A Beautiful CM Life

Next year's planner is done and I am taking orders!

This planner has a delightful ocean theme and is perfect for any Charlotte Mason homeschool. Plenty of room for planning along with areas for attendace, habits, memorization & more!

*Pre-order by Marth 15th and get 10% off + FREE SHIPPING

Orders will ship by April 1st 💌 Tell your friends!

Link in bio, first comment, or PM me and I will send you the link!

We haven't done any nature journaling in awhile, so when it started to snow❄️, I thought it was the perfect opportunity!

The black paper was an easy way to make those snowflakes stand out. A good magnifying glass is helpful too!

Plus we tried some frozen bubbles 🫧

I've been working on next year's homeschool planner? What cover do you like?

🍊 candied orange peels

I was on an orange kick this December.

I happened to get the cookbook "Sugared Oranges: Recipes and Stories from a Winter in Poland" By Beata Zatorska.

She speaks of her grandmother getting oranges at Christmas time- a very special treat. She didnt waste any part, and in fact candied the peels.

This got me thinking of other Christmas oranges - the children's book An Orange for Frankie, the movie Christmas oranges and I decided to make it part of our Christmas this year.

I even sent a box of oranges to my parents and in-laws 🤣

I also decided to give these candied orange peels a try myself and was happy with how they turned out! Good to watch as is, I baked goods, or chopped up in homemade ice cream!

My only mistake was not taking ALL the pith off the oranges, they do give a bitter taste where left on. Otherwise, yum 😋

We recently read A Cabin Faced West by Jean Fritz 📕 It is a story about a little girl from the late 1700s whose family settles in Washington County (right here in the Pittsburgh area!)

My older daughter attended a workshop to discuss the book and learn about the time period this week. Well, one of the skills she learned was how to make butter! So she taught this to me and my younger daughter today🧈

I like this switch of roles 😄

My youngest just learned to ride her bike without training wheels so we went for a morning bike ride to the creek. 🚲

Its still in the 80s during the day so it was nice to get out and feel the cool fall air and see some of those fall colors. 🍁

This little girl could finger knit forever. I grabbed a finger knitting book 📚 from the library for some new inspiration, so she decided she would make a pillow! I will post pics once it's done.

If you've ever wondered about handicrafts and dont know where to start, try finger knitting! It makes long "sausages," and my now 6 year old has been enjoying it since she was 3!

We got our first taste at orienteering this past weekend with some friends 🧭

Orienteering is like geocaching but with a map and compass. "Controls" are hidden around the park and you must see how many you can find in the time given.

I'm excited for my girls to learn these skills and to use them moving forward, my oldest already told me we "have to sign up for them all"!

🌻We had a good start to another school year this week.

We refreshed our schoolroom a bit. 🍁

🎨They were excited about some new paints, and so starting up this years narration notebook was effortless. They are crafty girls, so of course they loved starting our paper silhouettes projects.

We even started a TBG Group this year where we adapted Mason's motto, "I am, I can, I ought, I will", read from scripture, and also covered composer study, a hymn and folk dancing 🕺

It was an exciting creek day with lots of surprises. There were so many damselflys, they were landing on our arms. Stumbled upon a fawn 🦌 and later some deer bones. Of course we found some cray fish 🦐 and some much needed cooling off.