Fun Winter-Themed Activities to Engage Your Children with Math and Language Arts

If you haven’t seen our free winter printables pack yet you are in for a treat. This pack is a perfect addition to your homeschool, no matter what type of homeschooler you are: Montessori, Classical, Charlotte Mason, Unschooling, Unit Study, or Eclectic. I don’t want to spoil the surprise or bore you to tears by describing every detail of all 32 activities, so I wrote a little poem to read. Or you can just watch Jonathan recite it in the video below...

12+ FREE Montessori Activities for Thanksgiving

Autumn is upon us. The crisp cool air lingers throughout the day. Beautiful fall leaves line our streets. In our homeschool we have found the steady flow of our school year. We embrace relaxed mornings in our jammies and afternoon ShillerMath by the fire. Our printers whir out warm Thanksgiving printables that we work on over a slice of hot apple pie.  What’s not to love about this time of year?

Showing Gratitude in Our Homeschool

A spirit of thankfulness and gratitude is always a good spirit to have. It’s especially prevalent this time of year. As we approach Thanksgiving, here are some ideas to incorporate a spirit of gratitude and thankfulness into the rhythm of your schooling.  

• Stick a poster board or large piece of butcher paper on your wall. Encourage your children to record moments of gratitude throughout the day. For example, your youngest might write about how they were thankful their older sibling helped them with math.

• Research your family history. Find out where your ancestors immigrated from. Learn more about their journey to get here, what early life was like, and the lineage of people who brought you to this moment in history. Learning about our past can be a great way to bring gratitude for where we’re at today.

• Tell your family members thank you more often. So often we ignore the simple act of thanking one another for their kindness.

• Make “caught in the act” cards. Write the word “caught in the act of ___________” on a small paper, or make business card size cards. Everyone in the family gets a stack. Family members hand them out to one another to show appreciation for one another. Examples of times you may wish to use them, when you see someone else doing a kind deed, going above and beyond, or working hard at something they struggle with. Fill in the blank for the recipient.

• Write “Thank You” notes as part of your daily language arts or writing time.

• Visit your local library and do something nice for the librarians. As homeschoolers, librarians are some of our best helpers! Bring them a nice card, ask if there’s a way you can help, or tidy up the toys.

• Cook a meal for a local military or public service member’s family.

• Start a “Thankfulness Jar.” You’ll find all the information on starting this in the FREE Activity Pack download below.

FREE Montessori Activities and Thanksgiving Printables

In the spirit of gratitude and harvest season, we have put together this Homeschooling Harvest Pack. You’ll find activities for preschoolers through teens, including works for mixed ages. This FREE pack of Montessori activities is one you will want to include in your shelf works. It would also be fun to have these Thanksgiving printables available while you’re in Thanksgiving-prep-mode. A handful of the activities may be done any time of year - cultivating gratitude is never out of season.

You’ll find a couple projects designed to enhance your Thanksgiving meal. We included a fun and easy craft for your student to make place cards to put around the table. They’ll also learn how to roll napkins. It’s amazing what pride and joy our children find when they get to contribute something beautiful to the family table. We also have included a couple Thanksgiving research activities. Your children might enjoy sharing what they have learned over the Thanksgiving table.

Your students may also enjoy completing these activities on Thanksgiving Day if they start to get a little restless. The Apple Taste Test Comparison would be a fun activity for the whole family over Thanksgiving weekend.

We hope you have a Happy Thanksgiving and are able to find a new season of joy and gratitude in your homeschool this year. Make sure to fill out the form below for your download of our Harvest Activity Pack.

This Planner Created By Moms for Moms Will Help Set Your Best Homeschool Routine Yet

I’m coming into my second year of “official” homeschooling. We have a list for our back to school supplies and I have a fairly good idea of what our homeschool routine looks like. I’m no expert by any means but I feel better equipped for at home schooling than I did last year. Having a solid plan and being prepared for whatever may come your way is an important part of choosing home education.  

ShillerLearning’s FREE Montessori Homeschool Printable Planner

Our kids are quick, if we’re not prepared they’ll know it. The team here at ShillerLearning decided to put together our dream planner. We hope it will help you in preparing for a new school year, or launching into your first year of home education. It is full of useful pages to help you get set up for success. It’s included below in the free printable pack. You’ll also find handy information on Practical Life and Sensorial works, self-care ideas, and a plan for a mini-getaway to prepare yourself for the coming year.  
 

In this planner you will find:

- A beautiful cover page with a Maria Montessori quote
- Weekly menu planning page
- Space for you to set monthly goals- personal or school related
- Your weekly goals- use this for schooling, personal, work, spiritual, etc.
- Reading log to track all you read this year (link to mother culture blog), plus a book list of some of our favorite books
- Weekly spreads- we have two layouts for this one.
                One is our student planner to help you plan the schedule for your student(s), this is set up with the most common Montessori subjects along the top and days of the week down the side. We’ve provided you with a couple blank spaces to add in additional subjects.
                One is a planner for you. The spaces along the top are blank. Your possibilities are endless on this one. Use it for keeping track of chores, kids activities, work schedules, extracurriculars, co-ops, etc. Or use it in place of the student planner by listing your students names along the top and planning for your school year within these pages

- Field-trip plans sheet
- Habit tracker
- Highlight of the week- including a spot to glue a photograph or draw a picture of something you loved from the week
- Quote page- to collect your favorite inspirational quotes, verses, and other encouragements

 "The child should love everything he learns. Whatever is presented to him must be made beautiful and clear. Once this love has been kindled, all problems confronting the educationalist will disappear." - Maria Montessori

The weekly spreads you might want to laminate to use with dry-erase markers. Or perhaps print as many copies as you plan to have weeks of school. Then get them bound at the local office supply store, or put them into your favorite discbound or 3-ring binder. Last, give yourself time and space to go get your planning done.  

A current trend among at home schooling parents is to go for a kid-free night away at a motel to plan the upcoming school year. If you can’t swing that, head to your favorite coffee shop for a bit or even work at the library while the kids are in a class. Find some time you can sit down with all your materials to schedule and think about your homeschool routine for the year.

Planning ShillerLearning’s Materials

All of our Montessori lessons are open and go. There is no prep-work required on your end beyond making sure the proper materials are available. Each child has their own pace and we don’t designate a set schedule. In the front of each ShillerLearning lesson book, you’ll find helpful tips for working through the book with your student. In our math books, for example, we suggest 15 minutes per day for 4-year-olds, adding 5 more minutes per day for year of age.

How you choose to schedule our lessons is totally up to you. Students may want to repeat a lesson to gain competency and closure. We do suggest flexibility in your scheduling. Occasionally children will want to repeat the same lesson many times. In most cases, it will take one school year to get through each book. Make sure to also schedule in time to allow your student to create practice problems and use the flashcards.

Remember, sometimes a child is not ready for covering a certain subject or topic. If you find your student is really struggling with something, that’s ok. Pencil it in for a later date and skip onto the next concept. Use these planner pages to jot down notes and reflections as you work through the materials.

Set-up Your Homeschool Space After You’re All Planned

Now that you have your school year planned, get that classroom set up. Check out this video to see Aurie’s room tour with school supply list:

FREE Montessori Based Summer Activity Pack for Homeschoolers

Summertime is often when many of us take a break from homeschooling. Even if we school year-round, we usually go a bit lighter in the summer to enjoy those nice warm days while we’re able. It’s the perfect time to work on nailing down skills our students have previously struggled with and explore a new subject of interest. We are thrilled to bring you this free summer activity pack. It’s perfect for homeschoolers, or families looking for engaging activities for kids who are out of school.

Summer Activities for Kids

In this over 30 page activity pack, you’ll find gobs of easy to put together activities and the free printables you’ve come to know and love from ShillerLearning. In addition to the activities in this pack, here are more ideas to curb hearing “Mom, I’m bored!” this summer.

• Create Your Own Lesson- Kids are constantly saying “if I was in charge I would..” Give them the chance to do it their way! Set them loose with materials and let them design their own dream homeschool or summer lesson plan. Take them to the library and let them grab a bunch of books on something they are interested in, encourage them to create their own learning, and see what they come up with! You might be pleasantly surprised as they come up with something to implement into your homeschool, create an awesome game or (shhhh, don’t tell them) learn a new skill.

• You-Pick farms- This is always fun way to create family memories. Find a local you-pick farm and head out to pick your own food. Oftentimes these farms are growing berries and sometimes what you eat as you pick are free. Then bring them home and enjoy baking, canning, or freezing of your bounty. Check out fallingfruit.org to see free local you-pick options too!

• Progressive Game Night (or afternoon)- Some participation and help coordinating might be needed on the part of parents for this one, but it is so fun! (Plus, of course, parental supervision). Get together with neighbors and nearby friends. Have each family pick a lawn game, board game or outdoor activity (like sidewalk chalk or sprinklers). The kids can work together to decide who will do which activity, make a master map ahead of time and set the schedule. Each home can host something different for a fun afternoon, or evening, of time together and exercise as you bike, or walk, between houses. Make sure to invite lots of friends, have plenty of healthy snacks & water, and have a blast! This is a fun activity around 4th of July weekend

• Amazing Race- Let the kids come up with their own version of the Amazing Race. Have them create activities and pit stops to do around your house, the block or your town. Then let them get together with friends and play out their show. Older kids might even enjoy filming and making their own episode.

How to Use This Free Activity Pack

There’s no right or wrong way to implement this pack. We’ve provided you with an extensive book list covering all reading abilities. It is our hope that you’ll grab some of these books for your students to enjoy this summer. The rest of the pack is pretty open-ended. You can work through it in order, pick and choose the activities you’d like to do, let the kids pick, do one a day or do them all in a week. It’s really up to you! Most require little to no prep-work and only a few need materials. It’s good to peek ahead and see what you might need to pre-purchase or borrow from a friend.

What’s Inside?

You'll find over a dozen activities. We have Montessori-inspired works like Nomenclature cards, map work, and even a matching game. Then we’ve included a couple easy summer crafts followed by nature activities. Many of these nature activities would be awesome to do on a camping trip but can easily be done in your own yard or at a local park. Lastly we end the pack with a couple delicious recipes of some ice-cold treats to enjoy on these hot summer days!

We hope you’ll enjoy this pack and have the best summer yet.

5 Montessori Works You Can Create With Materials From Your Craft Supplies

Montessori materials can be extremely expensive. The cost of materials is often off-putting to families looking to begin homeschooling, or a co-op.   I know when I began working in a Montessori school, I was amazed at the sheer amount of materials and works. Our head of school happened to be a frugal and financially-minded woman who had a lot of creative ideas to save on costs.   When I began homeschooling my son, I decided to look in my arts and crafts supplies to make my own Montessori Materials for our homeschool. These are some of my favorite works which you can easily create yourself at home!

The Top 5 DIY Montessori Materials

Montessori Color Matching

This work can be created with tissue paper, colored paper or cardstock. You have a couple options for variations.

Beginning color matching- Clip out two 2-inch x 2-inch squares of 6 different colors of paper. Use the same type of paper in each color for very young children (2 and under), for older children try using different types of paper. The child will then match the correct sets of colors to one another.

More advanced color matching- Use the squares of paper from above and cut one into smaller squares. Start with 3 colors at a time. Place 3 of the larger squares at the top of the work area and all the smaller squares into a bowl. Allow the student to place the smaller squares on the proper corresponding larger square. This also works well with beads, buttons, or other small items in the corresponding colors. You can also choose to cut our circles, hearts, or any other shape you desire for the child to use for matching.

Math Counters

Counters are a huge part of Montessori Math. These are extremely easy to create yourself from beads or buttons. It is fun to change out the counters based on the month, using hearts in February and pumpkins in the Fall, for example. You may also want to cut out counters into the desired shapes from paper. Wrapping paper can also be fun to use and cut out the little shapes found on the pattern.

Fabric Textures

Texture matching with different fabrics is a classic Montessori material. Raid that basket of unused fabric for 4-6 different textures of fabric. Cut them into equal sized squares (usually somewhere between 4-inch x 4-inch to 6-inch x 6-inch). Younger students match the fabrics by touch and sight. Older students can be blindfolded to match the fabric textures by feeling only. It’s also fun to put the fabric scraps into a bag or pillow case and have the child find a match by feel. This also works well with different grits of sandpaper.

Lacing Cards

Save your old greeting cards for this one! Or, use scrapbooking paper, or cardstock. Use a hole punch to punch around the outside of the card. Provide the child with a child-safe needle and some string or thread. Then allow them to lace around the card. This is also a pretty activity to create holiday decorations when laced by hand with ribbon. Older students can work on different types of stitches and even different patterns.

Pouring, Spooning and Scooping

Gather up all those cute little things in your arts and crafts supplies. You know what I mean, all those cute buttons, marbles, small trinkets, and beads in the $1 bins that you just can’t resist and then never do anything with (or is that only me?). These, along with basic dried beans and rice, make the perfect materials for Practical Life works. Use them in the ShillerLearning pouring cups to practice pouring back and forth or pouring into cups and bowls. Place them into a bowl and allow kids to practice spooning them back and forth between bowls. Give students a small child-sized ladle and watch as they ladle the materials. The possibilities are endless.

Hope you enjoy these easy to create Montessori works. Go raid your arts and crafts supplies and see what you can come up with, we’d love to see your DIY works!

Like these ideas?

Check out these monthly activity packs that are full of DIY Montessori activities and FREE Printables:

This Planner Created By Moms for Moms Will Help Set Your Best Homeschool Routine Yet

FREE Montessori Based Summer Activity Pack for Homeschoolers

FREE Montessori Based Spring Activities For Kids

How This FREE Grace & Courtesy Printable Pack Turns “Chores” into Games

Have Your Best Homeschool Year Yet With These Great Planning Tips

What is it that happens between the fresh excitement of homeschool planning and the Spring slump? Why do we go from being motivated, organized, and passionate to burned out? The back-to-school season is a season of excitement. Even those who homeschool year-round feel it. The season comes with a crisp touch in the air and a renewed motivation in our hearts. Only to find a few months later we’re exhausted, disorganized, and in a slump.

Burnout at Home and in the Classroom

I came to homeschooling after years of working in schools. First, I worked in a traditional Montessori Preschool for almost a decade. It was actually my first ever “real” job. I stayed in that job throughout college. My head-of-school gave me a chance to work in every single classroom. I also worked in the before & after school program. I even helped in administration and office duties. Throughout college and my first few years after graduation, I continued to work in education in one capacity or another.

After a few years, I landed at an incredible school for Learning Disabled and Special Needs kids.   I worked in a K-2 class and sometimes substituted with older kids. I was given the chance to see many different teaching styles and approaches. I stayed there for several years until my son was born. Now I continue my work in education as an at-home-educator with Montessori homeschooling.

Why do I tell you this? Because teachers burn out too! In fact, I observed that many teachers burn out faster than moms at home. What I have observed through all my years in education is something that seems to separate those who burn out from those who don’t. Systems and organization. Those who came into a school year with an organizational system seemed to stay motivated. I also noticed they were much less likely to get in over their heads. Yes, the systems adapted as the year progressed. And, yes, sometimes things didn’t work.   Now I have worked my way from class educator to home educator. I find so much value in having good systems in place to bring ease to our days.

Today I hope to offer a few homeschool time management tips. It is my hope these tips will be something you can incorporate to avoid slump and overwhelm later

Back-to-School Time Management Tips

Pick a method and stick with it- Don’t “throw the baby out with the bathwater” too fast. It takes at least 40 days to adjust to a new routine. Just because a routine or planning method doesn’t work at first, doesn’t mean it will never work. You may need more time to iron out the wrinkles.

Expect the unexpected- We lay out our bright, shiny new schedule at the beginning of the year. Then life happens. Someone gets sick. There’s a job transfer. You face a death in the family. Your schedule gets out of whack and you get frustrated. Leave in flex time! Add in a few “buffer” days- sort of like how public schools add in extra days for snow days.

Buffer your day- Often we forget to add in transitional time to our daily routine. It can take children a while to transition from activity to activity. This is not because they are stubborn or not listening. It’s because their brains take longer to transition and transition is sometimes hard. Give yourself a 5-10 minute buffer between each activity. You may even need to make that longer if you have young children, a baby at home, or a child with special needs. This can make a dramatic change in your homeschool routine.

Plan like a funnel- Start out with a broad overview of where you hope to be by the end of the year. Then schedule out each element. It can be helpful to have goals for each month set at the beginning of the school year. Then, perhaps, only do a detailed schedule for every six-eight weeks. Keeping the idea of a funnel in mind is helpful. Broad for what’s to come, narrow for what’s happening now.

Schedule in time for YOU- Give yourself at least an hour a week of YOU time. No kids, no responsibility. Make it two if you can. An hour to relax and unwind alone does remarkable things. If you can add in another hour to take time to learn and nurture your interests, even better.

Track your time- Use a time tracker app, a Bullet Journal spread, or a piece of paper. Write out everything you spend your time on in a week. Then evaluate it and see what you can drop, outsource, or needs better balance. Use this to help inform your decisions about scheduling.
 

Put it down in paper and pen (or pencil)- The neurological process is different when we plan with paper vs digital. Using real paper and writing out goals, schedules, and plans can be revolutionary in and of itself. We even made it easy for you with a beautiful FREE printable planner. Homeschool planning takes on a new life on paper!

Give loop scheduling a try- Instead of scheduling specific subjects on certain days, try looping. This way if you have something come up on, say your “History Tuesday” you won’t miss it. To loop, write down the subjects you want to cover daily and the subjects you want to cover weekly. Start at the top of your weekly list and cover at least one of those subjects a day. The next day, move to the next subject(s) on the list. Then if you miss a day of school, you won’t miss a topic- you move to what’s next on the loop.

Follow the lead of the child- This is a core component of a Montessori education. If your child needs to spend an entire quarter covering the same 4 sections in Math Book 1, that ’s ok. Adjust your plans to follow their lead. This also applies you find your child dawdles, struggles with focus, or seems to zone out. We’ll talk more about this in an upcoming blog. Montessori homeschooling is the perfect environment to follow your child’s lead.

Get a little help from ShillerLearning- We have made planning easy for both parents and students. Check out our FREE printable planners- there’s a set for homeschool parents that we brought you last month. This month, we’re happy to bring you a Student Planner Pack. In it you’ll find back-to-school activities your kids will love. We have activities like timer races, schedule card creation, cutting strips, clockworks, and more! Plus it has a FREE Student printable planner to help your child get organized along with you!

Focus on your next best thing- A time will come in planning, or in your year when you’ll get overwhelmed. Or an unexpected situation will arise, a new baby will come, etc. and your schedule will get backed up. In those moments of overwhelm, ask yourself “What is my best next thing?” Maybe that’s working on Math, or maybe it’s going out back to lay in the grass and watch the clouds. In moments of overwhelming- all you need to focus on is one thing at a time. No matter what it is, go from one best thing to the next and before you know it- you’ll be feeling calmer.

I hope some of these tips and tricks are helpful. I would love to hear about some of the things you do to help schedule and plan too. Plus, make sure to check out these other blogs and resources:

Montessori Homeschool Parent Planner Pack

How The Montessori Three-Period Lesson Changed My Homeschool

TED Talks For Homeschool Reading Inspiration

We hope this pack will encourage you to enjoy and learn more about Homeschooling. Plus this month’s pack is just as free as fresh air and sunshine! So download it now and start reading with your child!