Homeschool Happymess: A Naturally Inspiring Approach to Education

Happymess kids are searching their imaginations and resources in an attempt to find the creative, thoughtful gift that siblings and parents will love and that costs more in personal effort and less in cash. For the Backyard Bunch:  Athena is busy creating a backyard box set of games: a combination of Capture the Flag, Flashlight Tag, Trust and Nerf guns.  The boxes will include walkie-talkies (we have some already), flashlights, handmade belts to hold gear (black on one side for camouflage and reflector circles on the other to reflect flashlights to team members).  The boxes will be decorated with different colors for each team and can be used as bases or forts.  These backyard boxes will be perfect for her 4 younger brothers.  Maybe she should include a few cans of whip cream?

Truth and Quantum are combining their playmobile collections.  They are designing a storage box with playmobile and small town illustrations.  They plan to write “Bounce” and “Scooter” on the box.  For the first time ever, Bounce and Scooter will “own” the playmobile and can play with them as much as they like.  Sharing a favorite toy collection with a younger sibling is a top favorite for everyone.

A few years ago Athena and Truth made an alphabet book for Bounce with 26 pages. Each letter began a word that was special to Bounce.  They handcrafted each page and then had the book spiral bound with a cover at Kinkos.  They found some beautiful free alphabet printables at http://www.momswhothink.com  This year Bounce would like to create the same type of book for Scooter.

Athena is making personalized photo pillowcases for her best friends.  She recently made a pillowcase featuring a group of friends for a close friend’s birthday.

Happymess kids are designing personalized stationary and “thank you’ notes for family members.  They are taking family photos, landscape scenes, etc. and paring them with quotes and verses of poetry.  By uploading them to a stationary website they can create professional but personal stationary.  Stationary can be placed in decorated shoeboxes. Pens, markers and stamps complete the gift.

Scooter is creating muslin placemats by printing squares of fabric with leaf and vegetable prints using tempera paints.

A trip to an eclectic bookshop offered Happymess kids the opportunity to find unusual and favorite books in beautiful editions.  They created several “favorite book bags” as gifts, inexpensive yet perfect for sharing their love of learning.

Quantum, Athena and Truth, members of the USSA ski team, plan to offer personalized ski lessons to deserving family members.

Athena is considering buying some kitchen gifts, a fabulous pan for example, and including spices and spatulas and adding a collection of hand created recipe cards researched from the internet.  www.smilebox.com has free templates to create recipe cards, cookbooks and more.

Bounce plans to decorate his poems and books and share them with his family.

Are you looking for inexpensive and entertaining gifts for the kids on your list?

Check out our Quickie Thrifty Gifty List (approved as FUN by the Happymess team)

(first installment)

Yo-Yos

Slinkys

Nerf guns

Wiffle ball and bat set

Playdough

Let Me Count the Days:  Homeschooling is attempting to instill appreciation in the face of commercialism.  Wish me luck!

Filed under: Art, Uncategorized | Tagged: art, crafty christmas gifts, Destination Imagination, homeschool, homeschooling, leaf crafts |