Journal Themes

What to do if there isn’t a journal about what your child wants to study

/ Amanda Osenga / Leave a comment

This comes up frequently in our Facebook group. Someone’s child wants to study X subject, but we do not have a themed journal based on that subject.

Here are a few thoughts and options-

  • Students do not need a themed journal. When we first started making journals, they were all generic. All they need is the books, podcasts, internet, documentaries, etc. and a journal to document their learning.
  • Core journals are specifically designed for students to study any subject in the world. Yes, some are themed. Most are not.
    AND just because a student has a themed core journal, it doesn’t mean they have to only study the topic of that journal- or even study anything based on that journal at all! We have had a student use a horse core journal to study technology. Another student used the Songwriters journal to study theater.
    Browse core journals here
  • Many single-subject journals can be adapted to study a wide range of topics.
    For example, use white out tape to cover the headlines in Past Times History and your student can write news articles on any topic they want- or use it for written narration and/or general documentation of their learning.
    Alternatively, use the blank side of the Brain Games page for notes – some students find this approach particularly effective, alternating brain breaks with a Brain Games page and writing their school notes on the other side. We’ve ever had students create their own journal pages on these blank pages!
  • Our Reading Time journal and Master Class are set up to be used for studying any topic without as many subjects as a Core Journal
  • Use one of our blank journals- we have several that are completely blank inside. I will post their cover images and links below. Your student can decorate the cover to make it be about their topic of study!

What other outside-the-box ideas have you found for helping your student follow their passions and study their interests?

Blank inside journals

We have several more of the “Make Your Own Book of…” here. They are all the same inside, other than the Math journal.

How to Spot Your Child’s Natural Interests

/ Sarah Janisse Brown / Leave a comment

What is a natural interest? A natural interest is an area of life that you’re drawn to! For a lot of people, they might call this their hobby or side project. Natural interests can cover a vast variety of subjects – from a specific animal to the overarching act of reading, to drawing with charcoal or recording/writing music! Natural interests are our callings. So how do you spot this in your child from an early age?

Identifying your child’s natural interests can help guide their growth and learning! Here are some simple ways to spot what excites and intrigues them:

  1. Observe Their Early Play: Pay attention to the activities they choose most often — whether it’s building, drawing, or imaginative play! These can reveal their passions, such as an interest in architecture, fashion, or writing creative stories!
  2. Follow Their Questions: The “why” and “how” questions they ask can point to what they’re curious about, like science, nature, or history!
  3. Notice What Captures Their Attention: Take note of what they focus on for long periods and what they ask to learn more about — this shows what they’re naturally drawn to!
  4. Encourage Exploration: Provide different activities (arts, sports, books) and see what excites them the most! Giving them a variety of topics to learn about can help you notice which ones they focus on the most! By observing your child’s play, questions, and actions, you can help nurture their natural interests and encourage their growth!

Learn more about preparing your child for their future calling/career here.

Find journals for every possible area of interest imaginable by clicking the image below!

The Beautiful, Calming Power of Core Journals

/ Sarah Janisse Brown / Leave a comment

As a homeschooler myself I enjoyed delight-directed learning, library-based homeschooling, unschooling, and lots of unit studies and learning through projects. My education as a homeschooler was fun, but very spontaneous and disorganized at times.

As a homeschool mom, I began to study many philosophies of education and thought I had to pick just one at first. We started with Classical Education and Unit Studies, but that all fizzled out when I started homeschooling my second child who was adyslexic super creator and the third who was a genius type of neurodivergent detective!

By my fourth formal year of homeschooling my 5, 6, 7 and 8 year olds, I had introduced a eclectic array of homeschooling techniques that were inspired by Charlotte Mason, Jon Holt, Maria Montessori, Edith Schaeffer, the Bible, and my mother! All while mixing in the classical techniques that worked well for my oldest son.

People asked us if we were unschoolers, because my children’s activities revolved around their needs, curiosity, passions and childish career dreams. With children these ages, we did so many projects instead of workbooks to understand how the world works… and how to master it!

Combining travel, adventure, nature, real books, art, people and love created the theme of our learning adventure that revolved around three meals a day in a big Victorian house on Main Street. But unlike unschooling, we were seeking organization, a schedule and rhythm to our learning process. We were trying everything and experimenting with everything based on my leadership in the home, while honoring the curiosity of each child. We called it Fun-Schooling.

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Autumn Crafts & Fun-Schooling Ideas

/ Sarah Janisse Brown / Leave a comment

Autumn is one of the best times of year for a variety of reasons – holidays, family gatherings, and of course the changing of the leaves! As a way to learn from and cherish the season, here are a few activities your fun-schoolers can do during the fall:

  1. Leaf Identification & Prints Take a nature walk to collect leaves, and teach kids to identify different tree types! Once home, you can use paint or other art materials to create leaf prints by pressing painted leaves onto paper. This introduces children to plant science and creates beautiful fall art. It’s perfect for younger children, and gets them inspired by and connected with nature!
  2. Pumpkin Science & Math Pumpkins and gourds are great for hands-on learning! You can teach your children how to measure their heights, circumferences, and weights, then compare pumpkins of different sizes. For a long-term project, you can also carve or decorate a pumpkin, and plant its seeds to observe how they grow!
  3. Autumn Sensory Bin
    Fill a bin with seasonal items like dried leaves, small pumpkins, pine cones collected from your yard! Then, you can let your kids explore the textures and sizes, practicing sorting and scooping. This activity promotes sensory development and imaginative play!
  4. Fall Harvest Collage
    Provide construction paper, fabric scraps, and dried leaves for kids to create a fall harvest scene or abstract collage! This craft encourages creativity and fine motor skills, all while celebrating autumn colors and textures! It’s also a fun way to learn what sorts of leaves and seeds are in your yard during the autumn season!
  5. Autumn Storytime & Craft Read a fall-themed book to your children, or have one of your older children read to the younger ones! Afterward, have kids create a craft based on the story, like making their own scene or even a fall item, like a scarecrow! This combines literacy, creativity, and storytelling.
  6. DIY Bird Feeders Teach your children about wildlife by making bird feeders from pine cones, peanut butter, and birdseed! Hang them outside to attract birds and observe different species, helping children understand the importance of nature conservation! You can even use the Fun-Schooling Birdwatching Journal!

Find more nature-themed Fun-Schooling journals here!

Fun-Schooling with Food | November Journals On Sale Now!!!

/ Sarah Janisse Brown / 1 Comment

This month, is all about food!!

Scroll to the bottom to find the sales!

Cooking, baking, and growing your own- we’re covering all things food journals this month.

Food Journals

We believe teaching children to cook is a crucial life skill. And in the Fun-Schooling community, we have lots of amazing chefs. It’s been our joy to create several food-based journals for your children to enjoy. The links below will take you to peek inside videos so you can see exactly what’s in these wonderful journals.

  • Adventures Around the World– Learn about culture, history, and yes- food- for over two dozen countries.
  • Garden Research Handbook– The essential guide for maintaining a thriving garden. This is one of our most in-depth research journals yet.
  • The Baker’s Fun-Schooling Journal– Perfect for students majoring in baking or who want to hone their skills a bit more.
  • The Chef’s Fun-Schooling Journal– A core journal for Chef’s of all ages and stages. This has become a popular Mom School journal too.
  • Smoothie Time– Math, Home Economics, Nutrition, and Smoothies!! Students will make over a dozen smoothies and gain skills to be more comfortable in the kitchen at the same time.
  • Wilderness Adventure Handbook– Students will learn about foraging for wild edibles and how to survive outdoors.
  • Yum-School– Make 15 different dessert recipes with visual instructions. Perfect for introducing students to cooking and honing skills in experienced cooks. Includes guides for adapting recipes based on allergies and dietary needs.

ON SALE

Paperbacks & E-Books – up to 30% off

PDFs – up to 50% off

What questions do you have about Fun-Schooling and cooking?

What resources are your students (or you) using alongside these journals?

Help other moms out and let us know in the comments.

Fun-Schooling Fashion, Arts, and Culture | October Journals on Sale Now!!!

/ Sarah Janisse Brown / Leave a comment

This month, we’re talking about Fun-Schooling Fashion, Arts, and Culture.

Scroll to the bottom to find the sales!

Homeschooling fashion design is a subject many Fun-Schoolers are interested in

Fashion

We have four journals about homeschooling Fashion. Students will have plenty of chances to design their own clothing in all of these journals. For students who are really serious about fashion design, consider the PDF versions so they can have more blank forms to fill in.

  • The World Wide Fashion School– travel the world and learn about fashion and culture in over a dozen countries
  • Time Travel History – Fashion Dreams– Explore how fashion changed from 1800 to 2030.
  • Design a Dress– Create 75 different outfits!
  • DIY Fashion Design– Our most flexible fashion journal. Full of blank pages to make notes and design items. Students also love to use this as a portfolio by pasting in photos of fashion items they’ve sewn. (currently out of print, any of our other “DIY journals” are the same inside

Find them at https://www.funschooling.com/homeschooling-with-fashion

Arts

There is no wrong way to Fun-School the Arts!

We incorporate art into all of our journals and think art is a critical piece to learning. For our discussion it is visual art, music, theater, and dance- I also include writers as artists & creators!

We have several arts journals, here are some of our most popular-

Culture

Easily travel the world and other cultures from the comfort of your own home

Our journals make it easy to introduce your child to people and cultures around the world. We have dozens of options to help your family do just that. Here are a few of them-

  • Book of Dance– 40 types of modern and traditional dance worldwide.
  • World Tour– Students study an animal, instrument, and country for each letter of the alphabet.
  • Adventures Around the World– Learn about life, people, nature, inventions, historic events, cool places and unique attributes of dozens of different countries.
  • Travel Dreams: 30 Fascinating Cities–  This book leads you on a scavenger hunt though each city as you imagine planning your trip to each place.

Join our private Facebook Group to check out a Peek Inside of 12 of this month’s theme journals-

ON SALE

Paperbacks & E-Books – 15_% off

PDFs – 50% off

BOGO

We have several codes for Buy One Get one FREE through October 12th. Find all the details here

What questions do you have about Fun-Schooling fashion, culture, and the arts?

What resources are your students (or you) using alongside these journals?

Help other moms out and let us know in the comments.

Best Homeschooling Hack!

/ Sarah Janisse Brown / 1 Comment

Mom’s Best Homeschooling Hack! Many moms wear their kids out by teaching too many subjects! “Seven a day keeps the sceptics away!” Oh no! Please stop!

It’s a good idea to combine many subjects into one learning time to save your sanity! Instead of segregating all the subjects into different courses, try this multi-subject learning trick.

For example, let’s talk about United States Geography. Sounds boring? Not at all! It’s a vast topic!

Were not just looking at maps! When you dig deep into each state you will unearth every subject in a fun and natural way! You will easily cover History and Social Studies at the same time, when you learn about each State! But wait! There is so much more.

Your children will remember more of what they learn with this method, and you will save a lot of time and energy.

You can use YouTube videos and library books to learn everything and create your own unit study! It’s free! Make it more interesting by talking to a travel agent!

Organize your own curriculum with a cute notebook, or use a Thinking Tree Geography Journal that covers multiple subjects. That’s the easy way!

You can even add science and math to the USA studies by learning about plants, animals and ecosystems in each state. Study a favorite animal or person from each state. Plan a trip!

Kids can look at all the statistics, records, timelines, and dig into a bit of local economics of each state and cover math.

They can add cooking to the mix too! Home economics!

Why not study the art and inventions of each state too?

What about careers? What about politics? Don’t forget local literature! While you are at it learn to spell words related to each location.

I think that geography is the best subject to focus on when you want to cover every subject with efficiency!

But at our house, we are Fun-Schoolers, so we don’t call it geography. We call it Travel Dreams! It’s so easy with Thinking Tree! We studied Hawaii together–all about sea turtles, surfing, arranging tropical flowers and planning torch-lit native parties!

It’s so fun.

The Thinking Tree offers four Geography Journals for you to enjoy! They also last a long time. Each book can last one to four years depending on how long you take to study each part of the world. Kids of all ages can use the same book!

How to do it:

We think that it works best to study the United States in Elementary School, the Seven Amazing Continents in Middle School, and 30 Fascinating Cities during Highschool.

🙂 Seven Amazing Continents – Travel Dreams Geography – The Thinking Tree: World Geography & Social Studies The Creative Research Handbook for Library & Internet Based Learning

🙂 United States – Geography, History and Social Studies Handbook: Do-It-Yourself Homeschooling

🙂 Travel Dreams Fun-Schooling Journal: 30 Fascinating Cities – An Adventurous Approach to Geography & Social Studies

If you are in Canada look for our Canada Geography Handbook on Amazon.

Canada – Geography, History and Social Studies Handbook: Do-It-Yourself Homeschooling Our Great Country The Thinking Tree

Celebrating Science & Technology

/ Sarah Janisse Brown / Leave a comment

The Fun-Schooling theme for July is Science & Technology! Keep an eye out for sales on your favorite Fun-Schooling science journals!

Our 7 Subject Science Portfolio – Minecraft & The Real World is one of our best sellers, and covers Biology, Chemistry, Geology, Meteorology, Physics, Technology and Zoology! Here is a review from Amazon:

“This is one of our favorite fun schooling journals! This is an all in one science portfolio which means your student will study various topics in science and compile a portfolio of all of their best work. This includes a section on botany, chemistry, geology, meteorology, physics, technology, and zoology. Once you’ve chosen your books that you’re going to read there are pages for summarizing your reading time, copy work, designing your science topic in Minecraft world, notetaking and illustration prompts, documentary reviews, diagrams, science experiments and observations, comic strip pages, vocabulary building prompts, Real world versus Minecraft world, coloring, geography and history, biography studies, audiobook time, nature study and drawing, biography studies, audio book summaries, AND occupation studies! What more can I ask for in a Science Funschooling Journal! I’m getting one for every child! Over 250 pages to show your research.”

Shop for physical Fun-Schooling science journals on Amazon here. Find a list of all of our themes for 2023 here. Some science PDFs that are discounted right now:

How Do Unit Studies Work with Fun-Schooling?

/ Sarah Janisse Brown / 1 Comment

Unit Studies…

  • A deep dive into a topic/interest
    • Can be based on an animal, nature topic, hobby, interest, book, place, person- anything really!
  • Combine multiple educational subjects into the same topic
    • For example, a unit study on horses might look like:
    • Math- calculating horse speed, stride, distance, stats, etc for racing horses. Managing a budget for horse feed and equipment. (lots you can do with horse math!)
    • Science- horse biology
    • Social studies- horses around the world, how horses are used in different cultures/communities, horses throughout history
    • Language Arts- read a classical book about horses, do copywork on horses, learn to spell horse-related words
  • Multiple ages can work together on the same unit study with age-appropriate materials for each subject
  • Students can also work individually on a unit study
  • Great for students who tend to get “sucked into” a subject
  • Goes well with our idea of choosing a major https://funschoolingwithsarah.com/?s=major
  • Can last as long as you’d like- a day, week, term, month, or even an entire school year!
  • An easy way to combine elements from multiple educational approaches/methods (see the comments below for links to the other educational approaches we’ve covered)
  • How do I set up a unit study?
    • Start with a Fun-Schooling journal based on what your child wants to learn about- or a blank core journal or Master Class if we don’t have a themed journal on the subject
    • We’ll talk about this more on the 21st- information below

How do you set up a Fun-Schooling Unit study? Make sure to join the main Fun-Schooling group, and then click below to watch!

Fun-Schooling Themes for 2023!

/ Sarah Janisse Brown / 2 Comments
JANUARY
FEBRUARY
MARCH
APRIL
MAY
JUNE
JULY
AUGUST
SEPTEMBER
OCTOBER
NOVEMBER
DECEMBER

Make sure you never miss out on special sales, coupons, and giveaways this year as we feature journals for these themes in the coming year! Join us in our Mom’s Homeschooling Support Group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/FunSchoolingwithThinkingTreeBooks/

January- Language Arts

February- Math

March- Animals

April- Social Studies

May- Mom School

June- Core Journals

July- Science/ Technology

August- Back-to-School

September- Minecraft

October- Fashion

November- Cooking & Food

December- Holiday School