We are about one month away from starting our homeschool year. I want to go into this school year with high expectations, because I believe in myself and I also believe in my daughter and what she is capable of. My personality is not one for going half way either, I'm a little more all or nothing. That being said, I do want to keep my expectations realistic and light.

Last year I was super flexible with our homeschool since it was technically just preschool still. Despite missing days or keeping it simple, we still got through almost everything we set out to do. With that experience behind me, I know that slow and steady really does work out in the end. There is no need for overload or overwhelm. But I'd still like to have a plan, and today I want to share my plan with you!

Four Days a Week

First my daughter is in Kindergarten this year. I kind of feel like this is a transition year to more full-time schooling (although I'm not sure what that looks like for us either). That being said, it is my plan to have more structured, formal school days Monday-Thursday. Four days a week feels really good to me. It will leave Friday open for exploration and creativity or just as an additional day of rest. The school we were planning on attending in the fall only does school four days a week, and that is one of the things I loved about it, so I have adopted that as our plan.

Three to Four Hours a Day

I am also planning on only spending three to four hours a day on homeschool stuff. This will leave plenty of time open for childhood and creative play. I don't have a schedule with blocks of time for different subjects, instead we will work through lessons for as long as they take and then move onto the next lesson. I suspect that this along with quiet reading time, crafts, physical activity, and whatever else we want to include in our schooling will pan out to being about 3-4 hours of time a day. 

Subjects We Will Work On Every Day

Each day we will begin the morning by engaging in basic life skills like making breakfast, putting the dishes away, brushing teeth, getting dressed, etc. We would do these things in a timely fashion if we were trying to get out the door to school, so I expect us to do these things (including me) before we begin our own school day.

After we are all ready for the day, I plan on us having a routine around how we start school. I really believe in teaching not only standard curriculum, but also engaging in learning about your body, mind, and spirit. Each day we plan on starting with practicing a yoga pose and stating a positive affirmation. Yoga can connect you to your body and affirmations are such a great way to be intentional about being positive. After that we will do a 1 minute quiet meditation where we just focus on our breath. This teaches us to be still and present. Then we will sing a song together and read a story together. I think this daily routine will really set the homeschool day up nicely and be something that can help us transition from what we were doing before homeschool into our homeschool learning.

After our daily routine we will get into our standard curriculum. I am planning on working on Language Arts, Handwriting, and Math every day. We will get those three things done together first. We generally do these things in the same order every day, but I am flexible if my daughter wants to change it up. As long as these three things are completed, I am happy.

Subjects We Will Work On Weekly

Once we finish those three subjects, I am pretty open to doing whatever seems to work with the rest of our time. We have science units to complete, crafts and activities, drawing books, and a nature notebook. Depending on the season we may choose to do any of those activities in a day. I am hoping we will be able to do each of these things at least once a week. 

I also have collected a library of books that Kennedy has never read. I plan on her reading one book each week and then planning an activity that will bring the book to life. I am really excited about this and can see her spending time on that when we are finished with our normal routine.

And that is what I am planning for our daily homeschool schedule. I will see how it works and how to tweak it here and there as the year goes by. I will also be open to holidays and normal school breaks. We will enjoy working around those like a normal school would.

What are your homeschooling plans? I'd love to know what you will be doing to make your homeschool experience just right for your family!

Mallory

My baby just turned one. In an attempt to help her get to sleep easier and more peacefully, we have recently started a bedtime routine. As part of that routine we read 5 board books together. Today I want to share with you the 5 books we read every night before we go to bed. I love them all so much, my one year old loves them too. 

1 | You Are My I Love You - Maryann Cusimano Love - My Grandma shared this book with me and it is so beautiful in words and pictures. I love reading this to my daughter every night and as we read the last page she gets a kiss and I tell her I love you. I think it is a beautiful book to read just before bed (and any other time you can). 

2 | A Book of Sleep - Il Sung Na - This book about how a variety of animals sleep, is perfect for bedtime. I love learning about how animals sleep in so many different ways and it gets us ready to go to sleep too.

3 | I Love You to the Moon and Back - Tim Warnes - Another books that shares the message of love, it is perfect for the end of the day. This book goes through a whole day and talks about how much a mama bear loved doing everything with her baby bear. In the end it is time for bed, but not after reminiscing on a day well lived. I think it is a nice way to say we had a great day today now it is time for bed so we can be ready for another great day tomorrow.

4 | Goodnight Moon - Margaret Wise Brown - Honestly I wasn't sure why this book was a classic when I first picked it up, but now I look forward to it every night. I think both of my daughters really love the way the illustrations alternate between black and white pictures and colored pictures. My one year old also is learning to say "hush" right now with the quiet old lady and those first words, I'm telling you there is something so perfect about them. I've definitely learned to love this book.

5 | The Going to Bed Book - Sandra Boynton - This is just the best bedtime story of all time. We always save it for last. It is just a story of some animal friends on a boat getting ready for bed, but in some magical and simple way, it is fun and silly and a perfect way to end the night. I would absolutely make sure this is part of your bedtime book collection.

What books do you love to read to your little ones just before bed? I'd love to know, so please do share them in the comments below!

Mallory

If you love this book list, I'm sure you would love my Ultimate Children's Book List filled with my favorite board books, picture books, first chapter books & holiday books!

*Some links in this post are part of the Amazon Associates Program. Thank you for supporting my family.

I love meditation. A diligent practice of meditation made a huge shift in my life, I feel happier, lighter, more full of hope. If you are interested in that story, you can learn all about my own meditation journey in my course. Since meditation and mindfulness had such a profound impact on my life, I want to make it a part of our family culture. I want our kids to grow up in it, to be immersed in the peace, stillness, and joy that comes from living in the present moment. Today I want to share five of my all time favorite resources that we use in our home to learn about and practice meditation, mindfulness, and being in the present moment with our children.

Before we dive into the resources, I just want to quickly say that I don't think we need to teach kids mindfulness and presence in the same way I would go about learning it as an adult. I think adults need to learn to return to mindfulness and presence, but kids are pretty good at living in that state most of the time. So as I teach my girls about mindfulness and presence, it is more of a reminder of who they naturally are, rather than showing them how to do something differently. 

Okay here are my 5 favorite resources for teaching kids about mindfulness.

Books

1 | I Am Peace : A Book of Mindfulness By Susan Verde - This book is beautifully illustrated by Peter H. Reynolds. It is colorful and vibrant while also simple and peaceful. It teaches how we can sometimes feel overwhelmed by life, but there are tools that can help us stay calm and come back to peace. It is written in a way that when I read it out loud I feel a sense of peace, there is not need to rush through any part of it. We read it slowly, and soak in the words. I love this book and would certainly recommend it.

2 | Om the Otter By Parvati Shallow, Beth Cooper, Rachel Robinson, and Paula Van Loan - I think the most beautiful part of this book is that it teaches us to be able to just sit and be with people that are having a hard time. So often I want to solve problems and help people be happy, but sometimes all people need is us to just be with them and give them love while they are struggling. This book shows us that it is okay to just be there for someone and not have to solve everything. It also teaches how you can take deep breaths in times of need. 

Cards

3 | Mindful Kids - This deck of cards has a huge variety of meditations that are made specifically for children. They use play and imagination to bring kids to stillness and peace. There are morning meditations, evening meditation, meditations while moving, etc. I really love using this deck of cards and plan on incorporating it into our daily homeschool routine in the fall.

4 | Yoga Pretzels - Much like the mindful kids card deck, this deck of cards has a huge variety of yoga positions. They are divided into categories as well, like balance poses, standing poses, partner poses, etc. Yoga is a great way to teach being present and being present in your body. As you move you have to be mindful of your body and it's position. I love doing these poses with my girls and plan on incorporating yoga poses into our daily homeschool routine in the fall as well.

Videos

5 | Cosmic Kids Yoga - This channel on youtube is just one of my favorite channels ever. The host takes kids through a story (many of the stories are well known like Frozen & Moana or The Very Hungry Caterpillar and We're Going on A Bear Hunt). Throughout the story she has the kids move into different yoga poses that go along with what is happening. I just think it is brilliant. And my 5 year old loves it. It gets her moving but I think it is also really high quality and lovely entertainment as well.

Okay those are my 5 brilliant mindfulness resources for children. Am I missing anything? I'm sure I am, there are so many wonderful resources out there. Let me know in the comments below if you have used anything in your home that has been a wonderful way to teach your children about mindfulness.

Mallory

One of the best ways to teach mindfulness to our children, is to practice mindfulness in our lives. When we are mindful and present with them, they learn to be mindful and present as well. One of the best ways to practices mindfulness and presence is through a personal meditation practice. If you want to learn how to create and incorporate a meditation practice into your life that is perfect for you, I invite you to join my Introduction to Meditation Course. In this course you will learn about the benefits of meditation, how meditation works, and how you can create a perfect personal practice of meditation for your own life. 

It is the end of July. Before we know it August will be here, then September. Despite Covid 19 and everything else that 2020 has brought with it, the world keeps spinning, and time keeps moving forward. With that in mind I am looking forward to the 2020 homeschool year ahead and preparing our curriculum and schedule. 

This is my second year homeschool my daughter and she will technically be in Kindergarten. We use The Good and the Beautiful Curriculum, and I'm excited to share with you what we got and my plans to use it.

Math | Last year we did Level K Math with my daughter, so this year we will move to Level 1. If we hadn't done level K last year we would start there since she will technically be in Kindergarten. I absolutely love The Good and the Beautiful Math Lessons. Last year I found we could get through about 1 lesson a day. Some lessons felt a little long, and others felt quite quick, but in general for us, it was just right. I love the lessons because they feel cohesive as you work on different skills for quite a few days in a row, but they also feel fresh and new each day. It is not rote learning, rather it is learning skills from different perspectives, angles, and viewpoints. It is really engaging as well.

I think Math is one of those things to do on a daily basis, so we will be doing one lesson of math Monday thru Thursday each week. 

Language Arts | I am also in love with The Good and the Beautiful Language Arts Lessons. I love how through the curriculum is. It teaches spelling, poetry, art, reading, phonics, etc. It is fun and beautiful and really different each day. It never feels like you are just going through the motions because there is a wide variety or activities and learning.

Like math we did Level Pre-K and K last year so we will move to Level 1. Also like math I will be doing one language arts lessons with my daughter daily, Monday thru Thursday each week. 

Handwriting | Last year we did Level K and Level 1 handwriting. This year I got the books for Level 1 and Level 2 handwriting. I like to make handwriting a consistent practice so it is something we will do daily, Monday thru Thursday each week. I also feel like handwriting is so important not to rush. So I have my daughter do one page a day, and give her time and space to give her full attention to it. I also have liked to repeat handwriting books, so she is solidly building her handwriting skills. I love The Good and the Beautiful Handwriting books because they include a space for little ones to draw and color and simply work on holding and using a pencil. My daughter really looks forward to that part as well so it is fun for her.

Science | Last year we chose to work on Space Science. It was a wonderful unit. This year we have decided to do Botany. Honestly, we are both so excited about it we have already started. I figure this is a good time to do Botany as well, since flowers are in bloom and trees have leaves. It is just a better time to observe plants in the summer. If we get done with science we also have The Human Body unit as well as the Meteorology unit. 

I try to do science about twice a week at least. It really depends how long our daily tasks take. I also find that when we do science we do not necessarily do a whole lesson. We might split one lesson to do over the course of the week, or longer depending the the various activities and requirements. I have found that The Good and the Beautiful science activities can be quite engaging and interactive, so it can take a little more time for preparation and to complete the activity. I just take it nice and easy right now and do what we can and try to make it fun. 

Electives | We purchased a few of the elective books as well - Creative Arts & Crafts, Drawing Level One, and The Nature Notebook. I have found that I do these less formally. Sometimes we just pull out these books and do them for fun when we need an activity and are just hanging out. This year I might try to do them more intentionally, but I also might decide to just keep it fun and keep them as activities we can do when we need something to do. 

Books | Finally I got a big stack of books from The Good and the Beautiful Library ranging from Level 1B to Level 4. My daughter loves to read and will read almost anything she can get her hands on. If we were still working on reading I would have gotten many more lower level books, but since I wasn't really sure what reading level would suit her needs, I decided to just get a variety. 

My plan is to give her a book each week, starting with the level 1 books and moving up. Her task will be to read the book independently and then come up with some sort of activity that will bring the book to life. We could make a recipe that was made in the book, make a stop motion video retelling the story, sing a song, write a poem, make a craft, go on an outing, really anything that would relate to what was going on in the book. 

I hope that by doing this I will foster creativity in her as well as gauge her reading comprehension. I think it will be really fun. 

There you go. That is the curriculum we will be using for our Kindergarten homeschool this year and my plans of how we will go about it. Are you deciding to homeschool too? What are you most excited about?

Mallory

My daughter just turned one year old, which is significant because she has made her first journey around the sun. It is also significant because it means I have made it a full year of cloth diapering, something I wasn't sure I would be able to do when I bought all the supplies just before she was born. 

Today I want to talk about cloth diapering. I was so inspired by other moms who were cloth diapering and as someone who is always looking for ways to lessen my impact on the environment, I decided I wanted to give cloth diapering a go.

When we told people we were cloth diapering I was surprised how many people thought I would be using a service that would wash my cloth diapers for me, I was definitely planning on doing it on my own (and very capable thank you very much). I also got a few less than ideal remarks about how it was a stinky job to do and I kind of let that get me down since it was often said with a judgmental tone.

I really wanted to cloth diaper and I knew I could do it, so I clung to the words my mom said when I told her about my decision. She told me, "that's amazing, you are really living your values." As a words of affirmation kind of girl, I so appreciated her cheering me on and her recognition of who I was as a person and belief in me and my values.

Now that I have cloth diapered for a year, I wanted to write this post to cheer on anyone who is dabbling with the idea of cloth diapering, as well as share some tips from my own experience. Honestly cloth diapering has been so much more simple and easy than I anticipated. I am so glad I decided to go for it. Here is all that I have learned and want to share with you!

1| We used bumGenius Freetime diapers. I ultimately decided to go with these because they looked like the easiest option (and I'm all about that!) The liners are sewn into the diaper so there is no stuffing involved. You just fold the flaps and are all ready. I also loved the snap buttons and they way you can use these diapers the whole time you are cloth diapering. I did not cloth diaper my first child and I have not noticed any more leaking or diaper rash with these cloth diapers than I did when I was using disposable diapers. It still happens occasionally, but it has not increased. 

I'll mention here that I also use cloth wipes that I spray with a combination of water and just a bit of baby soap. It works great!

Okay now that we have the brand we use let's get to the ways I make cloth diapering easy.

2 | The 80% rule. I'll be honest, I just made up this rule for myself. It's not really a rule as much as a goal. I want to use cloth diapers at least 80% of the time. What does that mean for me? Well I still use some disposable diapers. The two occasions I use disposable diapers is when we are traveling and at night. 

The thing is you want to wash your diapers every 2-3 days, so when we travel it would be super hard to make sure that happens. If we are traveling for more than an overnight or weekend trip, I go ahead and just use disposable diapers. It makes the trip so much easier and it is just one less thing I have to worry about. When we do travel I make sure I wash all of my cloth diapers before we leave and have them drying. I don't want to leave any wet diapers in a bag for the duration of time we are gone. This means I will go through a few disposable diapers before we head out the door since I will be laundering all the wet diapers at that time. 

I also use disposable diapers at night. This started when my baby started sleeping longer through the night and when changing her diaper in the middle of the night lead to her waking up. I found if she slept a long time the diaper would leak. And if I changed her diaper I was risking her being awake for a middle of the night party with me. So I went ahead and got disposable diapers which seemed to be able to last a bit longer. 

Other than those two times I am using cloth diapers. I figure I am using cloth diapers about 80% of the time or more, and I feel really good about that. I live by the question if everyone in the world made the change I did, would it make a big improvement? If the answer is yes I'll make that change. If everyone in the world cloth diapered 80% of the time, obviously there would be SO much less waste, and I truly believe it would be better for our environment, so I do my best to apply that to my life.

3 | I have found that laundering cloth diapers has been so much more simple than I expected. I exclusively breastfed my baby for the first six months, and since breastfed baby poop is water soluble, all I had to do was throw the diaper, poop and all, into the wash and let the machine and soap do the work. After we started introducing solids we now have to dispose of the poop in the toilet, but that has been quite easy for us too. 

Basically my laundering schedule looks like taking a full wet bag of diapers every two to three days and throwing them in the laundry. I do I rinse cycle. Then I add detergent and do a hot water wash cycle followed by one more rinse cycle. To finish I hang the diapers and cloth wipes up to dry. 

When I first started cloth diapering I use to fold and button all of my diapers so they would look perfect all lined up in a drawer. After a few months of that I started just folding the diapers but not buttoning them. After a few month of that I started to just toss the diapers in the drawer and fold them as I needed them. Every way worked!

4 | My last tip/advice or maybe it is just a parting thought is that cloth diapering has been a really lovely experience for me. I want to take a moment to connect cloth diapering to sonderity (which is living in the richness of life).

When I used disposable diapers, I literally just consumed the product and then got rid of it. I didn't think too much about any part of the process. The diaper was just a diaper, it had a job to do, and two hours later it was in the trash.

As I have cloth diapered I have felt like it has been a reminder to me of what I value and how much I appreciate Mother Earth. You see I have to change diapers probably 8+ times a day, and each time I reach for the cloth diaper and prepare it for use, I am reminded why I decided to cloth diaper. I am reminded that I am thankful for our earth and that I am doing what I can to take care of it. I am reminded that I value reducing my waste. I am reminded that I love this earth and want to keep it lovely for my children. 

Those reminders make me feel good. They bring a depth of experience to my life. Something simple and common holds a reminder of what I deeply value. It has been an unexpected experience for me. But it has made this decision to cloth diaper so much more valuable than I initially expected.

I hope these tips and advice are helpful to you. I hope if you are thinking about cloth diapering I have been able to give you some inspiration to go for it. I believe in you and your ability to do it. And I really believe that like me, you may experience unexpected benefits.

If you have any other questions about cloth diapering, please leave them in the comments below. I'd love to help in any way I can!

Mallory