About Us
Hi there! My name is Alexandra, and I am a second generation homeschooler, turned homeschooling mom looking for ways to inspire my kids to be happy, healthy and confident learners! Through my love of art and books, we found our unschooling rhythm to spark curiosity in our kids. Here is our story about how we began to create The Build Your Masterpiece Class Adventures…
Our family was just beginning our homeschooling journey, when our 6 year-old daughter asked a question, “Who is the Queen? Why is Canada a country?” These questions sprouted further research, and thought.
How was I to teach my young child about our country, when she did not fully understand the origins, and what Europe was? Soon after that, I became interested to learn more about the countries of Europe, and we began our journey into Italy through books.
One year later…
I began to compile all the ideas and information that we had learned, about Italy, France, England, Scotland and Ireland and began writing what was soon to become my biggest obsession since planning summer day camps for kids in my neighbourhood as a young girl!
I had found something I really loved, and was passionate about, along side my first passion, which was home educating my children. Soon, I had created a full plan for five countries, with multiple Artist Spotlights, a collection of recipes to test, and boy, was I really excited!
Here’s what our experience looked like while creating the class 2 years ago…
The Read, Paint, Cook Experience…
I found that including the three subjects of books, art and cooking was something I found joy in, as well as my kids. These types of activities, seemed to really spark a desire to learn in a hands-on way with my children!
The Books…
With three years of blogging and book reviewing experience, my desire to search and find children books that really brought the learning to life and spark a desire to learn and create art was really important to me. With each Adventure, the children’s books suggested for you to read have been kid-tested and loved.
The Art…
I always loved art and having the opportunity to simply dive deeper and find out more about myself as an artist, woman and mom was really empowering to me, while learning about the Countries of our family history and beyond.
The Coloring Pages…
One of my goals is to help homeschool moms bring art into the homeschool with the most basic of supplies, for a wide range of ages. This lead us to find a very talented illustrator who creates the colouring pages!
Each custom colouring page is created with both parent and child in mind, to inspire the creation of art that sparks the memories of what they learned, while strengthening fine motor skills and memory retention.
The Cooking…
We test every recipe that we include in our Adventures, to make sure it is a success for you and your kids, and the process is incredibly fun for us! Learning a new skill of following a recipe, creating something new that tastes good, and relates to the new culture is so much fun!
Multi-age Learning…
I realized that many moms were looking for a solution for teaching their children together, no matter what their age. It was what I was looking for as well. Art, food and culture can be that bridge between grade level, into a single commonality of ideas.
It is my goal for homeschooling parents with multiple aged children who want to learn together, about art, culture and food, with kids aged 3 to 13 and beyond!