Spring Day and other special days

​When my kids were in preschool and primary school, they had a few special days they really enjoyed like Valentine’s day, break up day and spring day. When I asked my daughter what she enjoyed about those special days she said the arts and crafts, getting to dress up and goodies her teacher handed out. So, I set out every year to make her have that same excitement. This year for spring day I prepared in advance. I wrote a list of fun things to do on the day and researched and printed some fun activities to do. I printed a spring word search, set out different colour paper, glue, water colour paints, googly eyes and other crafts.

I prepared the goodies for the table the night before. I cut up some fruit to make a fun fruit platter. I baked banana muffins and bought some cupcakes and lamingtons. I also bought some colourful sweets like jellybeans and speckled eggs. My daughter made iced tea (she makes the best iced tea) and we poured it out into mason jars the next morning, so it stayed cold. I bought her a yellow daisy dress, so she had something cute and new to wear. She did her own hair and added a beautiful flower alice band.

We chose a poem the day before. We read through it and all said what we thought it meant. It was a silly poem by Lewis Caroll and lots of laughs were had. I printed and laminated scripture cards the day before which we each picked our favourite and did some scripture journaling. My son loves word searches so that was his favourite activity. I then left the table as it was set, and we continued with our schoolwork as usual. I realised that little bit of planning I did to make it a fun morning, did so much for my kids. They were so excited to learn on spring day and there was so much joy at the table. 

​Footprints on our Land (South African History)
Homeschooling is so wonderful because you can add these fun aspects even once a month to make your days fun and change up your kids attitudes towards learning. We also did a fun morning last week to mark the end of a book we were reading for our South African History by Footprints on our land. I made pancakes, we had some hot chocolate and I set the table with things pertaining to the book we read. The month before that one of our tasks for footprints was to start a vegetable garden which we did. In August all our veggies started to bloom just in time for the end of our book. 

​Science Experiments
I would love to encourage you to make the most of your homeschool days with your kids. Take time on Friday to skim through and see what you may require for the next week. Use what you have in your cupboards and buy what you don’t have. A little bit of planning can go a long way. Your kids will likely remember the little experiments rather than a worksheet. There is definitely a place for academics, but you can have lots of fun while learning. This month with Science my daughter is doing Astronomy, so we painted a solar system. My son learnt about circuits and he did a circuit on his own. These are practical projects we did to make our month exciting and develop a love for learning!