Welcome to Mama Bear Activities- thanks for stopping by!
I am so excited to be sharing this learning journey with you.
A little about me
I am a Primary/Junior Teacher living in the country in Ontario, Canada. I am married to my wonderful husband Chris, and together we have two little cubs: Reilly: who is 3.5 years old and Charlotte (aka Charlee): 2 years old. I currently work part time as a supply teacher which leaves me plenty of time to home school the kids!
Why did I start homeschooling?
Good question.
I started my Instagram account about a year ago to chronicle our play based learning and to hopefully inspire other parents looking for easy, educational activities they could do with their kids. I love finding amazing accounts and activities on Pinterest, Facebook and Instagram to tweak for our family’s needs and add to my own content. Why reinvent the wheel when social media is an endless supply of inspiration from like minded parents/educators with great ideas?
As long as I can remember, I have wanted to be a teacher. I started teaching in 2009 in Ontario, Canada and was a supply teacher for several years. I love the flexibility of being an Occasional teacher and really enjoy learning from other teacher’s classrooms, routines and teaching styles. I was able to gather so many different ideas to keep in my back pocket, which has helped me significantly in my own classroom and now homeschooling journey.
Shortly after I was married, in 2014, I was expecting my son, who was born October 2015. Seventeen months later, I had my daughter (April 2017). I had put my son in daycare for a few months in order to go back to work before my daughter was born, but found I was not getting enough work to justify him being in daycare. He loved his daycare experience, the socialization and the environment. I knew I wanted to create this similar atmosphere in our home.
After my daughter was born, my husband and I made the decision that I would stay at home with our children (at least for the immediate future). I was fortunate enough to be granted an extended leave of absence from my school board that directly followed my one year maternity leave. This decision made sense financially, but it also gave me the opportunity to homeschool them until they started public school. If I was going to be a stay at home mom, I wanted to use my educational background and make it count! Going down to one income certainly has its challenges, but being able to be home with the kids everyday more than makes up for it. When my children are older I will still be able to rely on supply for more part time work, but be able to volunteer at their school and go on field trips with ease. I am thankful for this flexibility that isn’t found in many other careers.
Our homeschool journey hasn’t been linear. It really got its start a year and a half ago. My son’s vocabulary was on the lower side, and he had been referred to a speech therapist. However, the wait list was 9 months. I am not one to sit and wait idly, so I started educating myself by reading language/speech books and decided to start officially homeschooling him to help bridge the gap as much as I could. Thankfully my teaching background helped immensely with that. My specialty is Kindergarten to Grade 6, so there was definitely a learning curve adapting content (not to mention my mindset/expectations) to pre K. The plus side of it is that I understand what skills and knowledge my children need when they go to kindergarten as a baseline. Since we started our homeschool program, my son’s language has increased significantly and he is almost 100% caught up-I’d like to think it’s a result of working closely with him over the last year.
Navigating the Homeschool Life
My main concern with homeschooling has always been the socialization aspect. Peer learning is so essential in childhood development; I did not want my children lacking that because I did not have them in a formal preschool full time. I did enroll my son in a formal preschool two mornings a week this past year and it really helped to bring him out of his shell. To say he flourished would be an understatement. That, paired with our at home learning created (In my opinion) the perfect balance between home and traditional learning. My daughter will attend the same preschool in September when Reilly starts Junior Kindergarten.
I have also been able to remedy socialization through playdates, library programs and provincial early years children’s programs. There is an abundance of activities and programs in our area that are free (or very low cost). We take advantage of as much of these as possible which also helps to keep a routine and break up the monotony.
Our Homeschool Style
Our homeschool style is laid back. Some days/weeks we have themed activities and structured “lessons”, while other days it is a lot of hands on, organic learning and outdoor exploration, incorporating math and language. There are also days when we don’t do any formal education. It’s a balance. I don’t force structured learning if my kids (or myself) are sick, having an off day or [insert life throwing something unexpected at you!]. At the end of the day, I want this time to be fun and educational. If they aren’t enjoying themselves and it’s a chore, it’s not worth it! That being said, I try and accomplish at least ONE thing during those “off” days. Whether that is a silly science experiment, arts and crafts or maybe we just practice our ABC’s on the white board on the couch. Now that preschool is out, we will have more structured learning, in order to help prepare Reilly for the routines of Kindergarten.
Although I do not intend to homeschool my children past preschool age, I am so fortunate for the opportunity to be able to apply my teaching skills in a different environment and to help my children grow and succeed. At the end of the day, I’m just a mom, standing in front of my kids, trying to make every moment count.
If you want to see more, please follow me on Instagram @mama_bear_activities
Mama Bear Activities 