Pausing to Reflect

The homeschooling resource center that my kids go to had their pausing ceremony this week. It’s a time for everyone in the community to get together, for the kids to perform something if they wish and a time to say “see ya later” to the older teens who are moving on to other things. The…

Getting Ready for our First “Official” Year of Homeschooling

We have always considered ourselves homeschoolers but this year we face our first real challenge, registering with the state. Since our oldest is now 8 she needs to be registered with our local school district as a homeschooler. Within the next month I will submit our affidavit and our educational goals for the next year….

XBox Kinect at Fencing?

My oldest has been fencing since January. She is really enjoying it and it keeps her active and fit. During the “school year” she took her fencing class at a private school near us. Now for the summer we have to drive into the city for her lessons. Today was her first lesson down town…

Homes for the Bees

We live in a wood sided house a.k.a a carpenter bee’s all you can eat buffet. In the past we have put powder in their holes to kill them but we’ve come to realize what beneficial creatures they can be so about a year ago we decided to stop that and make some bee houses…

Opting Out of Standardized Tests

  photo by timlewisnm We’ve all been there, sitting quietly in a room filling out bubble after bubble with our #2 pencils, but is that a thing of the past? My oldest will have to take her first round of standardized tests next year so it’s been on my mind lately. As homeschoolers these tests are one…

How Kids Can Help the Victims of the Earthquake and Tsunami in Japan.

Photographer: Takashi NAKANO (?? ??) Yesterday the kids and I talked a great deal about the earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan. We looked at information online about how earthquakes occur etc. The discussion inevitably turned to the people of Japan and my oldest asked what she could do to help. A simple question but…

Super Science Lessons from Science With Me

Dental issues and health have been a prominent theme in my family as of late. In looking for some lessons on teeth for my kids I came across Science With Me. This site has great lessons, coloring sheets and experiments. There’s a great one about teeth which helped me to explain to the kids which…

Slow Cooker Yogurt – Make Yogurt In Your Slow Cooker or CrockPot

So I’ve always thought that I didn’t like yogurt but I buy it because my kids do. Purchasing organic yogurt (greek yogurt too)  can get expensive and I’ve heard that you can make yogurt in a slow cooker so I started looking around at various recipes for slow cooker yogurt and found some short and…

Peter Pan and Paper Tubes

We’re last minute kind of people so when we were told last week that our daughter needed a costume for her performance the following week we figured we had plenty of time. Fast forward a week (and a cold on my part) and it’s Saturday morning 9am when we realize that we don’t have a…

Trouble in Danceland

Ballet Shoes via megyarsh My children take classes, lots and lots of classes; acting, fencing, ballet, circus school, art museum classes.  These are all child determined and came out of them being interested in the topic and wanting to learn more. They do well and for the most part behave appropriately in these classes, my…