Hello everyone. It’s been a while, hasn’t it? I don’t feel like blogging and I don’t feel like reading blogs in December, so I decided to step away from the computer for the last half of December. It was a lovely break, despite being plagued by sickness that didn’t seem to want to relinquish it’s grip on my family. But now that 2014 is here, I find myself looking back and looking forward. I’m praying about what it will all look like here…
But while I’m doing that kind of thinking, praying, lesson planning, meal planning and gearing up to start everything up again next week, I thought I’d give you all a peek at some of the most popular posts from this last year.
1. Brain Breaks: An Important Tool for Every Parent
I love the brain. I love learning about the learning brain and then passing this kind of information on… This post was part of my popular series, 10 Days to Boosting Brain Power. This post was my most popular post of the year and prompted me to write my first ebook, The Ultimate Guide to Brain Breaks! Another popular post was when I shared, How We Utilize Brain Breaks in our Home.
2. 10 Adventure Books to Inspire a Boy’s Faith
I take my books seriously. I loved compiling this list of beloved books for our boys that really inspire heartfelt, active relationship with Jesus! Judging from the popularity of this post, I see that I’m not the only one who loves to find good books that will inspire our boys on the adventure of faith in God. Due to a couple or requests, I put together a list of faith-building books for girls too!
3. I Can’t Homeschool Because I’m Not Patient Enough
One of the most frequent fears or excuses I’ve heard center around not being patient enough to homeschool. I admitted to what just about every other mom out there encounters. We will never be patient enough, but that’s not all bad.
4. Intentional Living Means… Setting Goals
If we want to live intentional lives, be intentional in our parenting, and in our homeschooling, we need to be setting goals and assessing on a regular basis. A {FREE} goal setting printable included.
5. What Does a Typical Homeschool Day Look Like?
Haha… This one surprised me. I guess because I don’t feel like we ever have identical/typical homeschool days. But I did lay out the ideal routine here for our current season.
6. KONOS: Where Learning Comes to Life
This one surprised me. I guess because I didn’t expect there to be much interest in me writing about the curriculum I’ve chosen.
7. 10 Boy Toys that Ignite the Imagination
Boys and their imaginations… I constantly amazed at how little they need to engage in hour upon hour of creative play!
8. Homeschooling: Why Socialization Matters
Oh the “What about Socialization?” issue…
9. Home is Where it Starts: Our Classroom, Our Mindset
Why we embrace a life-style of learning instead of merely replicating “school-at-home.”
10. New Traditions: A Family Birthday Party
We loved celebrating our anniversary with the kids by having a “family birthday” party!
11. Finding Good Books Just Got Easier: A Look at Heritage History
Oh the beauty of great books, vintage illustrations and not having to worry about paying an arm and a leg or buying new bookshelves! 🙂 We love Heritage History books!
12. 10 Things Homeschooling Has Taught Me About Myself
Here, I sort of laid out the good and the ugly that I discovered about myself while being on the mom end of the homeschool journey!
13. 10 Ways We Cultivate Learning
I love our out-of-the-box lifestyle of learning and share about 10 ways that we cultivate learning here in our home.
Of course, some of my favorites didn’t necessarily rank in the top 13 for traffic, but I thought I’d share them as well…
When Your Homeschool Day Gets Hijacked {It happens to everyone and we all need to find perspective, right?}
Incognito Testing: A Homeschool Mom’s Secret Weapon Muahahahaha…
Block Play: Building Up the Whole Child {Oh the many benefits of this fabulous open-ended toy!}
How to Waste Brain Boosting Opportunities {Where I once again, tackle the issue of screen-time.}
Created to Create: Finding Your Inner Artist {Where I talk about art as worship.}
Hi, I was just wondering what sort of things do you write down in all those Goals for intentional parenting, what kind of Spiritual goals, what kind of Character goals etc? Thanks for any tips!
I like to be careful to separate spiritual (relationship with God) goals from character (behavior-fruit of the spirit goals). For character we’ve had obedience, attentiveness, anger management, self-control to name a few. For spiritual, we’ve had learning how to pray out-loud, praying as a part of everyday life, casting our cares on the Lord (for my worrier), understanding the gospel and communicating that, understanding communion or baptism (when they express interest, etc…
Does that help?
what a great resource, thanks for compiling these links 🙂 It will be fun browsing through your older posts and discovering new books!
Excited to see what comes this year. Praying for you.
Love this, Heather. What a great resource to return to and it’s all nicely organized 🙂 I’m in the process of 31 Days of Homeschooling Goodness on my blog and it’s beautiful to see how we are on the same page as homeschool moms in so many areas. Happy new year!
That is an impressive list of posts. I am looking forward to more goodness like this in 2014! Happy New Year.