I recently met up with someone who was thinking of pulling her children out of school to home-educate. We met so she could ask questions and find out a little bit more. Right near the beginning, she said ‘I just want to ask, what do you actually do in your days?’ It was one of the first questions I had too. What do homeschoolers do all day?! The more people I meet, the more I realise there is a general assumption i’m stood infront of a blackboard, a group of berol pens strewn across the table, or a picture-perfect scene, regurgitating information I learnt online last night in one of my planned sessions whilst wearing a floor length plaid dress. This is so far from what homeschool looks like for us. But what do we do? Here’s a little insight into a random Thursday.

I recently came across STREW, a home education tracking app created by siblings Woody and Kayley, who wanted to make homeschool life that little bit easier. They reached out to ask if I’d like to try the app and share my thoughts. As someone who spends far more time living the learning than recording it, I was curious to see how it would fit into our days!

We’ve been home educating from the very beginning, something I’d always dreamed of doing. A few years in, our days are full of slow mornings, half-finished projects, scattered stationery, spontaneous trips, deep conversations, abandoned workbooks, and learning that happens when you least expect it. Because of this, what we’re learning can be hard to document. Often it’s so entwined with everyday life that it’s forgotten or never written down at all.

How fun is giving and receiving gifts? Does one trump the other for you? We do a mix of gifting in our family for Christmas, but in more recent years, we’ve started making specific gift lists so we can give something needed and necessary. This fits so well for me with ethical, conscious buying. I like meeting a need rather than getting another version of something they already have, or something they don’t need at all.

Joseph finds my gift lists very funny, and I know that the alarm clock and the flour mill are a tad far-fetched (ha!), but here are 12 gifts making the list this year and miraculously, there is no books in sight which is quite a big deal for me but i’ve vowed to read what I have before accumulating more! What’s making your list?

Wow, let’s first start by saying there is an Advent calendar for just about everything these days. In case you needed 25 presents in the run up to opening multiple presents on Christmas day then you’re covered. Here are some I love the look of this year, with a total range of prices and gifts inside, but i do know they come from brands that can be trusted and that are well thought out.