My first baby turned 9 this week which is shocking to me. She’s so mature now, it’s sometimes hard for my brain to link the big girl she is now with the silly little toddler she used to be. All she wanted for her birthday was to have a slumber party with her fav friends and it’s hard to believe she’s at the age now where they actually try to stay up all night! She had a blast with her friends and also celebrated with all her aunties, uncles and grandparents at a restaurant the weekend before, so her actual birthday was very low key. My girl is a little foodie so she planned an epic birthday menu and had me busy in the kitchen all day long. I don’t mind at all because I love cooking and preparing their favourite foods. As a foodie myself, it is my favourite way to make a birthday feel special.
Maddy’s Birthday Menu:
Course 1
Smoked salmon eggs benedict
Course 2
Her favourite local donuts
Course 3
Homemade mac and cheese
Swiss chicken
Veggies and dip
Course 4
Homemade lemon meringue pie
As I reflect on this birthday girl and her life so far, I realise she is one of the main reasons that we chose the lifestyle we’re currently living. Our home school journey started because this sweet but stubborn oldest child didn’t want to go to school. Yep. That’s it. No matter what I said or did to try to entice her, she simply did not have any interest in going to school. As a former preschool teacher, I am well aware that there are many kids that don’t want to go to school and the adjustment takes time but they eventually get used to it. Trust me when I say that this child of mine would have needed a lot more time than most to adjust, but would have gotten to that point eventually. At first I was bracing myself for the inevitable daily morning battle of forcing her to go. In our society, most 4 year olds go to school, whether they like it or not. It’s just the way it is. To make matters worse, I was scheduled to have a baby on Labour day weekend, just days before school started, and my partner was mostly working from home at that time. This meant that the whole family would be home, settling into life with a new baby (which was already a big transition) and just one family member, a 4 year old, would have to set off into the world on her own everyday and do her own thing. If she were excited for school and wanted to go, I would have sent her. But she wasn’t, so forcing her to go just didn’t sit right with me. I certainly wasn’t ready to commit to homeschooling for life at that point, though it was definitely percolating in the back of my mind. Then I remembered that in our province, junior and senior kindergarten were not “mandatory” ; they were merely recommended. So I decided that we would keep her home that year and revisit the whole school situation the next year.
Cue the global pandemic. In March of what would have been her junior kindergarten year, just when my very slow to warm up child would have finally been getting used to school life, the schools shut down. Since I was a stay at home Mom it was a no-brainer to keep her home the next year. Kids were mostly learning online and were rarely actually in school. When they were in school they had to wear masks and keep their distance. This school model just did not appeal to us so she stayed home and we learned together as a family.
After stumbling into this home school life, we fell in love with it. Learning at our own pace, following the kid’s interests and sharing our interests with them too. She was thriving with this style of learning. Over the years she has taught herself to read, how to knit, sew, bake, etc. A beautiful forest/farm school opened up down the road from us and it is filled with wonderful humans. Our kids attend this school once a week and spend 7 hours outside, rain or shine, ice or snow. It’s a great opportunity for them to meet local friends and gain some independence being away from their parents and learn some practical skills while appreciating the beauty of nature.
So, with almost a decade of parenting now under our belts, and seeing our kids thrive with this lifestyle, we are growing more and more confident with our choice to home educate. With this comes a responsibility to make sure our kids have plenty of resources available to help them learn and grow. Birthday and Christmas presents are a great way for us to build up those resources. From time to time I will share some of the toys/ activities that our family has seen benefits from. Here are a few of Maddy’s favourite birthday presents that she’s gotten over the years and she still uses on a regular basis:
There is a sea of kids’ cookbooks out there but we absolutely love the America’s Test Kitchen books. They are simple, easy to follow, yet still challenging. They have been a big part of helping her be so confident in the kitchen. She’s made many of the recipes and our whole family agrees that every recipe she has tried so far has been delicious!
Snap Circuits are a fun way to teach kids basic engineering, electronics, and circuitry concepts. We’ve been using this for years and all of my kids have shown interest in them. There are so many different ways to connect the pieces, the book shows you many but you can also create your own! It’s very satisfying for them when they’ve completed a circuit and make the lights turn on, motors run, etc.
Always very artistic, we got her this Cricut Joy a couple years ago and it totally upped her card making/ present making skills. We love a homemade gift, and with this she’s been able to make her friends and family some pretty cool personalised presents that she’s proud to give. We’ve gotten some blank mugs, sketch books, pencil holders, etc and she’s used the Cricut to decorate them and add her friends names, favourite animals etc. The computer program she needs to use for this has really advanced her computer knowledge too!
She loves Lego, especially Lego Friends, so we decided to challenge her with this Lego Mindstorms Robot. She can build a couple different robots with it and after you build it you also program the robot which introduces you to the world of coding. We got this a couple years ago and it’s been discontinued, so the price has risen. It’s worth looking for second hand though as it is such a cool toy and they get so much out of it! We found an older version at our toy store that was super discounted because the product box was completely french (which didn’t matter because you can get English instructions online). So, keep your eyes peeled!
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