A FREE Skills + Activities Checklist For Your 2-5 Year Old

A FREE Skills + Activities Checklist For Your 2-5 Year Old

What are some milestones that I need to look for in my child’s behavior or abilities?

  • How do I know he’s ready for school?

  • How long should she be able to pay attention?

  • How much time should we spend on “school”?

  • My child doesn’t do ________, is that ok?

  • What are some ways that I can engage my child in a meaningful way during our busy days?

These are all questions I’ve asked over the years and questions I hear daily from busy, concerned homeschooling moms who want to make sure they’re doing best for their child.

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Collecting Nature and Encountering Our Creator (GIANT FREEBIE)

Collecting Nature and Encountering Our Creator (GIANT FREEBIE)

My Instagram feed is filled with gorgeous nature tables, muddy rainboots, and wild and free children. This speaks to my heart in an unimaginable way. While I may often get too busy to truly spend the hours out of doors that I would like... and sometimes the complaints about the heat just wear me down (we live near Satan's armpit), I know deep in my soul that being surrounded and immersed in God's creation is as close as we can get to touching him on this earth. 

When I first began reading Charlotte Mason's own personal work (and I HIGHLY RECOMMEND THAT, start here), I was slightly put off. I almost felt as if she worshipped nature. But I knew I had to be missing something important, so I pressed further in. Through prayer, I realized that Charlotte was passionate about nature because she was passionate about the Creator of nature. She knew that being immersed in Creation was a sneak peak into eternity and into the heart of our Father in Heaven. Our task as mothers is to simply help our children become thoroughly acquainted with Creation, capable of truly SEEING it with clear observation.

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HUGE FREE Gentle + Classical Nature Bundle Sampler!

HUGE FREE Gentle + Classical Nature Bundle Sampler!

Gentle + Classical Nature finally arrived just a few months ago. It has been a labor of love, and one I’m very excited to get into your hands after completely “revamping” the original release of Nature. Gentle + Classical Nature Volume 1: Inland Waterways and Forests explores all of the organisms and life cycles that take place in our freshwater, inland waterways as well as temperate forests. I won’t go into a huge amount of detail because you can download the FULL Teacher’s Guide 100% for FREE!

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Saint Patrick’s Day Free Printables

Saint Patrick’s Day Free Printables

St. Patrick left an amazing legacy on the isle of Ireland that hasn’t been quickly forgotten by the Irish in over one thousand years! Each year, we celebrate his gift of Christian mercy, love, and compassion on March 17th.

After researching and learning about Ireland over the past 2 months for this issue of On Mission, I can see why St. Patrick loved it so. Even after escaping from captivity as a slave there, his heart could not be separated from the land or the people. God called him back- to HIS CAPTIVES- to preach the Good News.

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How do we make Godly decisions? (About homeschool, money, relationships...life?)

How do we make Godly decisions? (About homeschool, money, relationships...life?)

According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building upon it. Let each one take care how he builds upon it. For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw— each one's work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. -1 Corinthians 3:10-14

We get to choose. We have this free gift of a solid, unshakeable, eternal, faithful foundation that can never be moved, and then we get to choose.

Whether it's who we marry, how we educate, how we parent and discipline, how we speak and serve and love, how we spend and earn our incomes--we have agency. And this freedom can be both liberating and simultaneously terrifying.

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A Day in Our Gentle, Classical Homeschool

A Day in Our Gentle, Classical Homeschool

This fabulous guest post was written by my friend Lydia who does a fabulous job of sharing her adventures with her three littles utilizing The Gentle + Classical Preschool. Find more info about Lydia at the bottom of the post.

To the homeschool mamas reading this who are simultaneously changing a diaper, wrangling a toddler away from near disaster, and mitigating the uproarious queries of a preschooler bouncing on the couch — you are my people.

With three very little littles (ages 4, 2.5, and 1), I would be lying if I told you we regularly had beautifully structured homeschool days. Far from it! But homeschooling has brought its own rhythm to our home, adding an invaluable richness to our lives and family culture. I want to share with you a example of what I consider a very good day.

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Early Years Daily Planner- FREEBIE

Early Years Daily Planner- FREEBIE

There are literally close to one million free printable planners available on the internet. Search Pinterest, and you’ll find out that I’m not exaggerating by much. However, I can never quite find THE ONE, ya know? They’re either kind of functional but not pretty, the website has one million and one ads and pop-ups and feels like spam, or they just don’t quite suit my needs… I am forever a tinkerer.

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Homeschool Scheduling with Teens to Toddlers (Mom of 4)

Homeschool Scheduling with Teens to Toddlers (Mom of 4)

I do really love to chat homeschool scheduling! I believe our schedules are and should be just as unique as our families and our homeschools are. But also, we are always looking for ways to improve- maybe to streamline, reduce overwhelm, or just enjoy our day better. So, I’m happy to share our general flow, both as it kind of went this year, and also as I plan for it to continue into the fall.

We do school year round. We take June off, and July is very casual with a long reading list and math only. So, this schedule applies to our more typical school year, August-May.

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Our Curriculum Choices (10th, 7th, K4)

Our Curriculum Choices (10th, 7th, K4)

I did what I think no other homeschool blogger has ever done- I failed to write a “curriculum pick” post for last year. Eeek. Honestly, in hindsight, I’m thankful. I was full excited about a few programs over last summer, but when it came down to it, they weren’t a good fit and we swapped to new programs after a few weeks.

I’m thankful for the experience, as it was an incredible learning opportunity to me. It also shows that no matter how amazing a program seems, once you get into it, it just might not be a good fit! Suffice it to say, that after an initial “fail” of one program in the fall, we found our way to a program that I now am certain we will use for many years (as certain as an easily distracted homeschool mama can be!).

So, what are our choices for this year? Many of them are simply a continuation of last year…

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Printing Digital Products Affordably

Printing Digital Products Affordably

In this 2-part series, I'll discuss my process for decision making on digital products as well as share my favorite resources for making printing affordable! You can read the digital discussion HERE and the printing help below. 

Edit 8/4/19- I have found another (new) homeschool printing company that I love! FamilyNestPrinting.com has exceptional prices AND they offer a 20% discount to Life, Abundantly readers. Use code Erin20 at checkout to save!

How can I afford to print this all? I get that question ALL the time! Whether it's the stuff from my Gentle + Classical Nature Bundle or my Preschool Bundle, the BYB Annual Sale, you may LOVE what you see, know that you would definitely use it and get great value from it... but you can't figure out how to make the printing feasible. I hope what I share today will help.

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