I don’t know about your kids, but my tweens love to gross me out with spooky or disgusting stuff. And of course that makes for an interesting Halloween delimma, that’s when all the spooky, scary paraphenalia is out on the shelves for them to dream about. Spiders down my back, slime coated handles, you get the idea…
But, it is fun, putting aside Halloween, to play around with them a little. So this year, I picked up a copy of JustNotMartha.com’s 35 Easy and fun Halloween Recipes ebook to see if there were any ideas I could use to gross out the kids.
But, my intended surprise was spoiled when the kids caught me going through the ebook and came to look over my shoulder. They had so much fun going through looking at the recipes and playing picking things to make just based off the names, like:
Even though, I’m not going to do these for Halloween, I found some great ideas for snacks and even meals in the recipe portion of the book.
There are 35 recipes total, ranging from appetizers and snacks, to kids-friendly entrees, and of course desserts. The two candied apple recipes were enough to have our mouths watering. For a sampling of some of dessert recipes, check out this video:
Even though the ebook is geared towards Halloween, the recipes are appropriate for a kid or tween party, just a fun family dinner, or even for a harvest party.
Several recipes use pumpkin (which is super nutritious), including Pumpkin Soup, “It’s the Great Pumpkin Pull Apart Cake”, stuffed mini-pumpkins, Cranberry Pumpkin bread, and of course instructions for roasting pumpkin seeds.
For those of you who participate in Halloween, there are four bonsus: 15 pumpkin carving templates, 5 Spooky short stories, one multi-chapter spooky story, and 7 ideas for halloween party fun, several of which are wholesome enough for a harvest festival or just a fun fall kids party.
With bonuses, the ebook is a hefty 175 pages, most of which are from the bonus stories. The recipe portion is 36 pages.
For $7, 35 Easy and Fun Halloween Recipes is a reasonable buy if you are looking for some fun kid-friendly recipes to try, even if you don’t do Halloween. But for those of you who do do Halloween, the bonuses make this ebook a great deal.
The last week of October has been a sewing week for my oldest daughter and I, for the last few years. As I mentioned earlier, when my daughter was little she’d make her own Halloween costumes from her dress-up clothes. But as she grew older that didn’t quite work anymore.
Homemade Halloween Costume - A Flower Fairy
So, the year when she was nine, she came up with the idea of making a flower fairy costume.
She had been digging around in a box of fabric we had gotten from Freecycle, and found a red flower patterned fabric and decided that it would make a good costume material.
Because she had been learning to sew, I agreed that we could use Halloween as an excuse to make something, and since we were using a real dress pattern, the effort would be worth it, because she could wear it again.
Wearing the dress to a Dad and Daughter Christmas Event
Somehow, Halloween has become a yearly sewing event – a lesson in creativity, making due with with what we have, and learning new skills.
Last year, my daughter (then 11) sewed a long white dress and a hooded cape to be a snow elf. The cape is being re-purposed this year for a new costume she’s designed.
This week, the sewing she and I are doing is a little different. Instead of making her costume, we’re sewing a Cinderella costume for my 5 yo using a pattern and fabric my oldest daughter picked out when she was 5 (and I never got around to sewing). And, we’re sewing a hooded cape for my 10 yo son, who finally decided on dressing up as a Jedi Knight for Halloween, after all his other ideas got nixed for being too dark.
Now I’m not a “natural” or accomplished sewer; in fact those patterns marked “easy to sew” stretch my abilities. But it’s a skill that my parents required me to learn, and has proven very useful for when money is tight and I need something or need to make Christmas Gifts. But I am appreciative that I have the skills, and that my daughter has learned that she can make what she needs by being creative with some fabric and thread.
Halloween has given her an outlet for her creativity and a fun way to practice her skills. And it makes a fun week of school, covering art, home ec, and financial life skills.
If you are still looking for a Halloween costume for your children, I recommend making your own costumes. Not sure what to make? Then I recommend taking a look at The Hillbilly Housewife’s Homemade Halloween Costumes Made Simple ebook. It has the materials and instructions for making 90 costumes, including quick last minute costume ideas. At $7, it’s a fraction of the cost of a store-bought costume.
Lately, I’ve been contemplating having my kids participate in our local homeschool science fair. While we do a lot of science at our house and science is one of our favorite things to do together, we’ve never done a science fair project before.
So, I asked my friend Kayla Fay for some advice. Kayla has done over 25 science fair projects over the years with her four boys, and has graciously agreed to share her insight with us.
If a science fair or outside class science project is on your schedule this year, I hope her advice helps you as it is helping me. …Shannon
7 Steps to Successful Science Projects for the Science Fair
Science projects – like homeschooling – are supposed to be a joyous time of a family learning, discovering, and working together toward the common goal of knowledge. You know – mom and dad gather the family around the kitchen table, and watch Wally and Beaver’s faces light up as they learn something new.
Unfortunately, science projects don’t always turn out that way. In fact, in our family, our first twenty or so projects were horrible experiences that left me exasperated, the kids frustrated, our kitchen in shambles and our budget depleted.
We have four sons, and when the first one was in 5th grade, I gave our principal a protest project entitled, Do Science Projects Cause Maternal Insanity?
Kayla's son shows off the blue ribbon he won for his science fair project
Our problem was that while we had great instructions on how to do a project, we didn’t have any guidance on how or where to find the type of project that would meet the requirements of our science fair, would interest our kids, that we could afford, and that would work. It took a long time, but we finally got the hang of it.
To our delight, we discovered that science projects really could be fun – and educational. In fact, we learned some really cool stuff that made our kids’ faces light up – and only once was it because of an explosion.
So – how can your family avoid our torturous route to finding out just how much fun a science project can be?
Here are seven steps to science fair success!
1. Know your science fair requirements. Is your science fair for
experiments only, or do they allow the other types of projects -
demonstrations, collections, models, or reports? Find out the details of
everything that is required.
2. Know your budget for time and for money. Add some padding for late orders and failed experiments.
3. Know your kids’ interests and choose your project. Notice that this is #3. If your child’s interest is in a project that won’t satisfy steps one
and two – pick another project. Search on the internet or in the library, or
come up with your own idea.
NOW you are ready for the next steps.
4. Gather your materials. Read all the way through the instructions to
see if you need anything that isn’t listed. You may also want to think ahead
and get the supplies for your project display.
5. Perform the project itself. Make sure that as you work, you keep any
required logs, record, or photographs. If your first attempt doesn’t work,
try again.
6. Prepare for your presentation. For this, most science fairs require
a science board, logs, and a physical representation of the project. Come up
with a catchy title for the project. Be creative. Be neat.
7. Submit your entry. And remember, if Wally and Beaver learned
anything, you don’t need a blue ribbon, because you already have a winning
science project!
Click on the image to get your free copy
Download your FREE copy of The Non-Scientific Parent’s Guide to a Science Project to learn how to choose the perfect science project, wade through the odd vocabulary, deal with the scientific method, and design an award winning science board.
You’ll also find out that a science project really can be done by your child, with you as a teacher and a guide.
A: Most of our science project ideas come from the kids. They want to try something, or they are showing an interest in something.
For example, two years ago, my oldest son (then 8yo) was asking a lot of questions about electricity, and really wanted to play with the electrity experiment kit I picked up at a used curriculum sale a few years back, that became his science project.
Last Spring when a colony of bees moved into the eaves of our house, my 5 year old came running in asking if she could study bees for science. So we learned about bees.
But sometimes I do make suggestions, particularly if I’m trying to fill a gap in their education.
During our Summer of Science two years ago, my oldest daughter checked out every science project book she could from the library and sent through it with her brother, marking all the experiments that they wanted to try.
There was no way we could do them all, but it was an exercise in them figuring out what looked interesting (and they learned something in the process) and expanded their idea of what a science project could look like.
If you are trying to fill a gap, or meet the requirements for a science project needed for a science fair or outside class project, here’s my advice:
5 yo showing off that habitat she built for her latest insect study
Ask your child what they are interested in, or listen and watch what they are talking about and exploring.
Then do a search online for “science project” and the area of study – or go to the library and look up that area of study plus “science experiment” “science project”, or “science fair”.
At the library, the idea books are stored in the dewey decimal system by the area of study, i.e., chemistry, botony, geology, etc. And there are some great resources available – both online and at the library.
So for example, if your child keeps bringing you rocks and talking to you about rocks, then look up “geology science experiments” and “geology science project” at the library or in Google.
If your child is interested in mixing things and seeing what will happen (aka chemistry), look up “chemistry science experiments” and “chemistry science projects.”
If they are into bugs and insects, well… you get the idea.
AND, because I’m prefer to have kids interested in what they are doing, I would let your kids choose from an selection of experiments. Let them make the final choice, based on the criteria you are trying to meet.
One last thing, I do try to make sure that my kids have plenty of materials around. When I see a deal on a kit or tools and I have some money to spend, then I’ll buy it. That way, when the need arises we have things available to do. Basically, I like to strew things in their path, and if they are curious, let them explore it further.
Click on the picture to download your FREE Guide to Science Projects
If you are in a crunch and are looking for a science project for a science fair, expand out your google search for “science fair ideas”.
Either way, just enjoy the exploration. Science is a lot of fun and the key thing to remember is that science isn’t just about learning facts and information, but also exploration, and testing out thoughts and ideas and seeing if they prove to be true or not. Have fun with it!
…Shannon
P.S. Q&A posts are inspired by questions by moms just like you, if you have advice to add, please leave a comment below. I’d love to read your insights. Have a question you’d like answered? Just send me an email.
Here are three free homeschool curriculums worth looking at. If you like lesson plans or schedules to help guide your path, all three of these offer free lesson plans – either daily, weekly. And each have active communities of homeschoolers who are using the curriculums.
Using a combination of free public domain materials and resources you’ll need to purchase or borrow, Ambleside Online provides a full curriculum for k-12 in Charlotte Mason style. Striving to create a free curriculum that Charlotte Mason herself would use, the volunteers at Ambleside Online have put together a full, robust homeschool curriculum.
The homeschoolers who use Ambleside Online are very generous with their knowledge and in helping bring more and more free resources online to implement a Charlotte Mason style homeschool. You’ll find a wealth of knowledge here, if you are interested in literature-based or Charlotte Mason-style curriculum.
Note: Ambleside Online is primarily a Christain homeschool curriculum, but because it is literature- and nature study- based, it is also easy for the secular homeschooler to adapt.
An Old Fashioned Education is a free homeschool curriculum based on classic public domain literature and text books. The entire curriculum was developed by Miss Maggie, the founder of Hillbilly Housewife (one of my favorite frugal cooking sites), for her boys, after she discovered Ambleside Online wasn’t structured enough for her family.
Even if you don’t use the full curriculum, Miss Maggie has pre-screened, categorized, and links an amazing amount of free literature and public domain textbooks, making the site a wonderful reference on where to find free books for your homeschool.
The 3RHomeschooling yahoo group provides excellent support for those using An Old Fashioned Education, as well as other literature-based curriculum. Again, the members are as generous in their knowledge as Miss Maggie was in putting together this curriculum and ensuring it remains free.
Note: An Old Fashioned Education is a Christain homeschool curriculum, that uses books with a strong moral focus. However the secular homeschooler will also find the site useful in finding free homeschool curriculum and classic literature in public domain.
SimplyCharlotteMason.com is another free homeschool curriculum for those looking for a Charlotte Mason-inspired homeschool. Like Ambleside Online, this curriculum uses both free public domain litature and more contemporary resources that you will need to purchase or borrow. There is a free Curriculum Guide for Grades 1-12, and suggested resources for each subject by grade.
There’s a Community Forum for this site, where you can get support and questions answered. Also the two families who designed this curriculum give workshops.
This site is more commerical than Ambleside Online and An Old Fashioned Education. The site owners sell items on the site and their Charlotte Mason (”living book”) book finder does link to Amazon. But the curriculum and many of the resources are free or are available free from public domain sites. One special freebie unique to this site is the Book of Centuries - a free, downloadable pdf file that allows you to put together a history timeline notebook.
Note: Simply Charlotte Mason is also a free Christain homeschool curriculum, but like the other two, it can be adapted by the secular homeschooler by eliminating certain resources.
Next week, I’ll share more free homeschool resources, as this series on ensuring your homeschool can endure a financial crisis continues. In the meantime, if you have experience using one of these curriculums or know of another free, full homeschool curriculum besides these three, please share in the comments below.
Thanks!
…Shannon
P.S. In case you are curious, I’ve tested out An Old Fashioned Education, and use it as an additional resource when looking for free living books for our homeschool.
But, it is fun, putting aside Halloween, to play around with them a little. So this year, I picked up a copy of JustNotMartha.com’s 35 Easy and fun Halloween Recipes ebook to see if there were any ideas I could use to gross out the kids.
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