Spicy Pumpkin Designs

A little bit about Spicy Pumpkin.... I am a mother first before anything else. I have two children and three dogs (which feels like five kids). My eldest son is public schooled and has been his entire life. My youngest daughter is fulltime homeschooled and has been her entire life. I run a homeschool group in my local community for her as well as a Frontier Pioneer group (Frontier Girls and Quest club). So, I get a lot of one-on-one teaching with children on a semi regular basis. My current responsibilities have thrown me into a journey creating my own worksheets and curriculum for my daughter and her friends. I thought I should share my love of this with the world which is why I landed here creating this shop. I would hope to share my creations all over the world!

I love creating unit studies for my youngest. I throw together as many subjects as I can themed toward what we are learning about. I have been doing this since she was about one years old. It all started with a unit study I created about "The Very Hungry Caterpillar". We did everything from toe prints to dough play mats. I loved working in as many subjects I could with that tiny critter and I was hooked after that first unit! I run a homeschool group in my local community and every week I post a new free unit study for the community. I gather as many things as I can off the internet that are geared toward one learning objective. Such as our group just had bat week on the group page. I posted math, reading, writing, ELA, science, recipes, art and so much more all themed with bats! I love putting big, huge units together that can last a week, month, or even yearlong (depending how much you put into it). This is how I homeschool my youngest, and also how I teach in my frontier pioneer group.

Some information about Spicy Pumpkin herself... Well as obvious as it may be, I thought I should start with my love of the Autumn/Fall and everything that comes with it. The cool breeze and falling leaves have my heart and always have. The smell of rain on the ground as well as the color of the ground covered in leaves brings me to a beautiful mindset. Some of my best work is done in the fall. The pumpkin spice is heavy with this lady. I have pumpkin spice on everything this time of year. Pumpkin chai tea with pumpkin creamer, whipped topping, and pumpkin spice topping is pretty much my reality from September until December. All the pumpkin spice jokes apply to me! During the rest of the year, I spend most of my time leading the frontier pioneer group, homeschooling my youngest, and raising my pups. I am hands down a dog mom whether it was planned or not ha-ha. This is a long story, but I have two rescues and a puppy that came from one of the two. I also enjoy hiking, swimming, and camping! I of course have all the dogs while camping so that itself is entertaining to watch and experience. Let me tell you two Catahoula Danes and a Minchi in the woods is reality entertainment at its finest. I feel like a strange version of "Homeward Bound" when we are camping. A little about my history working with children... I had a homeschool pod for about a year when my youngest was three. This was during the beginning of the covid stuff, and I had already been homeschooling my daughter since she was one years old, so this wasn't hard for me. The other parents around me were new to a lot of what we were doing but I helped get them where they need to be. Once many of the parents started taking kiddos back to the public school system (schools reopened) I was left with some choices regarding socialization and my youngest. I decided to make a Facebook homeschool group in my city. I coordinated park play days, rock painting classes, and many other activities. The group got much bigger and we did parades, field trips etc. at that point. This group was very active for a long time and between that and joining a BSA group where I lived I was strapped on time. I then became a scout mom (den leader), and I ran three of the five dens in my city. I did this for a few years, and I found I enjoyed Frontier Girls and Quest club much more as a badge earning program. When I stepped out as a leader in the BSA I stepped straight into leading a local Pioneer group that had both Frontier Girls and Quest club members. This is something I still lead and take part in. The program has won many awards for being a great homeschool backup curriculum for homeschooling and I am very happy with where we are at with it. Other than running youth groups, I also run a book program in my local community that brings free books to families in the winter season. This allows me to come across a lot of reading material and helps me learn the different book options out there! I highly recommend working with book clubs, groups, or programs if you ever get a chance! My youngest is a super reader and I am always collecting more books. Our house pretty much looks like a library at this point.