Transform Screen Time into Creative Learning with SparkEd

Hey friends!

What if some of your child’s screen time turned into time to explore, create, and solve cool problems instead of just zoning out?

I’ve recently signed up as a SparkEd affiliate and earn a commission through my link, so you’re helping support Pollywog’s Place if you decide to try it. SparkEd pulls together both academic support and fun enrichment, with topics like invention, storytelling, and global exploration. Because it’s self-paced, families can weave learning into their routines without totally rearranging life. Start with your child’s interests, then pick a course that fits their
readiness and comfort level.

Curious what might grab your kiddo’s attention? Take a peek at SparkEd through this link:

Check out the courses at SparkEd HERE!

Screenshot of SparkEd's Life Skills, Wellness & Real-World Readiness course page featuring three course categories: Survivor Skills, Digital Detectives, and Personal Finance for grades 3-9.

We’ve been shaking things up a bit in our homeschool routines this year. One big goal has been finding lessons and workbooks that let the older kids work more independently (while I drink my coffee before it gets cold for once… lol… while working more one-on-one with our youngest child). I’ll chat more about the other curriculum changes later—some of the workbooks are still on back order, so we haven’t really tried them out yet—but we *have* started using another resource that I’m excited to tell you about right now.

We’re kicking things off with some of the Life Skills courses that have caught my crew’s eye. My boys are itching to tackle the Survivor Skills course, while my older daughter has her sights set on the Personal Finance course. Each course has 12 modules with four sections, which fits really nicely into our current homeschool rhythm without feeling overwhelming.

We’ll keep you posted once we’ve had more time to play with these new resources… and honestly, we’re nerd-level excited about it, so there *will* be updates!

Let me know if you have tried this out or what courses you are interested in!

May God Bless You!

Creating a Racken House for Rabbits and Chickens with Links

We added some rabbits to our little collection earlier this year, and then we added a couple more. This has been in the plans for a while and we are glad to finally have a start on this new adventure, but the pens are not ready yet so we have been improvising by using some dog crates for housing.

When we first moved to Florida, we brought our rabbits with us and they had been housed within the chicken pen. Here, in Florida, we had the cages in the coop which helped as the chickens kept pest pressure low for the chickens and they were able to clean up any food waste… WIN, WIN!

That is the setup we are going for, and recently we learned that this is called a ‘Racken House’ or pen. I believe this name was coined by Joel Salatin and this is the way they raise rabbits and chickens on their farm. They also use mobile rabbit tractors and such as well, we also plan to do this in the future.

Continue reading “Creating a Racken House for Rabbits and Chickens with Links” →

New Garden Design & Rabbitry Project Product Links

This weather has been wreaking havoc across the country, and our area has not been spared. Florida has been seeing some historic lows, snow, and some areas south of us have even been experiencing colder temps than we’ve had here at our home… CRAZY!!! The winds have also been pretty rough and have caused a bit of damage.

If you are looking for links to the garden products… go to the bottom of the post!

Then the groundhog said that there’ll be six more weeks of winter??? Well, we took care of that groundhog… just kidding, but we did have a good meal to celebrate Groundhog Day.

Continue reading “New Garden Design & Rabbitry Project Product Links” →

Mini Garden Makeover and Fall Reset

How are you doing? I’m praying all is well… everyone here is good. We’ve really enjoyed having a week of reflecting on our blessings, and eating outside was a hit with the weather being just right. We will definitely be observing Sukkot in the future and plan to make a few small changes in the future.

This week, we are taking a breather from school for ‘Life Skills’ as the gardens need a little attention and revamping. I’ve had a vision for part of the garden, and we’ve been working on making it a reality. We haven’t had to buy any materials as we have been repurposing some things that we already had on hand. I am contemplating the purchase of some fencing for the garden, but seeing it come together makes me second-guess that idea.

You may remember the Pallet Gate project that we did a bit ago… this is another baby step towards the goal! We put together a small raised bed just enough to allow the guys an edge to weed eat and maybe save my chives… lol.

Continue reading “Mini Garden Makeover and Fall Reset” →

Favorite Homeschool Resources – March 2024

I’ll try to keep this short and sweet so you can have a chance to check out these great sites and products! I started a list of sites and resources for March as we came to them.

These are some of our favorite resources from this past month:

Continue reading “Favorite Homeschool Resources – March 2024” →