We’re a bit crunchy around here. If Montessori didn’t give away our alternative leanings, maybe the backyard chickens or homemade remedies for colds, or natural birthing would. It’s funny, because I don’t particularly think of myself as a “crunchy mama” until a friend sends a video or list of things crunchy mama’s say or do. Though I’m by no means an all or nothing crunchy mama.

Since my first pregnancy, I’ve been more and more interested in a natural approach to a healthy body and home. I find it fascinating that plants, from the amazing benefits of garlic to essential oils, can produce so many health and medicinal benefits without the need for pharmaceuticals. It really is my first line of defense.

Last fall, I purchased my first Ultimate Healthy Living Bundle. I was a bit skeptical with all the ads I saw, but after a blogger I trust, who doesn’t usually jump on bandwagons, shared her love for it I was persuaded.

Really what persuaded me was the Essential Oils class and a 6-month subscription to Stay at Home Yoga (now Healthy Moving) for only $29.97! The Essential Oils class by itself was $97 and a 6-month subscription yoga subscription would’ve been about $50. Just those two were worth the price of the bundle!

What can you get out of the Ultimate Healthy Living Bundle?

You sort of need to see it to believe it, but the package includes over 90 digital products on topics like natural remedies, essential oils, real food recipes, paleo & allergy-friendly eating, fitness & weight loss and much more. All together, it’s worth over $1900!

• 78 PDF eBooks ($908.60 value)
• 16 eCourses and memberships ($1,006.95 value)
• 10 bonus products ($224.87 value – shipping may apply)
• Getting Started Interactive Guide – PDF file together with step-by-step email series

Besides being so incredibly helpful and inspiring, one of the things I like best about the bundle is the price. By offering the bundle for a short time only, they’re able to give you access to over $2000 worth of amazing products for a whopping 97% off!

Free Bonus Offers

Anytime you order the bundle, it comes with $225 worth of bonus products including:

• ePantry – FREE hand soap + $8 credit on one shipment, FREE dish soap + $8 credit on the next shipment, AND 60-day VIP access with FREE shipping ($30 value)
• Plant Therapy – Lemon, lavender and peppermint essential oil set ($22.92 value)
• NaturOli – FREE travel essentials facial set: deep conditioning facial wash (1 oz.), new radiance facial creme (1 oz.), exfoliating walnut scrub (1 oz.) ($16.95 value)
• Bloom Naturals – FREE SPOT treatment for acne & eczema OR a $15 gift certificate toward Bloom Naturals products ($15 value)
• Lexie Naturals –  FREE natural care gift set: lip balm (.15 oz.), lotion tube (1 oz.) and trial-size deodorant (.35 oz.) ($15 value)
• Perfect Supplements – $15 gift certificate toward any Perfect Brand product ($15 value)
• Strawesome – $15 gift certificate toward the straws and accessories of your choice ($15 value)
• TriLight Health – FREE 2-oz liquid herbal formula or $15 off larger bottles ($15 value)
• Craftsy – 1 FREE online class ($44.99 value)
• Once a Month Meals – $32 toward OAMM membership + a free mini menu ($35 value)

Why I’m Buying It Again

There really is just so much included in these bundles that it can be overwhelming. But here’s why I’m buying the bundle again this year: essential oils, natural health, and yoga.

Oh, and I can’t forget the Plant Therapy webinar and bonus offer (scroll down for details).

eCourses:

• Essential Oils for Families from Jessie at Vintage Remedies ($135.00)
• Healthy Moving Core Workshop from Jennifer at Healthy Moving ($79.00)
• The Herbarium from Marlene at Herbal Academy of New England ($45.00)
• Heal Your Gut from Lee at Supercharged Food ($79.00)
• Get Cultured from Jenny at Nourished Kitchen ($147.00)

eBooks on Essential Oils:

• How to Protect Your Family from Colds and Flu Using Essential Oils from Andrea at Aromahead Institute ($50.00)
• Printable Essential Oil Reference Guide from Mandi at Life Your Way ($7.00)
• The Beginner’s Book of Essential Oils from Christine at Joybilee Farm ($9.97)
• The Truth About Essential Oil Safety from Lea at UsingEOsSafely.com ($9.99)

I love using essential oils in our home and enjoyed learning more about individual oils as well as using essential oils with children and proper diluting methods from my essential oil class from Vintage Remedies last year.

 Other ebooks I’m looking forward to:

• Beyond the Cereal Box: Gluten-Free and Family-Friendly Recipes for Breakfast from Daniel & Haley at Carrots for Michaelmas ($6.99)
• Herbal Beginnings from Kami at Living Awareness ($9.95)
• Treating Fevers Naturally from Meagan at Growing Up Herbal ($14.97)
• Lacto-Fermentation from Wardeh at Traditional Cooking School ($20.00)
• Oh Lardy’s Guide to Fermenting Fruits and Vegetables from Kelly and Tamara at Oh Lardy ($9.99)
• CROCK’D Slow Cooker Freezer Meals from Kelly at New Leaf Wellness ($9.99)
• Fresh: Nourishing Salads for All Seasons from Kimi at The Nourishing Gourmet ($18.99)

Here’s how it works:

1. Visit their website, take a quick look at all the goodness that comes in this package, then click “Get my copy now!” to go through their simple 3-step checkout process.
2. You’ll receive an email with a login to their online access portal, where you’ll begin downloading your eBooks, signing up for your eCourses, and redeeming your free bonus products.
3. Use their Getting Started Interactive Guides to pick the area you want to tackle first and start making healthy changes!

The most important detail, though, is that this bundle is available for just 6 days! After Monday night, September 14th, the sale ends and you’d have to buy all of these products individually.

I’d hate for you to miss out, so click HERE to learn more or buy the bundle.

It’s even backed by a full 30-day guarantee, so you can know for sure that it’s right for you.

Special Promotion – Two Days Only!

If you buy the bundle Friday or Saturday, you get access to a free essential oils webinar from the people at Plant Therapy:

It’s a lot of information, but a great deal.

Don’t wait too long or it’ll be over!

It’s official. We’re card carrying homeschoolers! Today marks the beginning of our third week of homeschooling and so far it’s gone pretty well. We haven’t been without our ups and downs, as well as Joey adjusting to the transition moving from a public school Montessori classroom to Montessori at home. But we’re enjoying the freedom and flexibility it’s bringing to our family. No early morning dash to get everyone dressed, fed, and out of the house by 7:30!

It’s been fun setting up our classroom. I had a few moments of “I don’t remember the sequence!” and “Am I even doing this right?” with materials I’ve set-up and taught at home and in the classroom many times before! I do love printing and laminating all the things.

This year Joey is in 1st grade, Otto is in K4, and Olivia in preschool.

Our Montessori Homeschool Room

We don’t have the largest or most ideal Montessori space, but we make what we have work for us. I’ve learned you can’t always be drooling over the perfect Montessori set-up you see. Work with what you have, where you are.

Montessori is more about freedom, discovery, and learning than it is about having all the right materials and a perfect space.

Here we have our basic art supplies, paper, art supplies, metal insets, pin poking, and sensorial. We don’t have the space to set up our pink tower and brown stair “properly,” so they are stacked in the box.

Our mainstays: language, practical life, and math. On the middle shelf each child has a file folder with their notebooks for any writing, nature journal, and coloring books for Olivia. Joey has a notebook for each subject. He uses these to write his language words, math equations, and pastes any drawings or coloring sheets (like maps or plant/animal sorting) he may have. It keeps it all in one space rather than having a bunch of loose papers to keep track of.

Above the children’s shelf is a storage box for our language materials. Ideally, I’d have enough space for each part of the Montessori reading series on the shelf, but I don’t. So all the materials are stored in felt pouches in their respective drawer.

I always seem to be finding a new printable that will work great for something down the road or a work in progress. Instead of having to keep track of a stack of randomness, I designated a folder for each area. It also works great as a place to put activities we’ll be doing in the coming weeks, but don’t have the shelf space for. I also store my language, math, science, and sensorial albums here.

I use to have one of those bright, loud calendars you see in preschool classrooms, but it wasn’t really my style. I bought this whiteboard calendar from Target and made my own numbers and labels for the months and days of the week.

We’re finding our daily routine and adjusting as we go.

Follow us on Instagram or Facebook to see snippets for our homeschool days!

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It all started with a routine trip to the library. We picked up our next book in the Magic Treehouse series, which just happened to be Day of the Dragon King. A Chinese counting book also made it’s way home with us. Just those two books sparked an interest for Joey in Ancient China.

Follow the child. So we did. I checked out more books and videos on China–its people, language, and wonders. We made Chinese lanterns and hung them throughout the school room. We made a variety of teas (black, green, and oolong) and had a tea tasting.

We watched, fascinated, multiple times about the discovery of the terracotta soldiers (which were mentioned in the Magic Treehouse book). We were amazed to find out they aren’t just generic soldiers, but fashioned to look like men in the emperor’s army each with their own distinct features.

We made our own bamboo books with Chinese character cards as prompts.

Crafts for Ancient China

We made dragon masks with this printable from Skip to My Lou. And checked out a craft book focused on China for our dragon parade.

Montessori-Inspired Activities for China

Tea Tasting

Counting in Chinese

You can find the printable for Chinese number cards here.

Transferring with Chopsticks

You can find these beginner chopsticks at Montessori Services.

Matching Animals to Picture Cards with Chinese Word

This activity works great for pre-readers as well as readers. As a pre-reading activity, the child matches the animal to the picture. For a reader, they can make the animal to the picture with the added challenge of saying the word in Chinese. (For the life of me, I can’t find this printable right now. I’ll update with the link when I do.) The animals are from our Safari Ltd farm animal toob.

Spooning

Writing a Story in Chinese

In the book Day of the Dragon King, the main characters discover in Ancient China books were written on slants of bamboo, from top to bottom and then tied together. We tried to recreate that here. You can find the character cards here. For a more in-depth look at making a bamboo scroll, check out this post from Exploring World Cultures with Kids.

I hope you were able to find some ideas for your travels through Ancient China! Don’t forget to pin this post for later:

Hey Montessori friends! I hope you’re having a great summer. There’s not been much blog activity around here lately, but we have a new look coming soon. Yay!

That means Our Montessori Home will be down while the new site is installed.

See you soon!