Ella & I finished our Maturation & Sexual Reproduction Unit today. I found it to be a good and informative unit without it being cringe or uncomfortable at all.
This was my first big sex talk as a mom and I had anticipated it to be awkward, but since I never had an actual discussion about sex (or puberty in general) with my own mother, it was very important for me to have with my children. It wasn’t awkward at all and neither Ella or I ever felt uncomfortable. She asked questions and I made sure she knew she was able to come to me any time with any questions she has no matter how embarrassing they may seem.
The unit covered all things from body terminology, to puberty, to sex and childbirth, and more. The last lesson in the unit was regarding personal hygiene and steps to take now to be responsible in adulthood (like washing your own laundry).
It was suggested (but not required) in the unit that I put together a hygiene kit for her to end the unit so my mom & I took Ella shopping for personal hygiene items and then put together a hygiene basket for her.
I loved putting this together for her and knowing that she is prepared for puberty! It was a nice bonding experience with her and I feel much more confident to repeat this unit again in the future with the rest of my children, although I do think I will add a few other puberty book options in their kits as well going forward.
Hopefully this will give you some ideas about what to put together in puberty pack for your pre-teen!
A couple years ago when we began homeschooling we made a list of goals that we wanted to achieve together as a family. One of those goals was putting up a Little Free Library in our front yard for the neighborhood kids to be able to love reading as much as we do.
Today we finally achieved that goal!!!
I am absolutely obsessed with how it turned out! I registered it to the world map under Morozov Montessori (our homeschool name) Library.
I have already began adding a few flowers under the library, but my plan is to fill the entire bed with flowers to make it so much more colorful & welcoming, for humans and butterflies 🦋.
It came with 2 posts (1 tall & 1 short), but we chose to place it on this dead dogwood tree instead. After spending years trying to bring this tree back to life, we decided to give it new life instead. We are going to save the posts and use them for a later project.
I’d like to add a couple garden stones walking from the sidewalk up to the library. I would also like to come up with an idea of how I can fill the empty space under the library. Maybe a small planter? Maybe a small fairy garden? Maybe hang a little wind chime? Hang dog poop bags? The ideas are endless (and I would love to hear yours!), I’ll just have to wait and see what speaks to my soul.
All in all, I am just very, VERY happy to have it up finally and really excited to continue making it great!
Earlier this month, I was asked to take part in Multi-Cultural Day at Covington Classical Academy (in partnership with Community Montessori) to teach the classes about Ukraine. I was totally honored to be asked to represent Ukraine, but at the same time I felt really nervous. After all, I have really only fully been on my own ancestry journey for the last 2 years now and felt that a native would have been a lot more knowledgeable.
I wore my Vyshyvanka & my Vinok so that the students could see an example of Ukrainian clothing. I brought handmade Nalysnyky (Ukrainian crepes) with me that I still had frozen from the Ukrainian Food Festival, accompanied by a delicious cherry sauce for each student to sample.
First we went through the PowerPoint that our Ukrainian teacher had put together. That included information about Ukraine, it’s location, famous Ukrainians, and foods from Ukraine. I explained that the Ukrainian flag is blue to represent the sky, and yellow to represent the wheat.
I explained to the students what UNWLA (Ukrainian National Women’s League of America) is, who we are, and what we do. I shared photos from previous Cultural Arts classes we have hosted.
I brought my older girls, Елла і Мія, with me to show off what they have been learning in Cincinnati Ukrainian School. They helped me teach the class how to say “Hello, my name is ___, what is your name? It is nice to meet you.” They would break down the sentence and then have the students repeat after them. Then the students would repeat the phrase to the student across from them.
We then taught the students how to spell their names in Ukrainian language. I had them try to find their name out of the list and then write it down. It was really impressive how quickly the students were able to find their own name in a language they had no prior knowledge of.
I passed around Ukrainian Hryvnia (their currency) that I had from my own childhood that my Тато had given me.
I then passed around a photo book I have about Ukraine and Ukrainians, along with Ukrainian/English translation books while students tried on Vyshyvanki from Chernivsti, a necklace we made at one of our cultural arts classes last year, and the vinok. We took a polaroid photo of each student (who wanted to participate) in Ukrainian dress to send home with them.
I feel like we did a pretty good job for our very first teaching event. I felt much more confident by the second presentation. I learned what worked and what I would do differently next time:
I would like to have a visual presentation board
I would like to collect authentic jewelry, vinok, & other items to have for show.
I would like to incorporate music or National Anthem
I would like to teach more about Ukraine’s history & geography than culture.
I would bring Varenyky for food item.
The teachers & students sent us thank you letters, explaining their favorite things we taught them. I omitted the student’s signatures for their privacy.
I am, again, so honored to have been asked to represent Ukraine for Multi-Cultural Day. When I first began homeschooling it was a huge goal & priority for our own family to learn about where our family came from + the language. I never imagined that one day we would be asked to go to a school to teach their students what we have learned. It’s amazing where following your dreams leads you.
The general admission cost is $16.50 per adult (or $14.00 for seniors 65+), $11.50 for kids (ages 3-12), or free for children under 3. They also offer membership which was $52 for a family of 2 adults & 10 kids, so we went with that option. They do offer a homeschool discount, and if you plan a field trip with at least 15 students, they offer a field trip discount of $8.00 per student & chaperone.
There is educational materials available to print HERE for grades 4-12 for self-guided tours in the museum and other learning resources available HERE for grades K-12.
The museum begins on the 3rd floor and you work your way back down to the 1st floor. It is intense and there are a lot of sensitive issues to take in. My family does not believe in censorship & we do not shelter our children about such topics in any way, but I do not recommend taking small children. They could not understand what was going on and wanted to play with the displays, which was either prohibited or way beyond their level. It was difficult for them to pay attention, making it difficult for us to learn.
The 3rd floor was really neat- it took us through the very beginning of slavery to present-day human-trafficking. We didn’t make it through the 2nd floor, which was the Underground Railground, so I would really like to go back myself, as well as with the older children now that we are members, to be able to slow down and actually take in more information & see everything we missed.
There is no parking directly for the museum, but there are paid parking garages nearby or street parking available if you know how to parallel park. I do not.
There is a gift shop, but no consessions so you’ll need to plan accordingly around meal times. Water is permitted.
Overall, I am very glad that we have this resource available for us to learn about American history. I am looking forward to going back.
I am going to admit that my immediate thought was that this was going to be a really boring field trip. We went to check out the Cincinnati Warbirds last year and other than standing on a plane, we were so bored we wrapped it up early. I expected this would be the same, but I am always up for a field trip, especially somewhere we haven’t been before.
Throwback to last year
The museum itself is free, but they ask for a donation in exchange for a map of the Museum. They have put together a scavenger hunt for kids to keep them engaged and reading exhibits. Parking is also free. They also have strollers, wheelchairs, and mobile scooters to borrow for free while you are visiting, if needed.
The kids really enjoyed being able to climb inside the jets, walk inside airplanes checking out the differences between them, and doing the Virtual Reality simulation (although it did scare Sasha a bit.)
I loved the heart ❤️ on this airplane
I really enjoyed checking out the various artwork from different insignias, planes, jackets. I loved looking at different times throughout history. The real life displays were very cool.
They have many displays about Women in Aviation throughout history as well which is especially nice when you have 4 daughters.
The food was affordable, but the selection was very small. Vegetarian options included an Uncrustable PBJ or a side Mac & Cheese. There are several meat sandwich options, both cold and hot. Meals include chips & a drink. We chose water bottles so we could take it in back the museum with us.
Buildings 1-2 were about early airplane history and wars. Buildings 3-4 were missiles, NASA, and the United States of America Presidental planes.
It is a very big museum and I recommend splitting it into 2 separate field trips: buildings 1-2 first then going back for buildings 3-4. There was way too much information to be able to fully take in in just one trip.
We all had a really good time and I really appreciated that the kids were allowed to be very hands on at this museum; that made it a very fun experience for them. We also really liked all of the photo ops for the kids. They thought that was really fun.
Overall, it was a good field trip. The kids asked to go back. Next time I’d like to bring some extra money for the gift shop as well as our own water bottles to refill.
I really liked this protest wall art
Fun fact: My husband made and inspected the wire ropes within this museum.
We recently had to send in our yearly Intent to Homeschool paperwork & it got me thinking. A year ago, I had literally no idea what I was doing. I met with one of the only other homeschool moms I knew at the time and asked for her help. We sat at her computer and she typed out my Outline of Intended Home Education for me. I had no idea what I was doing, no idea what curriculum I was using yet, no idea what was even going on, to be honest. I remember how exciting, but scary this huge life change was for me!
She typed it up, printed it out for me, and I’m not kidding you I thought there is surely no way a school is going to accept this, but she says it’ll do. So I printed out the legal Intent to Homeschool Document for my state (Ohio), filled it out, and sent these papers out in the mail.
Sure enough, the papers we sent in were accepted! We were free to begin our homeschooling journey.
This year, I made my own Assurance of Home Education using the Canva app & I am SO proud of how it looks that I wanted to share it with you – in case you also have no idea how to make your first one either.
With this being our second year of homeschooling, I also had to send in our completed Yearly Teacher Assesment for Ella & Mia. We used Debbie Heck as our assesor- I highly recommend her. She made the process so easy & stress-free and she is very affordable for large families like mine (some assessors charge per student, she charges per family).
I attached the blank version of the Assurance of Home Education file for you to edit on Canva to suit your own homeschool curriculum below. I hope it makes your new homeschooling process less stressful for you!
My week started with an email from our town’s public school that we used to attend letting me know that a threat of violence was made against our school and every student & their mom. A former student threatened to shoot up the school on September 22.
This news reassured me that I made the right decision in pulling my children out of traditional school. I’m sure I sounded crazy as can be explaining myself away in the beginning days of being enrolled. “I’m not going to worry each day I drop them off if it will be the last time I see them.” Not even a month into the traditional school year and there has already been a shooting threat. How long until the threat doesn’t happen before the action? I’m not willing to find out.
This is what a typical morning looks like for us. The girls eat breakfast, do their morning jobs (brush teeth, brush hair, get dressed, etc) & chores. Once we finish those tasks, they sit down at the table or their school desks to work on their individual work baskets until I’m ready to do our together reading. Moses lives on his own terms 😂.
Our first field trip this week was to A&M Apple Orchard. It was a bit of a drive, but totally worth it. Each girl got to fill a bag of apples for only $5 each.
They picked different apples they wanted. We got a nice variety. Ella wanted yellow apples for a health spell she’s working on.
Ella had a lot of fun climbing the trees to get the apples from the tops.
Moses loved walking around and testing all the apples (which we were allowed to do!) He couldn’t believe the amount of apples everywhere he looked! He was so excited!
We made out like bandits with our apples! So excited to make apple snacks and desserts this week!
The first recipe we made was Cinnamon Applesauce. Since we are planning to make several other apple desserts this week, we decided to use all of our very small apples for the applesauce so they could still get used up.
We peeled them, sliced them, & put them in the slow cooker with some big shakes of cinnamon, a little sugar, & 1/2 cup water.
It was delicious 😋! The kids agreed that anything homemade tastes better than storebought. This was even better though because they went the extra mile and picked these apples themselves!
Since Fall began this week, we pulled out our seasons cookbooks & planned some yummy fall recipes to cook together this week to celebrate & welcome fall.
For the children, we use the book, At The Farmers Market with Kids. It teaches the children what fruits/veggies are available seasonally & has simple recipes that they are able to make using those seasonal produce items.
The first meal we made to welcome in Fall was Butternut Squash Pasta. It had pasta, butternut squash, spinach, minced garlic, and onion + salt, pepper, red pepper flakes, & toasted pine nuts. Super easy weeknight meal. I thought it was great, the kids wouldn’t pick it again. They do better with Butternut Squash Macaroni & Cheese.
Of course we had to examine the Butternut Squash from the inside out before eating it.
I gave them each a slice with seeds to examine with their senses & pick apart.
We went to Friday Connections with our homeschool friends and took a kid-led hike through the woods of French Park.
Ella kept a list of all the different plants she identified using the app, Picture This.
It’s a very neat app. You take a picture of any plant and it gives you the name and information about each plant. You will learn if it is poisonous or not, if it attracts any birds or bugs, along with any poetry or art it has been mentioned in.
This very beautiful butterfly also landed on Ella. Such beautiful colors, like our own little Ukrainian sign from the universe.
We collected cool nature we found in this cute little bag.
And checked some of it out under the microscope.
Once we got home, we took out all of our nature we collected to see what we got!
We used construction paper & contact paper to make these cute window-scapes of our nature we collected to finally replace our summer tissue-paper kites with.
Overall, it has been a great week! Oddly enough though, our week ended just as it began. Another report of a shooter, this one turning out to be a “hoax.”
Not sure why or how children’s safety is considered funny to anyone, but I for one am really freaking glad that I don’t have to worry out of my mind about whether my kids are safe each day or not. So freaking grateful.
This really was the best decision I could have made. It’s been amazing getting to know my children on a level that I wouldn’t be able to with them in school. I love finding projects to do with them and watch their faces light up as they begin to understand new things. I wouldn’t want it any other way.
These last two weeks have been a bit of a change-up. I love Charlotte Mason, but I need a bit more focus. I still love her philosophy and will be using her method, but I found a year of homeschool themes and I am going to be using those weekly themes to better organize our time. Last week our theme was Farms.
We read books about farms. I was able to go through our BOB Books & beginner readers and pick out Farm themed books. Having a theme made it easier to pick Sasha & Athena’s morning/individual baskets.
We went to Chrisholm Historic Farmstead. This was our first time there. They offer many free learning days for Homeschool Families. I liked being able to plan a field trip that went along with our theme. It felt like it had more of a purpose than just a random outing. We also read this week’s chapter of Charlotte’s Web on the way to the Farm which seemed fitting.
We do try to stick to free outings or free return outings (Pay for a yearly pass once for a year of free trips, ie. Glenwood Gardens, Zoo, Museum, Hamilton Co. Parks, etc.) To minimize costs. We also pack our own lunches & reusable waterbottles (or refill cups for specific places) to cut costs.
There was a fun “playscape” for the kids to play on.
We learned that fruits produce seeds (including eggplant, cucumber, & peppers- all of which we previously grouped in the vegetable category) & vegetables are edible plants that don’t have seeds (carrots, radishes, potatoes).
We enjoyed hanging out with the different animals.
We also learned that windmills were used to pump water & practiced pumping it to fill the animals water tub.
Here are some of the other classes they offer during September & October:
We also attended Grace Girls which is a group of homeschooled girls who meet up to learn skills, make friends & build strong mother/daughter relationships.
This month we are learning how to hand-sew. We learned the running stitch, the back stitch, and the blanket stitch this night. Ella & Mia also sewed their own tissue holders.
Ella is REALLY interested in sewing now, so I will have to keep my eye out for some vintage patterns for her at the thrift to get her started.
Sasha made these number counters for her math project this week. I really love how they turned out. I printed out the numbers, laminated them, and punched a whole in each one. We then fed a pipe cleaner through and Sasha counted the number of beads for each number. It kept her busy for awhile and she had a lot of fun doing it.
Each girl also made their own Abacus using the Smithsonian Math Maker Lab book that we rented from our local library.
We also made patterns out of fruit & counted our patterns before eating them for a snack.
The girls killed a wasp that got into the house then examined it.
The last couple weeks have had some obstacles & struggles in both schooling & home life, but overall I really do love homeschooling.
I have loved going on field trips with the kids. That was the biggest thing for me. It devastated me that I couldn’t participate in school events or field trips. I couldn’t be a room mom. Looking back on the photos of our field trips remind me why I wanted to do this in the first place. Having these experiences with my kids and learning alongside them is life changing.
I’ve enjoyed learning with them, being able to fully take in what we are reading (even if I have to read it three times to figure out what is being asked of me 🤪).
I’m figuring out what works and what doesn’t. Our schooling hasn’t been typical from the start. Ella only went to Kindergarten for half the year because of the world shutting down so I took up unschooling at home. First grade for her was weird because it was mostly at home but sometimes (2 days a week when in person at school, me teaching at home from their syllabus or Zoom meetings with a teacher. Second grade (Ella) & Kindergarten (Mia) were the only full year they attended school outside the home. I mostly have been homeschooling this whole time, unofficially. Somehow being “official” just feels different. Like if I mess up it’s all on my hands now. I just need to learn to relax and have faith in myself. We are doing just fine.
I’m a bit later getting this posted than I had hoped to since tomorrow is Friday & it’s already time to prepare another photo dump. I’m attempting to keep track of our weekly outings here & memorable moments or activities we do.
We took a trip to the Blue Ash Nature Park. They have a little story walk provided by the library. The kids played for a couple hours on the various playgrounds as well as the woods. We did a very light, child-led hike.
This is one of my favorite photos from our individual work time. It has been really nice sitting around the table together reading & learning.
I love being able to go back and re-learn with the kids. My parents gave me a really great educational opportunity and I threw it away at the time. I am blessed to be able to take this second chance, and realize how important it is to not mess it up again.
We took a field trip to the Cincinnati Zoo. I learned that the animals at our zoo are there for rehabilitation purposes and/or are totally incapable of living in the wild due to an injury or other issue, so they are being helped rather than caged prisoners.
I printed out Explorer Packs for the kids to fill out. It consisted of a scavenger hunt to check off animals we saw, an A to Z fill out types of animals we saw/read about at each habitat, a report about the favorite animal we saw, and a page to draw a picture of our trip. I loved bringing that to keep them focused, do our school work at the zoo, and have fun searching out knowledge rather than skipping over it just to see the animals.
Ella’s favorite animal is a Manatee. We loved watching them bounce up and down.
When we came home, the girls sat at the table and did their favorite animal reports. They used some of the Nature books I bought for our curriculum to find more facts about their favorite animal to write in their reports.
This trip to the zoo was definitely different than other trips we have taken in the past and I loved it. I’m really excited to take another trip back soon & see the other sections of the zoo we didn’t visit that day.
We went down to Lunken Airport to see, touch, and learn about historic airplanes- specifically military ones. We saw one fly & land. It was very loud (which bothers Sasha quite a bit) and the kids & I did not find this subject interesting, but it was an experience nonetheless. We skipped out on this trip pretty quickly & headed to the library instead.
They did get to stand on an airplane which was pretty cool.
We are really enjoying homeschool so far. We are still figuring out what works for us and what doesn’t, but the nice thing is we are allowed to adjust our days for what works best for our family.
Ella really enjoys insects a lot. She found a dead bumblebee and was asking lots of questions about them & inspecting it.
I scored this awesome poster that really adds to our Living Education Atmosphere.
Typically we just do school on the weekdays, but honestly education never ends & sometimes events are limited to the weekends. This Sunday, we went to the Ukrainian Festival & watched Ukrainian dancing, listened to Ukrainian music, planned on eating (pierogies sold out FAST & only meat options were left), & shopped for some items. I signed up to join the Ukrainian Women’s League of America.
We were supposed to see Shakespeare in the Park this Saturday, but we were rained out. We still had our picnic at the park, checked out the nature center (sad to learn it is still mostly shut down since covid with no plans to re-open at this time, and played on the outdoor playground.
Ella found a cicada which made her very happy. Cicadas are her favorite insect.
We went to the library for Family Storytime. It’s mostly geared toward the three younger kids, but the older kids still enjoy it too. They mostly go for the tech time after crafting & to pick out new books though. I enjoy picking up new cookbooks to try new recipes.
For math one day we made a “Hungry Adding Robot” that Mia picked from a math book we picked out at the library this week. We love our library trips. The kids had a lot of fun picking out projects for us to do over the course of this “term.” We also had a lot of fun making this.
I really love that we are able to do the activities together as a family, but the big girls still have their own individual work to do too.
For science one day we made Nature Journals to collect various nature the girls find. Each “journal” has 4 paper bags to fill with things they find interesting on our nature walks. We can use our Nature Anatomy books to identify new nature we haven’t seen before.
Today we took a field trip to Highfield Discovery Garden. The story in the garden today was Dragons Love Tacos & they got to pick Taco Topping Veggies from the garden. They got tomatoes, peppers, and radishes. They remembered that radishes were mentioned last week in The Tail of Peter Rabbit.
They played on the tree house playground & in the garden, spent time exploring in the nature center, picked a book each in the little library, and put on a puppet show. We also packed a picnic lunch to share in the garden Cafe. Moses really liked watching the trains go around the tree house tracks.
Overall we had a really good week. We completed all our group & individual work we had planned. Time to make dinner & get ready for Ella’s first volleyball game!
From Heroin to Housewife 