Sharla Kostelyk

Of Tantrums and Tuck-ins

Tonight, I was tucking in one of our eleven year olds, praying with him, talking about what we are going to do tomorrow, telling him something that I noticed about his character today and how much I appreciated that, giving him a hug and a kiss, and leaving him with a smile. After I shut the door, it occurred to me that I’m sure that by the time my oldest boys were eleven, I had stopped tucking them in. They had seemed so old already and besides that, I had many little ones who needed help into their pyjamas and tucking the younger ones in took over.

Eleven is not old. Eleven is an age when they will still open up to you in those one-on-one moments and if you can establish that kind of communication at that age, it will likely continue into their teen years. Tuck-ins build relationships. Tuck-ins are time, a precious commodity in a large family.

I’ve thought a fair bit in the years since I stopped tucking my big boys in (though I didn’t think of it right away of course) that I didn’t even know that the last time I tucked them in would be the last time. I didn’t cherish that last prayer said by their bedside, that last round of “what was the best thing that happened to you today?”. Their responses are not written into my heart the way I wish they were. I made a selfish choice because I wanted the work of my day to end sooner and I saw tucking them in as work.

It never was. It was such a blessing. It was such an honour. Time to get to know these precious, still developing humans in a rare one-on-one opportunity. I squandered it.

Some days, I still dread doing bedtimes. When The Husband is out of town and it’s the fourth or fifth night in a row that I have to do all five tuck-ins by myself, it feels like a chore, not a privilege. It’s at those times that I think most about my older boys not wanting me to tuck them in anymore and how this time is so fleeting. I also think about those friends of mine who would give anything to be able to tuck their child in each night, but whose children are waiting for them in Heaven.

I have so many regrets from when my older boys were younger. I have regrets about my parenting with my younger ones too, but the regrets are different. Because I have older kids and younger ones, I have had the treasure of learning and doing better because I know better. I have the rare privilege of really understanding how fast the time goes!

I’ve said yes to things I didn’t with my boys. I’ve hugged more and lectured less. I’ve grabbed onto moments and not let them go. I’ve allowed messes. I’ve blown bubbles and walked barefoot in the grass. I’ve listened more and shushed less. I’ve ignored tantrums and praised kindness. I’ve stopped watching the clock and started watching my kids. I’ve begun to “get” that the tuck-ins and even the tantrums will someday be what I will miss.

5 Ingredient Pasta Shells

By Sharla Kostelyk

My friend Julie taught me this recipe many years ago. She uses broccoli as the vegetable in hers. Broccoli is sadly one of the few foods that I am allergic to, so I had to adapt the recipe. It has become one of the recipes in our regular rotation and even though it is a tiny bit labour intensive because of stuffing the shells, it is easy and only uses 5 ingredients.

This dish is mild enough to be a favourite with the kids, but flavourful enough for us adults to also enjoy.

large pasta shells
jar of Alfredo sauce (I used Roasted Garlic Alfredo this time but any will do)
boneless, skinless chicken breasts
cheddar cheese
fresh or frozen asparagus (I always use frozen for this dish)

Cook the chicken and then cube it. To save time, I almost always have cooked, chopped chicken in little bags in the freezer to use in this recipe and a few others.

Cook pasta shells according to package and drain.

In a bowl, mix together Alfredo sauce, cubed chicken, 1 cup of grated cheese and chopped asparagus. If you’d like, you can also add salt and pepper to this step.

Stuff mixture in cooked shells using a spoon and lay in a baking dish. Bake at 350° for about 20 minutes.

I served this one night when one of our teenage sons had brought a friend home for supper. His friend told me he was a picky eater and started by just trying one shell. He ended up eating eight!

Activities for Have You Filled a Bucket Today

By Sharla Kostelyk

This week, we read Have You Filled a Bucket Today? by Carol McCloud and Will You Fill My Bucket? (Daily Acts of Love Around the World) by Carol McCloud and Karen Wells.

We did some activities to correspond with the books and reinforce the concepts of filling the buckets of others which also helps to fill our own.

After I read the kids Have you Filled a Bucket Today?, we talked about the concepts a bit and then I had each of the kids decorate a plastic bucket. They used Sharpies, googly eyes and eye stickers. They also coloured a small bucket using a sheet that I had printed out from here and added their name and then glued that onto the other side of their bucket.

The kids then filled out little encouragements to each other both on just scraps of paper and on special bucket filler papers I had printed out and added them into each other’s buckets.

Using the whiteboard, we brainstormed ideas for how we could be bucket fillers and things that would be considered bucket dippers. I think this was a good exercise for those of my kids who are visual learners.

The kids filled out different activity sheets corresponding to the books…questionnaires, word puzzles, coloring pages and affirmations. I also printed off certificates to give them for the end of the week after they had practised their “bucket filling” every day.

After the kids had a firm grasp on the concept, I read them the second book and we discussed that one.

Big Disclaimer to Moms:

I had many moments when I regretted reading this book to the kids as some days, it seemed to just become a new way of tattling or a new insult as cries of, “she dipped my bucket” and accusations of “you dipped my bucket like 5 times today…you are the worst Bucket Dipper” roared through the house. I do think that it was a good concept to introduce them to, but we have a lot more work to do on working on personal accountability before this makes a difference in our home!

This is a list of where I found my free printables for this book:

What the Teacher Wants

A Year of Many Firsts

Grade Onederful

Bucket Fillers 101

Activities for The Kissing Hand

Activities for A Bad Case of Stripes

Activities for If You Give a Cat a Cupcake

Activities for Fancy Nancy (great for vocabulary!)

Picnic Muffin Tin Lunch

By Sharla Kostelyk

Yesterday, the weather was beautiful and we the kids were enjoying being outside far too much to come in to eat lunch so I decided that muffin tins could be brought out for a little picnic!

I sat on the grass with them and stayed the whole time, being mindful to stay present, to enjoy their chatter, not to rush them, not to check for texts or e-mails on my phone, but actually be in the moment on the grass with my kids (and the bugs)… and thus, I completed the first thing on my Summer Bucket List!

watermelon, peanut butter sandwich, Caramel & Chocolate Chex Mix, macaroni salad, grapes, and cucumbers

Plants Science Fair Project

By Sharla Kostelyk

Snuggle Puppy wanted to learn more about plants. He also wanted to try an experiment to see if singing to seeds would make them grow faster. He assumed that since singing would emit carbon dioxide, the plant would grow faster.

For Snuggle Puppy’s experiment, we set it up using the basic bean plant experiment method set out on How to Homeschool my Child (full instructions can be found there). For our purposes, we taped one bag on the inside of a dark cupboard (so that we could record the results of one set of seeds not getting any sun) and taped the other bags onto our patio windows. These three were divided so that one bag received no water, another received water and sunlight and the third received water, sunlight and Snuggle Puppy’s singing once a day.

We took pictures of each bag of seeds every day and recorded the results. These pictures are from the second day:

For his Science Fair project, Snuggle Puppy also wrote out his hypothesis, observations and conclusions. He created a simple diagram with the parts of a plant using a muffin tin liner, paper and pumpkin seeds.He also used the Plants and Trees Notebooking Pages to write out some of what he was learning. He included a plant that we had been growing from a seed to his demonstration.

Some of our other Science Fair ideas:

Melting Ice Experiment

Balloon Rocket Boat

How Notebooking Pages Work for Us

By Sharla Kostelyk

Perhaps you’ve heard of notebooking or maybe this term is new to you. I thought I would share how we use notebooking in our homeschooling to give you a better sense of what it’s like and whether or not it may be a good fit for you.

Notebooking for us:

With so many kids, many different learning styles and some special needs thrown into the mix, it’s hard to find a homeschool curriculum or tool that works for everyone. It makes my life so much easier when I do! Notebooking is one of the few things that I’ve found that I can use with all of the kids at the same time.

Writing comes quite naturally for some of my kids, but one in particular struggles with all types of writing. One of our sons who has Aspergers and dysgraphia finds any type of writing akin to torture. For him, notebooking is good writing practise without being too much pressure. It’s actually the only form of writing we can get him to complete without tears.

Our oldest daughter on the other hand is always asking me if I can print her out more notebooking pages to work on! She can’t seem to get enough of writing.

I find that notebooking is much different than busywork or workbooks. Notebooking encourages reading, exploring, and pursuing areas of interest. My kids care about the finished products and are proud of them. They show them off to their dad or grandparents and they want to keep them.

Students are engaged while they are learning. Therefore, they are able to better retain the information.

Using Notebooking Pages:

There are so many ways to use Notebooking in your homeschooling. The possibilities really are endless. Any subject, any age, any ability level can fit with this type of learning. We have used it with Bible, Science, History, Nature Study, Countries, Holidays, Biographies, and more.

Recently, we began growing sunflowers on our deck. Naturally, the kids wanted to study them and learn more about them. Because of my membership with Notebooking Pages, I was able to quickly print off some pages for them specific to sunflowers from the Wildflowers, Weeds and Garden Flowers Nature Study and they sat outside to learn and record their discoveries on paper.

The kids all really enjoyed the tree notebooking pages, especially these ones where they were able to do a rubbing of the bark of the tree. This pack also included pages where they did rubbings of the leaves of the tree as well. It is a perfect pack for Spring or Fall.

One of the unique aspects of Notebooking Pages is their Publisher Web App which allows you to create your own notebooking or copywork pages. If your child were interested in studying something that they did not have pages for, you could simply create your own using graphics they supply or upload your own graphics.

I have used this app to create simple meal planning menus for myself and to create copywork for the kids for quotes or poems that they are working on memorizing.

Notebooking Pages at Productive Homeschooling:

While I have piece mealed things together here and there from different sources, my favourite is Productive Homeschooling. There are so many products to choose from! If you’re not sure if your kids would enjoy Notebooking, try the Free Homeschool Resource Hub. There are many Free notebooking pages available to try. That will give you a better idea if this method would work well for your child.

Join the LIFETIME Notebooking Pages Treasury Memberships and get access to thousands of notebooking pages . . . all of their products and all new updates indefinitely!

It is also possible to purchase individual packs to correspond to an area of interest or current study.

And of course by using the Web App, you are also able to customize both notebooking and copywork pages. The only limit to what can be created is your imagination!