Vanilla Joy - Family * Motherhood * Me

March Notebooking

My mind is always so full of ideas. Too full. Exploding. I am constantly inspired by other homeschoolers online and on Instagram, and I want to do all the good and beautiful things I see. Notebooking is one of those things that I see and want to do myself, but developing new habits is hard! […]

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20th Century Living Books

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Our family is studying the 20th Century this year for our modern history stream, and finding modern living books has been hard! Well…harder than finding books for preceding time periods. Not to worry, I have risen to the challenge with my obsessive ways. Good thing I LOVE thrift shopping, locally and online. A little too much perhaps… […]

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Term 2 Recap

Homeschool

We just finished up our second term of the school year! At the beginning of this year we switched over from using Ambleside Online’s book list and schedule to the history rotation as outlined by the wise and wonderful women of A Delectable Education podcast. Ambleside Online was a fabulous place for us to start. […]

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TUTORIAL: DIY Composition Books

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We are all keeping several different kinds of notebooks this year – a Nature Journal and a modified Book of Centuries, which we’ve done before and new this year are science, math, and history notebooks. I looked for some notebooks with some specific features: Inexpensive Good quality paper so markers would not show through Unlined Large […]

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Favorite Supplies

Homeschool

TIMERS have changed everything for us. Having lessons for a specified number of minutes is a much more peaceful way for our family to homeschool than requiring a specific quantity of work each day. Everyone has their own timer and although it may seem counterintuitive, they do work harder and give a better effort when […]

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How Much Does He Care?

Homeschool

A great many times in the last 5 years of homeschooling, I have tried to do some fun science observation/experiment involving growing a house or other type of plant. For me, the point was to grow it, make our observations, draw a nice series of pictures, and check it off the list. And our poor […]

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Nature Study

Homeschool

This is how we do artist/picture study, it’s very fancy. ? I pick an artist from the time period we’re studying and hang 6-8 of his/her works on the fridge for the 12 week term. This piece of vertical real estate is probably the most valuable (since it is visited so very frequently) in the […]

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Living Geography

Homeschool

At Mt. Rainier last month we got to see the perfect example of something we read about in Long’s Elementary Geography book – how rivers grow. We got to see this beautiful place where the snow on the mountain will melt and form a river that will be joined by smaller brooks and streams from […]

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Bird List

Homeschool

This has been the summer of birds for our family, and all because I was eager to learn myself. I’m amazed at how this plays out in real life and am now convinced that my own self-education is necessary in my efforts to homeschool my children. We’ve been keeping our Bird List and got these […]

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Favorite Nature Study Resources

Homeschool

Nature Study is a huge and important part of a Charlotte Mason education. It’s not more important than all the other subjects included in “the feast,” but it’s one that doesn’t come as naturally to me to incorporate into our school day and our life. We school for three terms and go from about September […]

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