In a nutshell, I survived my first winter season as a shopkeep!!! I am now enjoying a much more leisurely pace (can it get more leisurely than stuffing my face with butter cookies?) as I gear up for the spring retail season. Keep your eyes peeled for French-inspired "brocante" additions, newly curated cottage decor and a whole new gaggle of handcrafted goods from mama artisans this Spring!
In even more exciting news, my fiance and I are officially gettin' hitched in a private ceremony in the mountains in September, followed by a dream-come-true honeymoon in Iceland and France. And while I'll likely spend my remaining years on earth paying off the cost of all the suitcases crammed full of French antiques that I plan on dragging back to the US, it'll be totally worth it to see the excitement on your faces when you see our shelves lined with baskets of savon de Marseilles, French enamelware, Parisian linens and my tears.
While I fritter away my days dreaming of spring in the countryside and summer in the south of France, I'm realistically brought back to earth to this Ice Age we are going through. Seriously though, the other day my pants froze to my body. Literally froze to my lower half.
Between the tundra outside and the flu epidemic inside, we've pretty much been housebound since Christmas, and we have the family bickering and stir-crazy four year old to prove it! In early December, we made the decision to reduce the shop hours and home-school our son until he starts preschool in the fall. This has been the most rewarding endeavor imaginable, and while I know homeschooling isn't for every kiddo, it has given "R" the confidence, comfort and one-on-one lessons that he's needed to define the perfect style of learning for him.
With a strategic spin on a standard curriculum, I've also woven in Montessori elements fostering personal independence, life skills and artistic development. A typical morning includes food preparation, daily teamwork (laundry, dishes, sweeping, taking care of the animals), hands on learning activities, sensory play, workbook exercises, crafts and memory games. Once a week we even go on a field trip (like the time that I told him That Fish Place was the aquarium...it was such a fun and *free* excursion on a small scale, and he got to learn about all the fish and mammals living there).
No matter where your little one goes to school, I wanted to share some of the fun and enriching activities we've worked on over the weeks because I'm sure we all need some inspiration and ideas for getting through this cold front with the kids!
Candy cane playdough is made with 1 c flour, 1/4 c salt, 3 tbs fractioned coconut oil, 3 tbs lemon juice, 1/2 c boiling water, red food coloring, 2 drops peppermint essential oil and 3 drops bergamot essential oil. Mix until cool, then knead until smooth. It can be stored in a resealable tupperware container as well and smells just like a candy cane. Be sure to go easy with the essential oils since it's a kid-friendly activity!
Some of the best things about the holiday season are all the sugary pies, cakes and cookies! Sometimes it's hard to detox as soon as the New Year comes knocking, so I like to add apples or applesauce, grated carrots, honey or agave and raisins to my favorite quickbread recipe in lieu of all that sugar. This can be a great activity for kids to cut the apples (with supervision), measure the ingredients, count the raisins and eat *I mean, pour* the batter using a ladle or measuring cup. Plus, it fits in that whole "life skills" hooplah.
Another valuable and sustainable life skill to teach your kids about is recycling. Not only is it an environmentally friendly habit to have, but it is a fun and free sorting activity too! You can use actual bins or stop by the Dollar Tree and pick up this activity set that comes with stickers of all the things we can recycle. This activity covers plastics, aluminum, compost and paper/cardboard.
Keeping with the spirit of caring for our earth, we also try to make a feeder every week. As much as I love making the little cookie cutter bird seed ornaments (and not just because they remind me of cookies), those can get a little crazy for a four year old to attempt, so we just save biodegradable toilet paper rolls, slather them with peanut butter or honey, and roll them in bird seed. You can also look on Pinterest to find ways to use plastic bottles as bird seed feeders and hummingbird feeders. Take pictures of the nibbling birds that visit and identify them in bird books.
Got a bunch of leftover sugar cubes from your fake snow activity? Grab an empty egg carton and write numbers 1-12 on the bottoms, then have your little one use large plastic tweezers or tongs to drop sugar cubes in the cardboard wells. This encourages dexterity and exercises the sorting-counting part of the brain! Then you can recycle the egg carton in your recycling exercise. No sugar cubes? No problem! Use cotton balls, pom poms, dried noodles, etc.!
Now this is my favorite exercise because it is challenging and uses both flashcards and letter magnets to identify letters, numbers and objects. And it introduces simple spelling to younger kids and helps older kids practice their harder spelling as well. You can get basic flashcards at the Dollar Tree that cover shapes, colors and objects. Lay three out at a time and when your little one completes each level, they move to a level of three harder words. At four years old, my guy's attention span lasted for one level of three words, which is to be expected but I can see this being an activity that never runs out of creative possibilities. Using the number magnets would be a perfect way to teach mathematics.
Thanks for tuning into another edition of "See how many months of useless information I can cram into one blog post to distract you from the fact that I haven't updated anything since July - Now pass the butter cookies!" I hope everyone is enjoying their 2018, but if you're looking to live on the wild side and break a New Year resolution or two, stay tuned for our Craft Beer & Craft nights coming up at the shop!