My Little Robins

Loving and Learning in the Nest

Online Resources with a Charlotte Mason Vibe

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I keep telling my daughter, "We're in this together." Suddenly, the whole world has changed and it's hard for little ones and big ones alike to process. Our routines will be shaken, whether we are homeschooling or sending our children to school. 

Amidst questions about what our days will hold and how to keep children engaged in learning during these changes, I decided to round up some Charlotte Mason-friendly online resources for your home. We'll have some extra time on our hands with our homeschool enrichment program and mother's day out being cancelled, so I'm going to introduce some of these fun learning opportunities as a meaningful way to spend our cooped up days. 

 (Note- I've used affiliate links to share some of these resources with you.) 


 Online Resources

Language Arts

  • Read, Write, Think- Here, you'll find some sweet resources for learning to appreciate and write poetry, among other language arts lessons
  •  International Children's Library- Get free books through this site.
  • Hoopla- Join through your library (if it is offered!) to get ebooks and audiobooks on lone.
  • Scribd- This is my favorite place to get eBooks and audiobooks! I have a monthly membership and have no limits to how many books I download. 
  • The Good and the Beautiful Language Arts- You can download the language arts course sets from this company for free if you're in a jam! It's not necessarily a Charlotte Mason approach, but focuses on art, copywork, etc. like a Charlotte Mason education does. 

Geography


Science

  • MysteryScience- Find nature-related science lessons and other mini-lessons for free on this site. 
  • The Burgess Animal Book and resources- We're planning to use this book and these resources next year for science! 

Math

  • MEP- This is a free online math curriculum that Charlotte Mason homeschoolers love! 
  • Virtual Math Manipulatives- Learn new concepts in a digitally hands-on way with this site.  

Virtual Field Trips

Copy Work/ Handwriting

Art Lessons

Current Deals

At the time of this blog post, many companies and small businesses are sharing great deals on resources that can be used during this time of uncertainty. I'll add more deals as I see them. 

Early Childhood Ideas

If your concern is not so much with keeping your child's academics up to par, but keeping your young child from growing restless, here are some ideas. 

  • Circle Time Fun- This site has free videos for young children, including interactive ideas and parent/child play ideas. 
  • Idea Nest- My monthly preschool resource that is free during 2020 would be perfect for days spent at home!  
  • You Version Bible App- This is the only iPad app that my kids are aloud to play/listen to, and it's fantastic. 

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Easter Basket Gifts for Nature-Loving Kids

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When my daughter was a toddler, I used to go around the house the night before Easter searching for little toys that she had forgotten about. On Easter morning, she woke up to a basket full of cute Little People toys, board books from Chic-Fil-A, and a fruit snack or two that I threw in there for her. It was an easy way to avoid extra clutter in our home, and she loved it! I'm not recommending that in this post, ha! But, as my children got older, I still don't want Easter basket gifts to end up as clutter in our Charlotte Mason home, and using their own toys isn't an option anymore. 

Beyond clutter, I struggle with the commercialization of Easter, too. Retailers would love for it to be the next Christmas, but our family wants to keep the focus on Christ's resurrection. My husband and I decided that nature-based outdoor gifts would be a good fit- something to celebrate spring and new life, without too much focus on toys and materialism. If this is your plan, too, this round-up is for you!

(I've used affiliate links to share these gifts with you. See my policies for more info about these.) 

Related: The Complete Charlotte Mason Preschool Guide


Easter Basket Gifts

1. Umbrellas

 Last year's Easter gift was a pair of umbrellas, and you would never have thought that there could be a better gift on earth thanks to my kids' reaction to them. These umbrellas come out mostly on sunny days, but amazingly, because I went with a good brand, they have stood up very well to all this play. 

2. Camp chairs

Camp chairs are usually a hit with the nature-loving set. We take them to events sometimes, but mostly set them up in the backyard. Miss H got her animal critter chair when she was four, but she has outgrown it now (at almost 7.) 


3. Butterfly Garden

Raise butterflies with this kit, and use it again next year by buying new butterfly larvae from the company. This is a great learning experience on top of being so much fun! 

4. Fairy Garden

When Miss H got this fairy garden for her birthday a couple of years ago, we bough a terrarium for her little brother for Easter. They both had so much fun planting their gardens and caring for them. When the weather turned warmer, the fairy garden did great outside. We used it for several seasons. 

5. Gardening set 

We have gotten several of these over the years, and they are always a hit! It's best when the tools are metal and they actually work 🙂 

6. Outdoor wagon

This wagon is rugged and tough. We've had it for several years as an outdoor toy, and it has held up great. 


7. Kids Wheelbarrow

We have  a vintage wheelbarrow similar to this, and it's great for heavy work, moving loads of rocks around, and building small cities in the backyard 🙂 

8. Butterfly Net

Butterfly nets are great for temporarily catching insects to observe in the spring, or for capturing your little brother by the head 🙂 Our kids have great fun with theirs, but according to the reviews, this net might be a little more durable than those with telescopic handles. 

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9. Bug House

If your kids are going to be catching bugs, then they might want a temporary place to store them! For awhile, my son kept ladybugs in his bug house, and called them his pets. 

10. Window bird feeder

What a fun way to observe nature from your home! This bird feeder attaches to the window, so you can see birds clearly as they eat. 

Related: Nature Study Tools for Little Explorers

Books

1. Ocean Anatomy

At the time of this post, this book is currently only available through preorder, but if you have Julia's Rothman's Nature Anatomy and other similar books, you're going to want your children to have this one! (Note; the book will be released on April 28, 2020. 

2. Calendar of Firsts

This specific journal has a five year calendar to write in the changes you and your child see in nature. This would be great for older children, or for a family gift. 

​Related: Books about the Garden 

3. Indescribable

This is a great devotional to go through with young nature and science lovers. Each devotion relates science to God's creation and power. We don't have the follow up devotional, How Great is Our God, yet. 

4. We are the Gardeners

If you're planning on planting a garden this spring, this book is so sweet to share with your children. The story is one of perseverance, even when the original plans don't work out. 

Other Easter Basket Ideas

1. Natural pencils

These pencils are not very practical for handwriting practice, but they're fun for little hands to play with. 

2. Bird Bingo

This game is so much fun that it made it on my back to school gifts round-up, too 🙂 There is also Ocean Bingo, which would make a great addition to the book I mentioned above! 

How Not to Fail the 1000 Hours Outside Challenge

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"I don't see how you're going to do it," my husband said to me, eyeing our 1000 Hours Outside tracking sheet. Not even the top row of hours was filled in, meaning that we had more than 950 hours to go for the year. 

My husband is a realist. He wasn't trying to discourage me, what he was saying was that I needed a plan. If I just tried to shoot from the hip and hope for the best, like I've been known to do before, I'd fail this challenge. 

So, I thought about it, and going forward, this is our approach so that we don't fail the 1000 Hours Outside Challenge. 

(If you haven't heard of the 1000 Hours Outside Challenge, it's just a way to encourage families to get outside more often! It is free to join- all you have to do is download a 1000 hours tracking sheet and get outside.  You can check out the website here!

How Not to Fail the 1000 Hours Outside Challenge

1. Aim for at least 1 hour outside a day in January, February, and December. 

If you live in a warm climate, then this isn't an issue. But for us, getting outside in the winter months is a huge struggle. By committing to averaging 7 hours a week in the winter months, I'll have less catch up to do in the summer months.  

Notice that my goal here is average. There are some days that are just too cold, too windy to get outside. If we stick to this average, we'll have 60 hours by the end of February, and can tack on another 31 hours in December. 

Related: Idea Nest Outdoor Play Inspired by The Big Snow

2. Spend lots of time outside every day in nicer weather. 

If I reach my winter goals, that means I have 274 other days of the year to get my kids outside for 909 hours. That means we will need to spend 3.3 hours outside each day. That sounds like a lot. Before we started formal lessons, it was easy to get my kids outside for four hours a day. Now it's more of  a struggle. But again, I'm going for an average, and we tend to have summer days where we spend 8 hours outside, playing in the sprinklers after church, and then having our Sunday dinners al fresco. Which leads me to my next action step. 

Related: Making the Most Of Outdoor Play During the Early Years

3. Have meals outside.

Eating outside is an easy way to up those outdoor hours. My kids love having picnics, and it honestly helps keep our kitchen clean, too. If I pack lunches and then clean up before heading out for the day, I love coming back to a clean kitchen. 

We'll strive for lunches and dinners outside on every nice day. 

4. Figure out how to count it if all my kids aren't outside.

I struggled with this for a bit. What if only two of my kids go outside? Or what if my daughter goes to her homeschool playdate and spends three hours outside, but her brothers are inside the whole time? For the love of LL Bean, how am I supposed to count those hours? 

I decided to stop overthinking it. If two of my kids are outside, then most of them are getting that good, brain-building time. I'll count it all. If one of my kids is outside, I'll count it as half. I imagine some people might want to fill out a sheet for each child, but not this mama. The simpler, the better. 

Related: The Indoorsy Mom's Guide to Getting Outside

5. Plan a camping trip.

In the summer, if we're lagging behind in our outdoor hours, I'll plan a camping trip. I don't think it matters if it's in our own backyard or the mountains, the point is extended hours outside. Does tent camping "count" as outdoor time? If being bundled up in winter counts, then yes, tent camping does! A whole weekend of camping would give us close to 48 hours of outdoor time!

6. Keep tabs on screen time.

The creators of the 1000 hours outside challenge said that most kids have at least 1200 hours of screen time each year. Whoa! I don't think that my kids come close to that, but we were sick almost all of December and half of January, so we watched lots of Daniel Tiger and Mr. Rogers. I decided to print off an extra 1000 hours sheet to track our screen time. I just wrote "screen time" on the top in a very official way, and now I keep track of those hours, too. 


6. Focus on the principles behind it, not the tally sheet.

Of course, as is like anything else, it's easy to get caught up in tallying hours and forgetting why we're committing to something like this. It's not about the 1000 hours. It's about making outdoor time a priority, committing to getting our children outside when the rest of society is committed to getting their children to yoga class. 

I don't want to get too obsessed with racking up those hours, and then forget that this time is not a tally on a sheet, but a sweet childhood passed out of doors. 

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DIY Simple Hand Kites to Explore the Wind

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In March's Idea Nest, we'll explore the wind. Wind is something that is so magical for children, yet we often forget that we can study it because it's invisible. When Miss H was not quite four, we made paper kites and took them outside to fly them on a windy day. For Spring Tinkergarten two years ago, we made hand kites to explore the wind. It doesn't take anything elaborate to get your child enjoying and exploring a windy day! In this post, I'll explain how to make a simple hand kite out of ribbon and a mason jar ring. 

Using a mason jar ring makes these less expensive than using a thick wooden ring that you can buy at a craft store. I think it would cost less than $10 to make several of these (as opposed to $15 each online!)  I also like the upcycling component, which I look for in a lot of the handicrafts that we make! 

I've used affiliate links to share supplies with you. You can read about these in my policies.

​Related: THiNK OUTSiDE Boxes

Make A Simple Hand Kite

You will need: 

  • ribbon (in whatever colors you'd like- I used rainbow colors) 
  • the outer ring of a Mason jar

Directions:

1. Cut the ribbon into about 18 inch long strips. I used six different colors and a total of six ribbons.  Make sure to cut the ribbon at a diagonal with sharp scissors to reduce fraying. 

2. Tie the ribbon around the mason jar ring in a double knot. Do this with all of the ribbons that you'll use. 

3. Arrange all of the ribbons so that they are next to each other. All done! (See? So simple!) 

Related: Outdoor Play Inspired by The Big Snow

Related: Making the Most Out of Outdoor Play in the Early Years

Exploring the Wind With Hand Kites

This is an open-ended toy with so many possibilities, but taking these hand kites outside on a windy day is by far our favorite way to play with them.  We like to see the direction from which the wind comes by watching the different colored ribbons float away. 

We also like to run with these hand kites, to see how quickly we can get the ribbons to fly out horizontally behind us. 

Hand kites also make fun decorations, or quiet wind chimes, when hung up vertically. 

The Idea Nest is a monthly resource that's free in 2020! You can sign up to get it through the sign-up box below!

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Maybe We’ve Taken This “Teach My Kids Not To Need Me” Thing Too Far

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Earlier this evening, I helped my daughter (almost 7) clean her room. As I hung up a getting-too-small dress in her closet, an adage that I've heard dozens of times popped into my head: Don't do anything for your kids that they can do for themselves. I was uncomfortable the first time I read those words, and have been uncomfortable with them every time an older mother, as well-adjusted as her children are, tells me this. Since when do we not help each other?

In our community, there is a teen suicide every few weeks. The sadness and "if onlys" reverberate through the town until the next sad event occurs. Nearly 50% of people who participated in Cigna's loneliness index in 2018 felt lonely always or sometimes. The former surgeon general of the United States said that isolation is the most prevalent threat to health in our nation. 

This makes me wonder: are we taking this "Teach my kids not to need me" thing too far?


Our culture is slightly obsessed with the idea of independence. When I taught full time and had an infant at home, people told me how good it was for her to learn independence from me. When she got older and we decided not to put her on that big yellow bus, but to homeschool instead, the obvious concerns about her ability to be independent were written all over the furrowed brows of strangers.

But, I need people, and my children need me. This is not wrong or weak. This is human nature.

A few weeks ago, I went to the grocery store and saw a mom that I know from my MOPS group. Her child had broken a glass container, and she ran to grab paper towels and was wiping up the mess when I saw her. I went to help. She was fully capable of cleaning it up on her own, but I wanted her to know that I had been in that sticky situation too. At the same MOPS group, just a week earlier, a mom of grown children (Laurie Wildenberg) spoke to the crowd of  tired young moms, and said, "I don't want my adult children to not need me. I want them to call me when they need help.  I want them to come home for dinner and to still have a relationship with them." 

Related: Your Secret Weapon for Forming Positive Habits

Physically Independent

Is it possible to teach our children to not need us physically, but to still learn to rely on others? Yes. We were created for community. We first see our need for others, for helpers, in Genesis. "It is not good for man to be alone."

I can teach my children how to do the laundry and tie their shoes, and allow them to do these things on their own. But what if the simple act of offering to help in physical ways like these is valuable for our relationship or our child's mental health? Why do we sacrifice relationship and mental health for that little golden statue called "independence"? 


Growing Up

As my little girl hurdles closer to her seventh birthday, her responsibilities at home will increase. But when she accidentally spills the eggs that she's mixing in the bowl, I'll help her clean it up. When she can't find the pencil she needs to do her work, I'll help her find it. I want her to know that she can come to me and ask me for help as her life problems shift from missing pencils to navigating relationships or making major mistakes. In the distant future, I want her to call me up and tell me about the tough situation she's facing, not to run away and try to face something difficult entirely alone. 


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