Some of my Favorite Things – May & June 2026

My apologies for not prioritizing this blog this month! (At least not that you can see.) I’ve been so busy on lots of behind-the-scenes things for it that I neglected your experience here. Indeed, I meant to have this post out in May but now it’s another two-monther. So without further ado, let’s get to those favorite things from these past two months.

The end of the school year?

My school year growing up in Colombia went from January-December, so when we moved here, I didn’t really know what a “Summer vacation” was like. I wasn’t used to having a long break before the start of the next school year., and that’s the biggest reason why I’d like to instill a spirit of “year-roundness” to our homeschool. Notice I wrote “spirit” and not “goal” or “rule set in stone,” meaning I’d like for learning to at least occur or be felt every day, even if it doesn’t happen during our homeschool setting or schedule.

My goal isn’t to do strict school work 365 days a year because that would negatively affect everyone involved. Instead, I’d aim for some more laid-back activities that still have some sort of learning aspect to them on most of the days we’re not doing schoolwork.

Like, OK, for instance, one afternoon the kids just cut and tore magazine pages into tiny pieces. Had I truly wanted to keep it more school-y, I’d have insisted they counted the pieces and/or arranged them into shapes and what-not. Instead, I let them simply cut and tear away to their heart’s delight. (Was it messy at first? Yes! But that’s not the point. Plus, they’re really good about cleaning up after themselves.)

They were taking them here and there, cleaning them up, talking about the things they saw on the page, and even strengthening their fine motor skills by letting their fingers move a certain way to get the shapes they wanted. And all without any interference from me to try to turn this fun, random activity they came up with into a teachable moment. No, instead THEY turned it into their own interactive, teachable moment without meaning to, and I’d call that a homeschooling win.. that I didn’t do anything to accomplish.

So it may not be the end of the actual school year (although I’m still planning on doing a cute End-of-Year “Memory Book” with our oldest just before we all begin a sweet curriculum I created* to celebrate the 250th birthday of the USA), but since he’s moving up a grade over the Summer, I guess this brief time period can qualify as just that.

_{*with the help of AI.. because (not that I needed to apologize, but just perhaps help whoever’s in my shoes) I wasn’t born here and I didn’t pre-read the dozen books I wanted to incorporate in the curriculum. However, you know what knows more about the U.S. and is more familiar with said books? AI. I think.}

America’s Birthday: The “Curriculum”

All of which leads me to the program AI and I created to commemorate the milestone. And no, I won’t be selling it (at least not in the near future) so this isn’t my pitch, but rather hopefully some encouragement in case you think you want to create something similar.

Basically I knew I needed to do something in the Summer to teach more about our country’s founding while emphasizing the role religion played in it–and more importantly, I wanted to incorporate a great deal of our Catholic faith so it’d be a great, well-rounded Christian Patriot curriculum instead of a collection of God-less patriotic activities.

It includes mainly Bible verses, songs, bios for and activities relating to influential Catholics at the time (incl. those who went on to become canonized Saints) and the founding Fathers, and so on. Each day’s schedule shouldn’t take more than 30-40 minutes, and it’s all supposed to be easy and chill while teaching some basics from our country’s founding. It’s a yearly curriculum for little kids so I won’t be using it past the next few years, but I still wanted us to go over some fundamentals because it’s important to us that our children know Civics.

Could one day’s activities be replaced by a completely unscheduled plan or craft they thought of? Yes! In fact, that’s happened already and the kids loved it. Turns out we picked up some really nice, smooth river rocks during a recent hike and our oldest decided we’d paint them one afternoon (which is the usual time we do Homeschool), which was a neat change of pace! They painted some for themselves and together we painted some for our little saint in Heaven to leave on his grave marker the next time we visit him.

So far there has been more crafts and play than actual curriculum and civics and I’m OK with that. Gotta let them be little, after all.

Latin

As part of our homeschool, our family will begin to formally learn Latin this Summer, so my husband and I thought it’d be a great idea to get somewhat of a head start by starting to learn it ourselves together first. We figured it’d be beneficial to become at least a little acquainted with what’s coming up, even though we’re using a different resource than the program the kids and we will all be using in a month or so.

I always considered learning Latin a silly idea. Back in high school, I never understood why Latin was offered as a language (I studied French instead) or why modern homeschoolers were so keen on the idea of teaching their kids Latin.

But then we reverted to Catholicism, began developing a strong interest in the Tridentine Latin Mass, and have been reading plenty about the importance and benefits of knowing Latin (including how advantageous it can be for reasoning and successfully defending one’s points), and I admit we were sold. The best part was coming to the same conclusion separately and then reviewing together why we wanted to learn it as a family. God-willing, the kids will grow up knowing English and Spanish as their native languages, in addition to Latin, which we think will give them a huge leg up in the future.

Our Blooming Flower Bed

Though our tulips and those of all our neighbors (half the homes in our neighborhood seem to have the beauties adorn their front yards) didn’t make it past April thanks to several frosts and unprecedented storms, that left me a semi-blank slate (after some pruning and de-weeding) for planting even more new seeds that have been starting to sprout lately.

Last year’s sunflowers came back in full force and one of them is already taller than me, with another one quickly catching up. OK, no, they aren’t perennials (ngl I was confused as to why it “magically” appeared), and as my husband explained, seeds from last year’s sunflowers must’ve fallen elsewhere in the flower bed and the right mixture of elements allowed them to become what they are now.

That didn’t stop me from planting even more seeds, incl. sunflowers, dahlias, a mixture of wildflowers, you name it. It’s can’t remember half the things our oldest and I planted in May. I didn’t put down mulch (it honestly seems more trouble than it’s worth, though who knows, I may change my tune later on) so I still de-weed it every once in a while, but I thoroughly enjoy the process of caring for this flower bed. It’s very calming and I get to observe and learn so much! I even talk to the blooms as I’m tending to them :).

Here’s a picture of it before I cleaned up the old tulip stems and de-weeded most of it:

Celebration Season

Summers mark what’s easily our family’s fullest season, with all our birthdays, baptism anniversaries, school year endings, parish celebrations, and beautiful weather all around begging us to be outside constantly. It’s such a delight! That is all for this section :). Please excuse me as I go and take care of some party-related business!