Nicole Rienstra

As we are heading into Thanksgiving weekend, I know lots of places are running sales. If you are looking for book gifts for your children or for another little one for Christmas, keep an eye out for these classic children’s storybook treasuries! These are ones that are timeless and that you will love reading with your children! Below is our list of eight beloved storybook treasuries. What would you add?! 📕 Mad about Madeline: The Complete Tales by Ludwig Bemelmans 📕 James Harriot’s Treasury for Children by James Harriot 📕 George and Martha: The Complete Stories of Two Best Friends by James Marshall 📕 A Little Golden Book Collection: Eloise Wilkins Stories 📕 The Brambly Hedge Treasury by Jill Barklem 📕 Frog and Toad Storybook Favorites by Arnold Lobel 📕A Little Golden Book Collection: Farm Tales 📕The Complete Adventures of Curious George by Margaret and H.A. Rey

I’m working hard behind-the-scenes here at Cedar Tree Schoolhouse to finish up this five week Ancient Egypt unit study! This study includes so much rich learning, including: 1) Carefully selected picture book and chapter books. 2) Tons of hands on history projects with detailed tutorials, including pictures, to make history come to life! 3) A weekly beauty loop, including poetry, art study, and a music study. 4) A daily Bible reading plan through Exodus. 5) Links to short videos covering weekly topics. 6) And so much more!! Follow along on the journey! And share with any friends you think might be interested! . . . . . #charlottemason #charlottemasoneducation #charlottemasonliving #history #historycurriculum #homeschool #homeschoolmom #handsonhistory #handsonlearning

I held off on sourdough for quite a while because I assumed as a busy mama of five little ones who also homeschools, I wouldn’t have time and I wouldn’t keep the starter alive. But thankfully, I had a few friends who shared a starter and gave me their best tips and tricks and I’ve happily been in the sourdough camp for 3 1/2 half years. And now I only feed my starter every 2 to 4 weeks, and I always bake two round boules and two sandwich bread loaves on the same day. Sometimes I swap out the round boules for a double batch of sourdough bagels. It all freezes beautifully and by the time we run out of sourdough in the freezer, I am anxious to feed my starter and do my stretch and pulls and enjoy the beautiful process of bread baking again! . . . . . . . . #homeschoolmom #homeschool #sourdough #sourdoughbaking #mamaof5

Shorter days and colder temps are the perfect time to encourage more drawing for your kiddos! Drop “drawing” the comments and I’ll send you a link to a list of my kids’ favorite drawing books! . . . . . . #homeschoolmom #charlottemason #bookmom #charlottemasonhomeschool #morningbasket #drawingforkids #homeschool #booklover

Do you want to know the secret recipe for making history FUN?!? Ditch the textbook! And here are my four main tips to make history a blast for you and your kiddos! 1. Hands on projects and recipes! Creating a fun and hands-on project that connects with the history time period or topic you are studying creates a core memory; not only of a fun event but it also starts to build out the mental road map for historical events and time periods to lock in your child’s memory. 2. Field trips! Find ways to connect your historical studies to a local field trip. A Pioneer museum! A Civil War reenactment! Museums! Historical reenactment villages! Again, these create core memories and bring to life different historical topics and periods. 3. Living history books! Don’t rely solely on textbooks to bring history to life for children. Find living history books that are filled with amazing stories, both picture book and chapter books. 4. Art and poetry! Find beautiful art pieces and poems that connect to the time period or topic you are studying. This helps create visual and verbal word pictures that add beauty and dimension to your history studies. . . . . . . #homeschoolmom #charlottemason #livinghistory #charlottemasonhomeschool #morningbasket #livinghistorybooks

Anyone else still holding down the fort with fall decorations through Thanksgiving? 🙋‍♀️ There’s still a lot of November left, and football, and gratitude, and falling leaves, and turkey and pumpkin pie to look forward to! Don’t feel like you’re falling behind if your tree isn’t trimmed and you aren’t bedazzled for Christmas yet. The Internet is a fast place and it’s easy to get caught up in the frenzied pace of it all. Although I will say that in our neck of the woods, it’s also totally dark between 4:30 and 5:00pm, and the struggle against gloomy, rainy nights is real. I’ll admit to the hopeful ambition of putting up some garland with twinkle lights in one of our walkways this weekend; we’ll call it a bridging of the seasons, shall we?! 😂

Creating a seasonal book display is one of the best ways to lean into the season with your kiddos and create ways to linger and savor the season together! I’ve lived in so many houses and have always loved finding a way to display seasonal books. In this house, I had the opportunity to create a whole book nook with a nugget couch, several book ledges, some paint as an arched backdrop, and a “once upon a time” sign that has created the perfect cozy space all my kids love to snuggle up and read in. BUT…a seasonal book display can be as simple as standing some books up on top of a bookshelf or a desk or a deep windowsill. Be creative and use whatever space you have! A few things that I think help to make the seasonal display extra fun: ✨ Twinkle lights! 🍁 Seasonal garland or bunting 📚 A cozy space nearby to snuggle up, with cozy blankets and pillows Anyone else love to set up seasonal book displays?! 🙋‍♀️

We love singing hymns as a part of our family morning time, and sometimes even part of our evening prayer. But for years, I had loose sheets that I had printed out all over the place. I would change up our hymn every month or so, but I didn’t have a system for keeping hymns we’d already learned in place. Last year I grabbed some of these folios from the Dollar Tree, rounded up all our printed out hymn sheets, hole punched them, and popped them into these folios. Now each member of our family has their own hymnbook, and we can easily add more hymns as we go along! It’s a super simple solution, but it has made singing hymns a much more sustainable part of our family Bible time. And we love having a hymnbook that is curated to songs our family personally loves. My favorite resource for free hymn printables is @happyhymnody. We have followed this family for years and I am so grateful for their ministry. They have such an amazing website with a whole database of hymns, that includes printables they’ve made of just the lyrics, or sheet music, copy work, and so much more. Definitely check them out! #hymns #homeschoolmom #morningtime #morningbasket #momof5 #charlottemason #charlottemasonhomeschool #charlottemasonliving #happyhymnody

Welcome to Cedar Tree Schoolhouse! My name is Nicole and I live with my family in the Pacific Northwest. I homeschool five beautiful kiddos, and we are currently in our eighth year of homeschooling (nine if you count pre-K!). I stumbled into this homeschooling journey when I transitioned from working full-time to staying home with my two girls, hoping for more time with them. I always said that our education plan for our kids would be a year by year choice, and it still is! But, here we are 8 years later and still homeschooling. 😁 Of course our days are filled with ups and downs, but I find such joy and creativity in building our home culture and looking for ways to fill our days with goodness, truth, and beauty. Although I have done this for years on a private account, I am looking forward to sharing here in this new space! Five random facts about me: 1) I went to college in the Seattle area and therefore, of course, I adore good coffee. I drink a few cups in the morning and usually a cup of iced cold brew in the afternoon. Do I drink too much? Who can say, not a question for today! 2) I met my husband when we were 13 and in eighth grade and now we’ve been married 17 years! We’ve lived on the East Coast for graduate school together, the Midwest for 5 years, and now we’re back on the West Coast. 3) I love hiking and kayaking, and all the outdoorsy things. 4) On most days I dress casually, but I love a good chance to dress up and do my hair and make up and feel fancy. 💃 5) I love history and spend a lot of time exploring history with my kiddos and finding ways to bring it to life for them, and for kiddos in two different co-ops in our community. (And I am currently working behind the scenes to put out some history curriculum in the near future, stay tuned!!) #momof5 #homeschoolmom #homeschool #homeschoollife #homeschoolfamily