oriented Christmas with light entertaining. We aren’t cooking for 50 people. God bless you if you do that.
I’ll be using the planner and creating a Facebook group for everyone to share about their experiences too!
Some of the topics it will cover:
-cleaning and meal planning
-grocery shopping
– cooking and baking
-favorite recipes
-holiday cards
-letters to and from Santa
– gift shopping and wrapping
-family activities, gatherings and crafting
– decorating
-fresh vs. fake tree
– advent calendars/elf on the shelf
If you are anything like me – you have a million plans but you get overwhelmed.
My first step is going to be making priorities. What about Christmas matters most to me? Those are the things I am going to focus on next year.
It’s not pretty. In all honesty, I have about 3 days mapped out so far. I want to see how we do and what is working for us.
My homeschool space doubles as our dining room. We have two bookshelves dedicated to homeschool materials. I recently put up a small whiteboard and bulletin board set. I’m using these to keep info that we need every day. I’ll probably write the date on the whiteboard to help us all keep track.
Each of the kids have their own binder where I am keeping supplemental material and where I hope they can store their work. I also have a binder – it’s pretty rudimentary right now. I have a copy of each IHIP and a calendar for keeping attendance. I also have a place for my daily plans. I have been scratching them out on looseleaf paper organized by subject for each child.
I plan on using the internet extensively for material to fuel hands on learning. I’m really excited about science experiments, demonstrations, and projects. I have a ton of recycables and basic art supplies on hand.
I reviewed their IHIPs and started looking at the resources I’ve accumulated. I have started what feels like a small library – not that we didn’t already have one – but I purchased some workbooks and went through the books we already owned looking for non-fiction I could use for different subjects. I found out that we have a crap-ton of dinosaur books.
I felt that we needed an easy start so I used their Brain Quest workbooks to jump start our first few days. I like these because they help me to see what I need to cover in each grade level. I’m using these as a guide and a starting point for topics. We are going to be covering each topic in more depth and according to my child’s individual needs. For instance, my second grader is a developing reader. We are going to use the first BQ worksheet on digraphs as a starting point and continue practicing them throughout the week. I am going to accomplish this with worksheets I found on Pinterest. We’re also doing that with math. We are going to be working towards better understanding of the hundredths place value so we’ll study that for about a week.
I am going to cover some topics with both my 6th grader and 2nd grader. We’ll be doing a coordinated study of U.S. History dating from immigration across the Bering land bridge to… however far we get. We will also be doing Art, P.E. and music together. Music isn’t even a required subject but I think it would be terrible to miss so I’m on the hunt for some materials. In lieu of having a solid plan for Music, we’re going to start with classical composers.
I am excited and nervous about that first day. I’m not planning on jumping into lessons right away. I am going to use the first day to get them excited. We’re going to name our homeschool, talk about how we learn best, make lots of slime and maybe go on a walk. I want to find out what they want to learn about and do so I can incorporate that.
During these last few weeks, I have been working on quite a few projects. I had a yard sale and THOUGHT I needed something else to keep me busy. So I started working on a desk and chair set I found on the side of the road.
I started out painting the wood parts white with plans to use blue metal enamel that I had purchased for another project. The white paint didn’t really speak to my soul – so I started decoupaging the chair with ripped pieces of dictionary pages (one of my favorite materials). I broke out the enamel to do the metal and just sort of said huh…I wonder what that would look like on the paper.
My husband called on his way home from picking up auction purchases – another new hobby of ours…and I told him I was either making art or a mess. That’s how I still feel about it. So what’s the difference? And how far is too far? Comment below to let me know.
Sometimes you make a mess when you’re creating a piece. That doesn’t mean the completed work you make is a mess. I’ve been making little signs out of pieces of wood. The wood almost looks like the back of stamps, but they stand up well. I was trying to stencil a tiny pineapple on a couple of tiny pieces. I went through 8 pieces to get ONE perfect pineapple – I still need to get another one but I’m a little worried about going through 8 more!
My point in telling both of those stories is to remind myself and maybe you that creativity is a process and not everything we make is going to be perfect and may take a couple of tries. We should keep trying if we have that creative spark. I know that I have to feed mine.
Buttermilk Falls is in Ithaca, NY near a busy shopping area. Our trip here was Eh…
We stayed Wednesday night to Friday morning due to campground availability – weekends are heavily booked at the state parks right now. I overheard a park employee describing it more like a city park and while that didn’t feel exactly true, it was funny to see store building tops from our walks. I imagined sneaking away to Starbucks a couple of times (especially on Thursday when I had the boys alone).
I could have made it a little better with more planning – like calling the park to see what was going to be available.
Swimming will be available starting July 4th and is only open on Fri, Sat, and Sun. We went on July 1st – 3rd. The bathrooms are not open in the lower park until sometime in the late morning as far as I can tell. The ones in the campground are closed from 11-12 and 4-5 for extra cleaning. I know most of this is because of COVID-19 precautions so I can’t really complain.
The campground was nice but very stony. We bent our stakes trying to get them in the ground and sort of worried about our tent caving in or a strong wind blowing it away. It did not blow away. We appreciated that the site was shady and near the bathrooms.
We definitely did some hiking – going from the campground to the lower park entrance twice and back via the Owl Creek trail. We also hiked to the scenic overlook via the same trail. It’s amazing! You can see across to farms on the other side…of something 🤣 (maybe Cayuga Lake?). Near the overlook is also a huge rock wall presumably created by glaciers which people have signed by scratching their names with a rock. That’s where we saw our first snake. We saw our second snake on the portion of the Rim trail that leads to the park entrance. I had the boys make a list of everything else they saw.
lots and lots of chipmunks – these guys were everywhere!
It was a hot few days – we kept hydrated and took lots of breaks when we needed to.
Another hiking option is the Rim Trail/Gorge Trail loop. These are two seperate but connecting trails – currently they have them operating in a loop due to COVID-19. They describe them as fairly challenging so I didn’t attempt without another grown-up but I saw other families doing it.
Other nice things to do included a playground and large playing fields. My 6 yr old gave the playground two thumbs up!
The park was beautiful and I would visit again on a day trip during the week. I’d camp on the weekends if it was available.
Everyone is panicking over what the kids are going to do this summer and while Pinterest is FULL of ideas like this – I thought I’d add my contribution.
Our Bored Jar – crazy stickers and some blue cardestock!
I wrote ideas that incorporate several areas of learning and will appeal to my target audience (school age kids). Most of my ideas can be done independently but some might require adult guidance. I’m planning to join the boys for many of the activities because I included things that will also appeal to me….shhhhh….it’s not cheating!
One thing that I recommend is that you have the materials handy for any activities you include. Many of the ideas I wrote can be done with practically anything you have around the house. The general idea is to write out or type a bunch of ideas – so that when the children say they are bored – you can send them to the jar.
The jar can be decorated and it doesn’t even have to be a jar! Use a shoe box, a Ziploc bag, or a Tupperware container – it’s all up to you. I used a jar and some funny stickers I had around the house. Cut out the ideas and put them in the jar. If you’d like to reuse your ideas – you can attach them to card stock or craft sticks for added durability.
The mess I make when I cut things out…
Feel free to use some or all of my ideas from the list below for your “Bored Jar” – and if you’d like to share some of your ideas, email me. I created the original list in Google Docs and it is available to print here.
Draw your favorite animal in different color than you usually see it.
Design a tree house for you and your friends.
Draw a self portrait using only squares.
Write a new story featuring your favorite character from a book or TV show.
Design your dream house in 3D – use legos, cardboard, recyclables or anything else you can think of!
Make a gift for someone.
Make a birdhouse or a yard decoration.
Make an item for a fairy garden.
Create a magic wand.
Hide a treasure and draw a map.
Design a spacecraft.
Draw a blueprint for a new machine.
If you made a robot, what would it do? Write, draw or build a model of your robot.
Make a list of things that you are grateful for.
Write a thank you letter to someone who has helped you.
Ask an important question you have been thinking about.
Who do you admire? Write a letter telling them why.
Think about a play made from your favorite book. What would some props be?
Read a poem and then draw a picture about it.
Look at a famous piece of art. What does it make you feel?
Draw a picture of two animals combined together.
What do you want to do when you are older? Find out 5 facts about it.
If you were the president, what are three things you would do and why?
Make your own desert island with clay, blocks, or recyclables.
Make a list of your 10 favorite toys, games, movies, or books.
Read about someone who is doing a job you’d like to do when you are older.
What are three things that help you when you are feeling sad?
Draw a picture of your family using only circles.
Paint or draw or make a collage using your favorite color only.
Pick a historical event and share 5 new things you learned about it at dinner.
Do you think this will help keep the kids occupied this summer? Comment below with your ideas!
It's All Whimsy 