When my kids were little, they loved doing “special time.” This was a time at night when they me or my husband, all to themselves. Sometimes we would play Old Maid in our tiny living room, and suck on kernels of savory caramel corn. Other times we would traipse around the aisles of Target, sipping Strawberries & Creme Frappuccinos and running our hands over colorful ducks in the Dollar Spot.

As they got older, and we added a third and fourth child to the mix, special time morphed into special dates, and our quality time endeavors became more creative. With a larger family, more planning was required to be sure we could connect one-on-one with each child.

Spending Quality Time With Kids

Quality time is definitely my main “love language,” and all four of our kids seem to love anything quality-time related, as well!

As all parents know, life with kids is often busy and hectic! Additionally, as homeschooling parents know, when you are in charge of your child’s education on top of other parenting duties, sometimes it’s hard to break out of “teacher” mode and do a non-school-related activity with your child, just for fun.

I admit that sometimes it is hard to turn off my “teacher brain.” I am thankful, because before I started homeschooling, a wise friend talked to me about this! She reminded me to not get too “stuck” in teacher mode if I could help it, and remember to enjoy my kids without thinking about every possible teachable moment. 🙂 This was a great reminder, and one I still try and stick to, today. Spending quality time with my kids that is more unstructured, outside of our homeschooling roles, really helps with this!

Mother Daughter Date Idea: Watercolor Tutorials!

My daughter Emmaline and I were due for a date a few weeks ago, so we ended up trying out this watercolor floral tutorial! A few things we loved about this tutorial:

• The artist showed a variety of different flowers, petals, shapes
• You can do her tutorial easily with basic watercolor supplies–no elaborate purchases required
• She explains her methods step by step

She does go a bit fast, so you can feel free to adjust the playback speed on your YouTube video setting (on the bottom right of the video, hit “Settings,” then “Playback speed”). I always advocate for SafeShare, to avoid the YouTube ads that frequently play–you can read more about SafeShare here. We are currently just using the free account, and it works great. However, the one caveat is that you can’t control playback speed on SafeShare–so for this particular project, since I was right next to my daughter, we just watched the video straight from YouTube.

Other Mother Daughter Date Ideas

Emmaline is an artist, so most of our dates have revolved around crafts! We tried this flower hammering craft last summer, and had some cool results! Here are some other dates I’ve done with her, and my other kids:

• Evening nature walk, looking for feathers, cool leaves or other nature pieces
• Evening bike ride around our surrounding neighborhoods
• Errand buddy: just hanging out one-on-one doing a few errands, and grabbing a snack or sweet treat when we’re done!
• Reading favorite picture books aloud: nothing beats snuggling up on the couch and reading picture book after picture book!
• Project quality time: sometimes there are projects that my husband and I are working on, and when possible, we involve the kids in these!
• Home Depot Craft Kits: these Home Depot workshops happen the first Saturday every month. Where we live, they get quite crowded, so I usually just pick up the kits and do them at home instead! (Or, save them for a rainy day!)

How about you-what are your favorite ways to spend quality time with your kids? I’d love to hear!

With love,

Cait