Homeschooling | healthy homeschool family

The other day, my daughter (the blondie) and I were talking about homeschooling. She asked why she had to be homeschooled and I told her we were not happy with the school system here! Then she said that she was happy that we homeschool and really did love it. This came as a surprise to me because there are days (bad days) when she says she doesn’t want to homeschool or that she wants to go back to public school. So, when she said that she loved it, I was shocked! As we sat and talked, she rattled off some of the reasons why we are blessed to be able to homeschool: they got to play volleyball, they had their STEM class, they get to sleep in (meaning, they are up around 7:45 and we start schooling around 9:30-10), we get to go on more then 2 field trips in a year, special activities, park day… The list could go on. But one of the things that she didn’t realize is that since we do homeschool and don’t have to be up at 6:30 am, we can do more together as a family at night! So, bring on the fun Advent activities!

Fun Advent Calender Activities!

Advent Calender
Copyright by Holly Hedman

This year, seeing as the kids don’t have to be in bed by 7:30 pm, we are doing a couple of fun Advent activities. The kids have been enjoying the homemade advent calender from Only Passionate Curiosity. This Advent calender is different then the ones you buy in the store because you (the parent) can pick what goes inside of it. Plus, it is homemade… Who doesn’t like homemade things? Only Passionate Curiosity even gives you predetermined activities or you can write an activity a blank activity sheet that they designed for you!

Girls enjoyed stringing popcorn
Copyright by Holly Hedman

What I picked for our family: some predetermined activities and some activities I wrote. The activities I wrote were events that we already planned, so that works out perfectly! One of the predetermined activity was to watch a Christmas movie. I put that together with string popcorn for garland. Made for a great memory maker type of night!

Truth In The Tinsel

Our Family Working On Our Project
Copyright by Holly Hedman

Crown
Copyright by Holly Hedman

On top of doing our Advent calender activities we are doing a 25 day Bible study that has a craft for every day! It is called Truth In The Tinsel. I am going to quote their website because they said it perfectly! “Each day Truth In The Tinsel will lead you through a passage of scripture, a corresponding ornament craft and talking points for you and your kids. It is more then a devotion– it’s meditation and hands-on learning for kids. It is more then a craft book– it is a memory builder for your family. It is more then an ebook– it is an experience and adventure in God’s word!” I truly don’t think I could have explained it any better! You could just do this as your Advent calender but I decided to do both!

Slow down this Christmas season!

Seeing as homeschool has given us the freedom, that I didn’t know I craved, we are taking the time to spend together throughout the week as a family doing special memory making Advent activities! I hope you do too!

Wishing you a very Happy and Merry Christmas! I hope you take time to study the Word with your family and slow down to enjoy this wonderful season! Your kids are young only once, so go and make those special moments with them that they will cherish for a lifetime!

Merry Christmas!

Here are the links to the great activities I talked about!

Truth In Tinsel an Advent Experience For Little Hands

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Thanks for taking time to read about our journey into homeschooling. Please feel free to share my blog with your friends and family! Also, I would love to learn from you and how you homeschool. Please leave a comment below. Have a Blessed Christmas season!

Oh, the life of a Soldier and his family!

We started off our journey together back in 1995 (um, yeah, I just dated myself) when Dan and I were married. Our first move was to Oklahoma for 6 months of training. We actually enjoyed Oklahoma, but we were there in the winter so we didn’t have to deal with the heat. Once training was done, off to North Carolina for 5 1/2 years. We had many adventures during our time there but I will save those for another time.

Our next duty station was in Tennessee and that is where our first daughter (the brunette in the photo above) was born. Beautiful Tennessee was home for 3 1/2 years then, while pregnant with our second child (the blonde in the photo above), we moved back to North Carolina. This time we only lived North Carolina for 2 years and then the Army sent us out to Monterey, CA! Oh, how fun it was to there! We really enjoyed Monterey, so much to see and many adventures were had. While there our oldest daughter started Kindergarten. She was only able to do one semester there and then off again. Eighteen months was not long enough… so many more things I wanted to do while there, oh well! We left California in December while I was 8 months pregnant with our third (the boy in the photo). This time we moved home to Illinois for 6 months and then landed in Tennessee again.

Point Lobos California State Park Copyright by Holly Hedman

Yes, being a military family… it is never a dull moment. I have to say, as much as we loved living in Monterey, Tennessee truly felt like home to all of us. It is truly beautiful in Tennessee with the rolling hills and big oak trees. Have you ever experienced Tennessee in the fall? Oh, my! The colors are just amazing, the crisp fall air, leaves falling everywhere and the aroma from the smoke houses (that is how the dry tobacco) makes for the best autumn! We thought we were only going to get to stay in Tennessee for 2 years, but we ended up staying for 3 years. It was so nice not having to move for awhile but it made it soooooooooo much harder to move for many reasons. One reason was because we knew it was the last time we would live there.

Moving Day

Boxes in every room

Every move we have made has been an adventure and we really enjoy living in different areas of our great nation! But, each move has been a little bit harder because you leave great friends. Once we added kids in the mix, moving became even more difficult because we are disrupting their sense of “normalcy” and taking them away from the friends they made. But moving day came and it was time for our next journey, this time to Tampa, Florida. This move was particularly hard because we all made such good friends and had a GREAT school that the kids went to. We loved our neighborhood we lived in and love having the pond behind our house where we would go fishing all the time! We were happy there. But, here we go again… All packed up and ready to go and see what our next adventure brings!

Pond behind our house.

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Thanks for taking time to read about our journey into homeschooling. Please feel free to share my blog with your friends and family! Also, Please leave a comment below. Have a Blessed Day!