• parenting

    5 Steps: How to Transition From Home-Schooling to Public Schooling

    September 1, 2014 - By 

    For some home-schooled children, the comfort and freedom of the home environment makes the idea of joining a public or a private school seem unimpressive at best. However, if parents begin to prepare them for the transition early enough, it goes a long way to allay apprehension. Both schooling methods have had their fair share of fierce and diverse critical views, but a change of heart is inevitable when such a transition is imminent.  The challenges related to both schooling methods are different for each family, but there are a few ways to help ease the transition. Here are 5…

  • active family travel - parenting - Travel

    Reflections of Summer 2014 #KinderMom

    August 31, 2014 - By 

    How do you capture a summer? Is it a series of snapshots on an iPhone? An entire deck of tiny Instax mini photo cards tucked into the border of a child’s bedroom vanity mirror, with bright red hearts and flowers, decorating the names scrawled on the border? How do you measure July and August? Is it the inches your children grow when they are free to imagine, run, travel, swim and draw without limitation of time or bells? Is it the height of the green grass on your front lawn, the length of the ivy trailing down the side of…

  • parenting

    Five Children’s Fall Essentials

    August 29, 2014 - By 

    This is a post by My Contributor Bonnie Way, mom of three girls under six years old, living in BC. September can feel more like a new year than January, as a friend of mine recently mentioned. Summer is over and for many kids (and even parents!), school is starting again. It is a good time to catch sales on new clothes, school supplies, and other fall essentials. Here is what Iím making sure I have on hand as this new season begins. 1. Cups and bowls and spoons. As kids start preschool and school, it seems like there are…

  • parenting

    Last Chance for Back to School Week

    August 24, 2014 - By 

    Ainsley’s backpack is from Hilroy Canada Well here we are almost the end of August. Tear. Tear. Sad panda face. I love me a good summer break. Mostly, I love beautiful weather and gorgeous hot sunny beaches. But I can see the writing on the wall and it spells: Back to School. So this coming week is all about Back to School at Thrifty Momma’s Tips. This coming week, or two if I need to go longer with the amount of stuff I want to highlight here, will be dedicated to bringing my readers all the best products. The cutest…

  • active family travel - family - parenting - special needs - Travel

    Five Tips for Train Travel with Special Needs Children

    August 12, 2014 - By 

    I love to travel by train – usually. I can work all the way and my wasted time is minimized. Plus, typically train travel is very economical. This summer my kids and I travelled to Montreal and Ottawa by train. That’s a substantial amount of time spent riding, and also a lot of transferring to different connecting trains. We travel every year by train together at least once. As some of my readers know special needs kids require a bit more planning when travelling anywhere, in any mode of transport. I have one anxious child, and another with a brain…

  • active family travel - family - Parenting - parenting - Travel

    Summer Math and Travel With Tweens

    July 3, 2014 - By 

    This summer I am trying my hardest to trick my brain into forgetting summer math. June plus July plus August equals my three favourite months. Summer is fleeting, especially in Canada. It’s a blink-and-you-miss-it-kind-of-season. Time flies, but summer time well that’s like a Concord whipping by at breakneck speed. how many more weeks do we get to enjoy this beautiful weather? How much more time off school? How many more summers with my kids at home? Only 6 more years and one will be in college or university. That’s tween Mom math. Summer math. In my experience, the only way…

  • FASD - Health - Parenting - special needs

    What Pride Looks Like: On Report Cards, Respect and #specialneeds

    June 27, 2014 - By 

    Think they don’t care much about what is written on report cards? Think that little people are oblivious to how the teacher sees them and feels about them? Words matter, and never more so than when someone is assessing a child with special needs after a year of school. This is our first experience with a really accepting and lovely teacher who clearly understood and liked my youngest daughter. I am driving both my kids to Build-A-Bear to celebrate their last day of school when the little one cracks open her report card and starts reading it word for word.…

  • Giveaways

    How Do You Keep them Reading All Summer? #Summerslide #giveaway

    June 14, 2014 - By 

    If school is almost out for summer then it’s time to start thinking about summer slide too. Oh don’t worry I am not suggesting that you spend every waking moment of the summer concerned about school. But, take a few moments now and plan ways you can help them avoid summer slide. Then the sailing is easy for the rest of the summer. What are you up to this summer? School is almost out here. Now what’s next? We have some camps scheduled and some great travel opportunities and I am pretty happy for the warm weather to finally get…

  • the two week wait IVF
    family - Health - infertility - Parenting

    Five Ways to Pass the Two Week Wait IVF #infertility

    May 5, 2014 - By 

    The two week wait. Cue ominous music. In infertility terms the two week wait is a suspenseful, frustrating, stressful time. It’s the two week wait IVF or IUI. After what is often months, and sometimes years of treatment the two week wait is one of the final hurdles and it can be a frustrating time. Here are some ideas to pass that time without going stir crazy. Photo courtesy of Shutterstock Anyone who has struggled to conceive and undergone fertility or infertility treatment such as IVF or IUI knows the torture of the two week wait. The two week wait…

  • beauty products

    When is it Okay to Start Wearing Makeup?

    March 25, 2014 - By 

    Mom, when can I wear makeup? My oldest daughter started asking about wearing makeup when she was ten. In my head I call her my breadcrumb daughter. She always leaves me little clues as to what she has been up to, almost as if she wants to be caught when she does something out of character or defiant. And around that time, my tubes of mascara went missing. Without much detective work, I could quietly find them in her desk drawer, or in her backpack. I mostly chalked that one up to curiosity. But the questions started then – at…