There is something cute and adorable about penguins. That may be why so many different schools have a penguin unit for kindergarten and preschool. When we used My Father’s World Kindergarten I put together a penguin booklist, and I realized I never shared it, which gives me a great excuse to add to my giant booklist of booklists. Ironically we studied swimming creatures during kindergarten (note for a Future Ticia, make a swimming creatures landing page beyond my ocean animals post), but unfortunately, our studies didn’t line up. If I’d planned that better I would have rearranged it to do so ..read more

Any studies of Illinois will be dominated by Chicago, but I wanted it to go beyond the famous city in Illinois, so I did a bit of research and found some fun facts and people to study as we looked at the state. It was an interesting geography lesson, and our Illinois Unit was a fun addition to our 50 State Study. Amusingly enough, while trying to find some good pictures of Illinois, all of my pictures are of Chicago. So, you win some and you lose some. (there are lots of affiliate links in here) Illinois Unit resources As I mentioned I did a quick internet search to find more to share about t ..read more

Y’all, March veered wildly between so very very slow and how is it flying past so fast. I just have vague memories of some weeks and some weeks have many details. (there are affiliate links in here) Week 1 I actually remembered to take a picture of my month of reading, and how I did with my various things I try to do every day. In case you’re wondering, I’m doing terrible with those habits I’m trying to work on so far this month. We started the month with The Artist at a campout, so we had a fun weekend of playing various different board games. Then in Sunday School, we taught about the Taber ..read more

Every now and then I hear about some random location in Europe that is being excavated for some reason, maybe to make a new parking lot, or maybe it’s just the owner decided to fix something, and then we discover a new Roman Mosaic. It kind of amazes me how they pop up all the time. Several years ago for a history lesson we made a Roman mosaic craft, it was part of this two-week-long Roman history unit we did, and it was a lot of fun, and the way we did this has the advantage of not being permanent, so you can remake it over and over again. (there are affiliate links in here) Roman Mosaic cra ..read more

There are some days you are on top of your Mommy game.  You’ve kept the kids entertained, they’ve learned stuff, and the house is clean.  Okay, I’ve never achieved this last one, but I achieved the first two with this ocean animals book craft as part of homeschooling preschool. (there are affiliate links in here) Ocean Animals Book supplies blank books, crepe paper, construction paper, glitter glue (I swear we go through rivers of this stuff), aluminum foil, markers So here goes. I have a bunch of premade books I got on sale last year at Lakeshore Learning, on the bottom it has line ..read more

A couple of days ago we played Dominion. It’s a relatively simple game, and as we were playing it I was reminded of just how much I enjoy deck-building games, and what a great addition they are to our gameschooling portfolio. We have several, and it’s now time to break out my favorites. (there are affiliate links in here) What is a Deck-Building Game? In a deck-building game, you are buying cards to build your deck over the course of the game. Each game has a different reason and way you use the cards you purchase. Point-earning deck-building games In these, as you build up your deck, you ar ..read more

For some reason, Tunisia has always seemed exotic to me. I think it’s because it gets brief mentions in older movies, or they’ll film there to find alien landscapes (cough Star Wars cough cough). Either way, our Tunisia Unit was a great way for me to learn more about Tunisia than the vague memories I have of it being unusual, and it was a great geography lesson to add to our Africa Unit. I just remembered something else about Tunisia! Pirates! The United States fought the Barbary pirates who were based there. (there are affiliate links in here) Tunisia Unit resources I’m going to admit I did ..read more

I love hands-on learning. We used it all the time in our homeschool and I thought it could be helpful to give everyone an idea of how to add it in to your different subject areas, and some tips and tricks I’ve learned over the years of our hands-on homeschool. As part of my continuing Homeschool How To series, as a great way to help other homeschoolers level-up their homeschool. Future Ticia 2024, I’m updating and refining this, so it’s a bit more useful for everyone. (I’m updating and adding in affiliate links here) Things to keep in mind when starting hands-on learning My kids are big fans ..read more

I was searching for a fun craft to do with my Sunday School class this Sunday. We’re finishing up our Exodus Unit with the 12 Spies lesson, and all of the crafts I could think of would not be popular with my current class, and then I saw a 12 spies bookmark craft on Pinterest, and knew what I had to do. (there are affiliate links in here) My inspiration for the 12 Spies bookmark craft I want to give credit to Crafting the Word of God’s great idea, and since I’m changing it to use paint, my class loves painting, I want you to go see theirs, especially since they have templates for you. I’m fre ..read more

When I studied the various countries I really should have written a date on the country so I would know what grade to put them in. That is completely unrelated to our Gambia Unit, but I’m staring at my notes and what we did on Gambia and the big thing I’m getting from my notes is “a river that masquerades as a country.” It’s interesting what stand out to me in our geography lessons on a country and our Africa Unit really taught me how unique each country is, even with all of their difficulties. (there are affiliate links in here, or in theory there are) Gambia Unit resources Types in a quick ..read more