I am not a perfect homeschooler. I am not a perfect Montessorian. While I excel at planning, for most of my motherhood I’ve felt overwhelmed. For this reason, I have struggled to find a homeschooling routine that works as well as a method to keep me a prepared adult, so I can create a prepared environment.
So now you know me and you can decide if I’m the right gal for you to Montessori alongside. In the past 7 weeks we have slowly developed a routine that is working and we are constantly tweaking it. Because we have gotten to this point in routine, I have had more time to prepare lessons, presentations and materials.
Last week I was working extra in my business to make up for some bumps the week before. As such I had less time for homeschool prep. So on Friday at 12:20, I realized I was starting school without a plan for a group lesson.
Fortunately, I had started preparing materials for a series on The Sun. Since I had printables on sun benefits, dangers and sun safety at the ready I ran with that idea.
If you don’t already know this, I am pretty far on the “natural” end of the lifestyle spectrum. I am very picky about the products we use in our house and ESPECIALLY on our bodies. I am also a little passionate about what we put IN our bodies. So I decided to let Montessori, our need to make more sunscreen and our need for more vitamin D in our diets take the day where it may. We are currently wintering in Arizona so while sunshine is plentiful, we are all generally pretty low in Vitamin D.
So here is how I whipped teogether a FABULOUS group lesson and two projects in ten minutes.
2) I pulled up a quick YouTube Video on sun dangers.
3) I grabbed a Paleo Ice Cream Recipe from my Paleo Hacks desert book (I think you can still get this for free, I am not an affiliate) because it calls for THREE yolks and one yolk is about 5% of the RDA based on the current nutrition standards.
4) I raided my cabinets for our sunscreen ingredients.
I began with the video, because I keep it real around here. Videos allow me to have FAR LESS resistance from my kids.
After the video, I pulled out the first set of presentation cards and we discussed the sun benefits. My kids already knew many of these, but review is always supportive to internalization.
Next, we looked at the sun dangers cards and discussed those.
Finally, we looked at Sun Safety. I had my big kids alternate reading the descriptions while my kindergartener read the labeled cards.
Next, I gave them the choice of “help make sunscreen” or “help make ice cream”
I didn’t actually have my sunscreen recipe book at the ready, so we kinda winged it. I am still looking for my book, so if you would like my recipe, please use the contact button below so I can email it to you! just put “sunscreen” in the message!
I hope this post was inspiring to those of you who also, don’t always have an Instagram Pinterest worthy lesson ready for you kids.
Done is better than perfect. Presence over perfection, these are my mantras that free up my motherhood so much!
Birth is a very special time in your life, but it's one day out of the entire childbearing year. 
