Mandi Ehman's Blog, page 16

The most important part of any language arts curriculum

Last month I shared my favorite language arts curriculum (and truly, I think there is so much good stuff to choose from!), but in my excitement over sharing the formal curriculum options available, I managed to skim over what I believe is the most important part of the subject: quality literature.

Reading aloud, listening to audiobooks, filling your home with books (whether purchased or borrowed), reading in front of your kids…these are the things that lay a foundation for strong readers, writers, and communicators long before they read their first word.

I’ve always believed this to be true, and it’s the main reason that we started out with the Sonlight curriculum. How can you go wrong when you’re focusing on beautifully written books?!

Although the curriculum didn’t work for us for a variety of reasons, the Sonlight booklists played a huge part in filling our first bookshelves, and books have always been a significant part of our homeschool budget each year.

That said, it wasn’t until my oldest struggled with learning to read that I really realized the beauty of this approach outside of feeding a love of books…

You see, in 2011 our then-seven-year-old still wasn’t reading, and it was tearing me apart. I learned to read early, and I always assumed my kids would as well, and I was desperately afraid that she would never develop a love of books if reading continued to be a struggle for her.

During a series of heartfelt conversations at a weekend retreat with Susan Wise Bauer and several other classical homeschoolers, though, I realized that not yet being able to read was such a small part of the equation. This was a kid who had literally memorized several volumes of Story of the World at seven years old. A kid who used words I didn’t know in sentences and regularly corrected my pronunciation. This was a kid who was enchanted by stories and the written word, even though she couldn’t quite decipher it herself.

And you know why? Because not only did we read aloud a lot, but we also used audiobooks constantly—during bedtime and afternoon quiet time and whenever she needed a few minutes alone. She fell in love with stories and the written word, she developed an innate sense for good writing by hearing it read aloud, and she expanded her vocabulary and imagination beyond anything I could have purposefully taught her in those same 7 years, all by hearing words and ideas used by great writers.

And now that she can read (and this goes for her two sisters who picked up reading more easily than she did as well), a love of books continues to be the foundation of our language arts program. I can see the effects of the books they’ve read in the stories they write—in their creativity with sentence structure and dialogue, in the vocabulary they use, and in their ability to build toward a climax even when we haven’t talked about the importance of doing so.

Although we haven’t always been faithful about reading aloud because of my work schedule, we have more than a hundred audiobooks in our Audible library, and they’ve always listened to stories at various times each day. We’re reprioritizing reading together as part of our morning time, and as I read the words from classics like Lad, the Dog, I’m reminded of the importance of quality literature. Not only are the girls are enchanted with the story, but they’re being exposed to words and sentence structures from the early 1900s that they might not encounter otherwise, and yet they’re able to decipher it as they hear it read aloud, expanding their understanding of grammar and good writing in the process.

I think language arts is so, so important, and I enjoy using a formal curriculum for teaching grammar and writing. But if I had to choose between the two, great books would win every time!

What role do great books play in your homeschool? Do you think quality literature is enough for teaching language arts?

Related posts:
Why we homeschool year round (yes, even in the summer!)
How we’re using spiral notebooks to simplify
Favorite fantasy books handwriting sheets for older elementary students
Homeschool language arts options {and what we’re doing…for now}



     

Homemade hot chocolate, DIY photo keychains + more {101 Days of Christmas}

Each week this holiday season I’m sharing seven of my very favorite 101 Days of Christmas projects from the archives.

I love Christmas traditions—from driving to see Christmas lights after our annual sibling gift exchange shopping trip to hot cocoa on Christmas Eve while we read ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas. While surprises are fun, there’s something extra special about the things we do year after year, cementing those events into our family memories! Advent is just a month away, and I’m already pulling things together to make sure we’re ready for some of our very favorite traditions.

{42} Homemade Hot Chocolate

We’ve already dusted off this hot chocolate recipe to usher in the cool weather, and it continues to be one of my favorites!

Click here for the recipe {and grab the eggnog version here!}.

{43} Barb’s Homemade Eggnog

I had never liked eggnog until this recipe changed my life. Now this is one of our very favorite holiday treats!

Click here for the recipe.

{44} Chocolate Spoons

Add a special touch to your coffee or hot cocoa with these chocolate spoons, which are perfect for stirring some chocolate-y goodness into any warm drink!

Click here for instructions.

{45} Color-Me Christmas Cards

Print and fold these color-me Christmas cards before passing them out to your kids for a personalized touch this Christmas.

Click here for the free printable!

{46} DIY Photo Keychains

My husband and I both still carry these keychains on our keys, and I love them so much!

Click here for instructions and tips.

{47} Gluten-Free Gingerbread

Looking for a tried-and-true gluten-free gingerbread recipe? This one is a winner!

Click here for the recipe.

{48} Overnight Apple Butter

It’s apple butter season here in the eastern panhandle of West Virginia, and it’s one of my very favorite treats to serve on warm toast or in a cold “apple butter and butter” sandwich!

Click here for the recipe.

How are you preparing for Christmas this week?

Related posts:
The best of 101 Days of Christmas: FREE 2015 Christmas planner + more
Handprint calendars, biscotti + more {101 Days of Christmas}





     

Weekend reading: October 24, 2015

From Instagram: I think he’s hungry or something… 

This little man turns TWO today! Thankfully, two year olds are my favorite, so I’m mostly excited about everything this next stage holds rather than sad about his baby days being almost over. He’s talking up a storm (although he seems to have his own alphabet so that only we can understand him!), learning new things every day, and trying his hardest to keep up with his sisters. But he’s also the sweetest little boy there ever was, and he loves to snuggle, read books, and build pillow forts (aka piles) and then bury into them!

This weekend we’re also on baby countdown as we wait for Lucas’ arrival, although nothing appears to be happening yet, so he just may be my first baby to wait until his due date to arrive!

What I’m reading: I’m still working through the pile of nonfiction I’ve started but not finished, including  The Mother Tongue: English and How it Got that Way by Bill Bryson (if you’re a grammar or language geek, this is SO good), ADHD Without Drugs by Sanford Newmark, MD, but I keep getting distracted by easy escapist reads!

What I’m thinking about:

{Follow my personal Facebook feed for the things I’m thinking about and talking about all week!}

Focusing on the big picture

10 things I’ve learned in 10 years of homeschooling | Simple Homeschool


Se7en + 1 Myths Homeschoolers Need Not Believe to Stay on Track… | Se7en


My Biggest Homeschooling Mistake: Over-thinking Methods & Philosophies | Amongst Lovely Things

Making the most of the life you have

The Uneventful Days that Affect Us Forever | The Art of Non-Conformity


I practice simple living but I still love my stuff | The Art of Simple


Boredom is not a problem to be solved. It’s the last privilege of a free mind | Gayatri Devi


Depression: The Struggle None of Us Wants to Talk About | Storyline Blog

When motherhood breaks your heart

The Best Parenting Advice | We are THAT Family


10 Ways to Climb Out of a Really Bad Day of Mothering | Carrots for Michaelmas

Have a great weekend!

P.S. The 2015 Ultimate Homemaking Bundle is coming back for just 2 days next week. Click here to be notified when the flash sale is live so that you can snatch up the more than $1,000 worth of resources (including some pretty fun bonuses) before they disappear for good!

Related posts:
Weekend reading: November 8, 2014
Weekend reading: January 31, 2015
Weekend reading: August 8, 2015
Weekend reading: October 3, 2015



     

Anatomy of a tiny {closet-sized} home office

In the 6 years since Sean sold his last business to become a stay-at-home dad (a season that is sadly ending as he launches a new interior paint & trim business), we’ve tried several different office set ups—from various setups in the loft to working on the couch or at the breakfast bar downstairs. Although each of these worked for a time, none of them felt like a really great solution. I was either right in the middle of the family activity or isolated enough from everyone that I could still hear the chaos but couldn’t actually do anything to help.

Last year, when it became obvious that Jackson wasn’t going to use his beautiful nursery, we decided to turn the nursery (also known as the master bedroom closet on the floor plan!) into an office. At first we just disassembled the crib and moved the desk—which thankfully fits perfectly—downstairs. But over time I’ve made it my own, moving our daily homeschooling supplies downstairs and finding space for the other things I use regularly. Because I have to be on the phone fairly often, we installed a “real” door—the only non-sliding barn door in our house—and Sean recently repainted the walls for me as well.

We didn’t intentionally set out to create a theme of reds and aquas for the room (although I knew I wanted some bright colors), but as I’ve gathered various things, they’ve just happened to fit that color scheme (even the journals on the window!), so we went with it.

I need to update these photos, which were taken at our gender reveal for Jackson, with photos of the whole family once Lucas arrives, but they’re some of my favorites, so I’m not feeling very motivated!

My one absolute necessity for an office is a window. Even though I can’t see much from this one when I’m sitting down—and it doesn’t even open—I very quickly turn into Mr. Hyde without natural sunlight, and I love that I can see the stars when I am up early working as well!

This tiny wardrobe has been used for everything from baby clothes to office supplies, and it’s really the perfect size for my doodling and hand-lettering books, our kindergartener’s school books (the rest of the girls have baskets upstairs), various cords, camera parts and batteries, and extra paper and journals. Plus the trash can, which I love being able to “hide” rather than have out in the open in our limited floor space!

Here’s a more detailed look at how we’ve made the most of this space:

I love waking up early and shutting myself in my tiny little office. It’s cozy rather than claustrophobic, and I am definitely most productive in this space.

While we’re expecting a new baby any day now, turning the office back into a nursery wasn’t an option we ever considered because it’s working too well! Instead, we’ll keep Lucas with us—first in the rock ‘n play and then in the crib—and move both boys upstairs at the same time when they’re a little older.

Related posts:
An updated master bedroom {modular home house tour}



     

Discovering the joy of morning time

If you follow me on Facebook or Instagram, this post probably isn’t a surprise to you;  I’ve been a bit obsessed with this whole morning time thing for the past few weeks! But from the first time we sat down to intentionally do this, I’ve known it was exactly what our homeschool had been missing, and I just can’t help but share my excitement.

The idea of a morning time routine is not new. It’s fairly common in preschool circles (where it’s often called circle time), and it’s something we’ve tried in various forms at different times during this homeschool journey as well. But no matter how hard I tried, it hasn’t ever really stuck for us. I always felt like it was forced and like I was frenetically jumping from one topic to another, and I have a horrible habit of overstuffing any new routine so that it feels overwhelming and stressful.

But more than that, I don’t think I ever really had a vision for why we were doing morning time, other than it sounded like a good thing to do.

It’s a pretty ridiculous time for me to be implementing such a drastic change to our homeschool routine: Sean is in the process of starting an interior paint and trim business and often gone for 10-12 hours a day, we’re about to welcome a new baby, and I have an almost-full time job that I love. If anything, I’m feeling stretched and stressed already by our schedule, so why would I set aside two hours each day on top of everything else on our plate?

Quite honestly, it’s because I caught the vision of why for myself. This may not be why everybody does morning time, but for me there are two main motivations: one (and most importantly) when things get rough, if all we get done is morning time and math, we can consider the school day a success.

The other reason—which I didn’t fully “get” until we’d actually started doing it—is that it allows us to recapture our reasons for homeschooling in the first place:

we start our day together, so we’re building relationships (and there is a noticeable difference in how well the girls get along on the days we having morning time, enough so that we’ve done it for the past two Saturdays as well!)


we focus on great books, poems, composers, and artists, so we can recapture the wonder in our homeschool that just ticking through our academics doesn’t always afford


we’re learning in a one room schoolhouse type environment, so our littles are hearing things that they may not fully understand yet but beginning to learn the grammar of those topics and the bigs are getting to lead conversations

On a practical note, the girls also do a much better job at paying attention during memory work when I’m sitting right with them and keeping them on track (this is a no-brainer because of course they do better, but it’s been a nice side effect even though it wasn’t my original goal).

So, what does morning time look like for us?

First, please know that I am not an expert on this topic. We are only a few weeks into this experiment, and I’m still figuring out what it will look like for us. I’m also avoiding reading too much about morning time now that I have the basics under my belt because I really want this to be our family’s routine and not an attempt to recreate someone else’s.

(As a side note, morning time for many people is as short as 20-30 minutes. We set aside two hours for ours each morning because it includes our read alouds and my girls are all fairly close in age, so I can do a lot of my teaching during that time as well.)

When I first caught the vision for being intentional about trying this for our routine (from both Sarah Mackenzie and Heidi Scovel), I knew that I needed to be careful not to overdo it in my enthusiasm if I really wanted it to stick.

That means I did read through Cindy Rollin’s Morning Time Moms blog for ideas on what morning time looks like in her home, but I did not buy Pam Barnhill’s Your Morning Basket package (even though it looks wonderful), because I didn’t want to give myself a whole list of “shoulds” that I wouldn’t be able to keep up with.

It also means we started out really slow with just a poem and a read aloud and have slowly been adding more to the routine as we go. I made myself a quick little grid of the areas I want to cover each day, and I actually fill it in each morning rather than planning it out ahead of time (as with our spiral notebooks, planning it on a daily basis allows me to be more realistic rather than setting lofty, and unattainable, goals).

This week we’ve worked up to doing something for each category or topic. While there are still things I’d love to add in theory, we’re already pushing two hours a morning, and we simply don’t have more time than that in between meals and chores and other school work and a toddler and (soon!) new baby to care for.

For us, morning time is a time to:

review our day and talk about what’s on each of the girls’ checklists
start with Bible time and prayer
learn new hymns, poems and other short passages
do CC memory work together
discover the joy and wonder of art and music
cover our language arts lessons in a group setting
read aloud—poetry, picture books and chapter books—together

My goal is to set aside one day every 4-5 days to play a game together in place of some of the other topics—and yesterday we took a walk to collect leaves and enjoy the beautiful fall day—but I haven’t quite figured out what playing board games is going to look like with a busy two year old in our midst!

Last week, when I felt like we had settled into a good routine and this was going to stick (often times, my new ideas don’t stick, but I honestly knew this one would from the first day we did it because it just had such a big impact and the girls love it so much!), Sean got me a “morning time basket” of my own from Home Goods ($12!), and I pulled together a morning time binder, which holds our daily grid, master lists for our morning time, checklists, chores, etc., individual poems and passages I’d like us to memorize in the future, resources for language arts and math, etc.

It will be interesting to see how this routine changes with Lucas’ birth—in some ways, it feels like the perfect way to get us through those early newborn weeks and in others it feels like it’s about to get a whole lot harder while trying to juggle a toddler and a newborn. But overall I love that it offers us flexibility in what exactly we do each day while still creating a predictable routine for our mornings!

Does your family practice morning time? What is your vision for this time?

Related posts:
Scaling back our 2014-2015 curriculum {again}
Technology in our homeschool
Why homeschooling is not a year-by-year decision for our family
Curriculum for the 2015-2016 homeschool year



     

Handprint canvases, Scrabble tile ornaments + more {101 Days of Christmas}

Each week this holiday season, I’m sharing seven of my very favorite 101 Days of Christmas projects from the archives.

One of my very favorite Christmases was the year we declared it a “handmade holiday” and spent months preparing for Christmas by brainstorming and handmaking gifts for our kids and various family members. That was the year before the first 101 Days of Christmas series, and we haven’t done it again since. (And I know myself well enough to know that this year with a brand new baby isn’t the year to do it once more!) But it was really very special to take the time to handcraft various gifts. I would spend evenings in the laundry room sewing diapers and bibs and burp cloths for the girls’ Bitty Babies, and we put together handprint calendars for the grandparents, marshmallow guns for my young step-brothers and monogrammed journals for our teen sisters.

Even if we don’t do a full handmade Christmas again, I think what made it special was the thought and attention we put into each gift, and that’s something we can do every year!

{35} Handprint Canvas

This handprint canvas is one of my favorite projects, and I may need to take the time to make one for myself with all six of the kids’ handprints once Lucas is a little older!

Click here for more details.

{36} 

Handmade ornaments are so much fun because you can customize them in so many ways—color, size, etc. These retro paper ornaments are simple to make but beautiful on the tree!

.

{37} Peppermint Sugar Scrub

Add a little luxury to someone’s stocking or gift basket with this delicious peppermint sugar scrub. It’s simple to put together but wonderful in the bath or shower, and you can adjust the scent by using different essential oils!

Click here for instructions.

{38} Holiday Pinwheel Cookies

My girls always love when I make these pinwheel cookies. They’re pretty easy to make and fairly fool proof, so if you don’t mind a little food coloring, you’ll want to give these a try!

Click here for the recipe.

{39} Rosemary Honey Roasted Nuts

Rosemary is one of my very favorite herbs, and these honey roasted nuts from Shaina incorporate a sweet honey coating with this flavorful herb for a delicious savory treat.

Click here for the recipe.

{40} 

I love these ornaments and may have to buy some replacement tiles to make Jackson and Lucas their own ornaments. These are fun and easy to make and who doesn’t love Scrabble letters?

!

{41} Wrapping Paper Bows

Don’t worry about running out of bows this Christmas; make your own with some contrasting wrapping paper!

Click here to see how to make these.

Just 66 days until Christmas!

Related posts:
The best of 101 Days of Christmas: FREE 2015 Christmas planner + more
Handprint calendars, biscotti + more {101 Days of Christmas}
Chocolate-covered espresso beans, printable bows + more {101 Days of Christmas}
Hanging pinecones, French madeleines + more {101 Days of Christmas}



   

Weekend reading: October 17, 2015

From Instagram: Never mind the flat tire; he’s still in heaven!

This week we made it to the pumpkin patch with our CC group and I finished printing labels for our Christmas cards and baby announcements, so we are officially ready for Lucas to come whenever he’s ready!

My Essentials class also threw me the sweetest little baby shower at lunch yesterday, with cupcakes a couple of moms had baked after an afternoon at the pumpkin patch (that’s love!), diapers and adorable outfits for our new little man, and the two sweetest papers that the kids wrote about the new baby coming.

Beyond the presents (and we’re so thankful for extra diapers!), I really loved that they took the time out of their busy schedules to celebrate baby Lucas!

 

What I’m reading: The Fire Sermon by Francesca Haig and a whole bunch of nonfiction I’m hoping to finally finish in the upcoming week (I’m definitely a starter when it comes to nonfiction!)

What I’m thinking about:

{Follow my personal Facebook feed for the things I’m thinking about and talking about all week!}

On raising adults

Prepare the Child for the Road, Not the Road For the Child | For Every Mom


20 Ways to “Push the Reset Button” With Kids | Jess Connell


Technology is not ruining our kids. We are. | Quartz

On focusing on what’s important

Stop Hustling and Get Your Life Back | Storyline


The Productivity of Being Non-Productive | Becoming Minimalist


When it’s time to ditch your goals | EntreFamily

On a life well lived

On Judging Pumpkins and People | Chasing Blue Skies


From the top of the proverbial hill | The Art of Simple

Have a great weekend!

Related posts:
Weekend reading: November 8, 2014
Weekend reading: January 31, 2015
Weekend reading: August 8, 2015
Weekend reading: October 3, 2015



     

Preparing for a new baby {and counting down the days}

We expect baby Lucas to arrive sometime in the next one-and-a-half to three weeks, which means we’re finalizing last-minute preparations for his birth and trying to remember just how tiny a new baby is!

While I’ve definitely become a baby minimalist over the years (this time around, we don’t have any baby gear except the Rock ‘n Play where he’ll sleep for the first few months, car seats for both cars, a few Boba wraps and carriers, and the crib my dad made for our oldest daughter), I’m definitely a planner, which means I’ve been nesting for weeks now:

1. After a rough first trimester and a very busy second trimester, I’ve spent the last 6 weeks or so seriously decluttering our house from top to bottom, and it feels so good! I am fairly confident that I’ve touched every item in our house to evaluate whether it was worth keeping, and we’ve taken loads and loads to Salvation Army (which is crazy since we’ve done this so many times before!).

2. The 0-3 month clothes are all washed, folded and put away, as are blankets, burp clothes and slings.

3. We’ve washed and rearranged the car seats to make room for SIX kids in both of our cars (and I’m so thankful we chose cars that will hold all of us even though we weren’t planning on having any more kids!).

4. This time my mom has done more to fill our freezer than I have, but we’ve got dinners for a few weeks plus quite a few breakfast breads and muffins frozen and ready to go!

5. My hospital bag is packed and ready to go with clothes (for the hospital and to wear home), various electronics and cords (plus an extension cord to make it easier to charge things from my hospital bed thanks to the recommendation of friends), and snacks (because nothing makes you hungry like giving birth)!

6. We’ve spent the last few months in chores boot camp teaching the girls how to do various things and establishing good habits and routines so we can take care of the house as a team.

7. We’re currently working on a “morning time” routine (more on that in a later post), which I think will be especially valuable on the days when nothing is going right and we just need to call an audible and curl up on the couch together.

At night I lie in bed trying to imagine what it’s going to be like to bring a newborn home one more time and how it will feel to have SIX kids (I always want to write SIX in all caps because it still feels so crazy to me!), and now that most of my nesting tasks have been crossed off my list, we’re all anxious for his arrival!

How do you prepare for a new baby?

Related posts:
Why I’m buying my 8-year-old her first bra
Worry is not our benchmark
Two kids is easy…and two kids is hard!
On ER visits, pediatric orthopedists and blogging breaks



     

Rotating seasonal wardrobes with older kids

Ah, it’s that time of year—time to rotate seasonal clothes!

Several years ago I wrote the ultimate guide to rotating seasonal wardrobes, and at that time (with 4 girls under 7), my system worked almost perfectly. As they’ve gotten older, though, we’ve run into issues that made it obvious that things needed to change:

Our kids have stronger opinions about their clothes, so passing down clothes from one who wore dresses only to one who only wears cargo pants isn’t quite as simple as when I was the one making all of the decisions.


Because of the ages of our kids, we often have two girls in a single size (and our boys will likely end up in the same size at some point as well), which means going minimalist with our storage ends up costing us a whole lot of money down the road.


Similarly, while it was easy to pass baby clothes down through 4 girls and still be able to share them with another family at the end, many of the girls’ clothes are in tatters by the time they’re done with them. So keeping only enough for one child means we’ll have to replace the majority of it before it reaches our youngest.


As kids get older, their sizes are no longer defined by 4T or 18 months. Most of my girls wear different size tops and bottoms, which requires a bit of finagling when it’s time to rotate the clothes.

On top of the challenges of having a larger family and older kids, the last year had done a number on my storage system:

I had not taken the time to sort through the hand-me-downs we’ve received over the past year (and we are so, so thankful for hand-me-downs!), so I had several bags and boxes to go through.


Several times along the way I had stuffed a bunch of clothes in random bags because my bins were too hard to get to, so those had to be sorted as well.


AND, I’d tagged and labeled all of our baby boy clothes for consignment just weeks before finding out we were pregnant (thank God we didn’t drop them off before I took the test!), so I had to remove those tags and create bins for those as well.

After spending several hours each weekend for the past few weeks sorting through everything, we’re back to a system I can feel good about, even if it won’t ever be as simple as it was when they were little.

For me, that meant first sorting every single bit of clothing (their current wardrobes, hand-me-downs, random piles of clothes…all of it!) into the correct size bin. As I was sorting, I also filled several trash bags with items that were ratty and worn and several giveaway bags with things that were too small or no one was interested in wearing.

Then I had the girls come down one by one and we sorted through their sizes again, item by item, identifying the clothes they would actually wear and putting them in individual laundry baskets for temporary holding. I had them try on various pants to make sure we got the sizes right for their bottoms, and I’d sometimes ask them if they were sure they’d wear an item or just saying yes because they liked the idea of it. (My rule is that if they choose it for their dresser, I reserve the right to require them to wear it, which helps them make better choices about what they actually want to wear.)

After we got through everybody’s box, we did one last load of laundry and sorted those clothes into the laundry baskets as well.

And then we went through everything one more time and counted how much of each type of clothing they had. Although I try not to be too rigid about it, my general goal was for each of them to have:

8 pants (I started with 6 pairs, but they convincingly argued that they need more quantity and more options, so we raised it)
10 long-sleeve shirts
2-3 short sleeve shirts
2 shorts
2 sweatshirts
1 bathing suit
3 sets of pajamas
6 tank tops (for my older girls, who wear tank tops under everything, just like their mama)

We added the extras back to the appropriate bin and made notes about any items we needed to buy, a list that was thankfully much smaller than it had been in the spring.

Then they each took their pile up to their dresser, and we were done!

Yes, I wish the boxes were all the same sizes, but we’ve accumulated various sizes over the years, and I just can’t bring myself to spend money replacing them just so they’ll match!

Does it take longer to give them choices when it comes to what they want to wear? Of course it does. But I just can’t see forcing my kids to wear clothes that they’re not comfortable or confident in, and taking the time to make sure they have clothes that they like (and enough of them!) means less struggles and tears when they need to get dressed. (As a bonus, they also fight me less on the rare occasion when I do pull a dictatorship and tell them what they’re going to wear for holidays, pictures and special occasions!)

Giving them choices does mean, however, that we keep more in storage. That means enough of each size for our middle daughters to both get a full wardrobe out of it and a variety of styles so they can each choose the clothes they want. Keeping enough also means that I don’t keep ratty clothes longer than I should just because I’m worried about the expense of replacing them, and it felt surprisingly good to get rid of things that probably should have been tossed last year.

For us, it’s a system that works, and I’m looking forward to it being slightly easier in the spring now that all of our bins are back in order!

Related posts:
On letting go of mommy guilt
Savor the moments and fill your soul
The power of a hug
Take better photos by the end of today



     

The importance of teaching over-the-counter medicine safety

Raising an adolescent is not for the faint of heart, and these days it feels like we’re confronting a new topic or issue every week—the behavior of friends and resisting peer pressure, world events that are now on their radar, the dangers of drugs and alcohol, and so on.

But here’s one that wasn’t yet on my radar: the danger of self-medicating with over-the-counter drugs. (In our house, I’m still in charge of dispensing the medicine, but I realize now that we’re not so very far away from our oldest wanting more self-sufficiency in that area.)

According to the American Association of Poison Control Centers, more than 10,000 ER visits every year result from adolescents self-administering over-the-counter medicines (and almost half of the almost 300,000 child-related calls they receive each year are due to medication errors and misuse).

And that’s why they’ve partnered with Scholastic and McNeil Consumer Healthcare to create a variety of educational resources and activities to help schools and families teach medicine safety to tweens and adolescents before they reach that stage.

According to Partnership for a Drug-Free America, many adolescents consider over-the-counter drugs safer than prescription drugs (and I think many adults are guilty of this too!) and downplay the dangers of overdosing or self-medicating. This program seeks to empower tweens with the information they need to make safe choices about over-the-counter drugs through resources for teachers, health professionals, families and community leaders, including:

a downloadable newsletter and overview of the program
a set of informational resource sheets now available in six languages
a medicine safety checklist and action plan
and an online interactive activity that encourages responsible medicine storage and safe household practices relating to medicine use.

Plus, there’s a free, illustrated storybook to help demonstrate medicine safety in a non-preachy format.

Click here to visit the OTC Medicine Safety hub and download your free resources today.

P.S. It’s worth noting, too, that according to Up and Away and Out of Sight, another 60,000 children end up in the ER after getting into the medicine cabinet when their parent or caregiver isn’t looking, so it’s worth reviewing your own storage practices as well.

This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of McNeil. The opinions and text are all mine.

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