Friends and Consequences

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​Finding Friends for Your Homeschooled Teens… and the Unintended Consequences. Making friends as a homeschooling teen always seemed like it would be a huge hurdle to leap for our family. When our kids were young, it was easy. If you homeschool young kids there are park days, co-ops, and even church groups that help you feel safe. Your homeschooled youngster won’t get picked on by that mean public schooled kid. That sounds like a joke but for us it was reality when our kids were young. Friends Are Easy To Find At First When we first began homeschooling, we quickly found a plethora of friendsRead More →

Marigold Bakes A Cake

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A Review of “Marigold Bakes a Cake” by Mike Malbrough It took me a while to get my hands on this book when it arrived at our house, as my children squirreled it away and declared it the most fantastic book ever. That might seem reasonable and normal for children who are picture-book age… but my kids are teenagers! Marigold Bakes a Cake is the story of a orange cat with a penchant for things creative, but if it is Monday he must bake. The book chronicles Marigold’s hilarious adventures one Monday as he attempts to bake a cake, with a lot of help fromRead More →

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Six-month online aviation course from Doctor Aviation – A Homeschool Review Crew review My son loves to discover how things work and he loves history and flying machines, and so when the opportunity to review a six-month online aviation course from Doctor Aviation came our way, we jumped at the chance. Will It Enhance Your Homeschool? Lessons Are Designed To Be Flexible Doctor Aviation’s course can be used in a number of different ways. Your child can work through the videos and extra course material independently for high school credit, or you can pile all your kids together to watch the videos and everyone willRead More →

Z is for Zutto

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​‘Z is for Zutto, Always and Forever’ is Week 25 of Blogging Through the Alphabet 26 Keys to My Happy Marriage Depending on who I ask, zutto means somewhere between always and forever in Japanese. For my purposes, the exact meaning isn’t that important as the two options are interchangeable for my purposes. Zutto, to me, stands for the state of the relationship between my husband and me. As a couple, we are forever. Our relationship is always. It feels, after knowing him for more than 30 years, that he has been with me always. We really are two that have become one. And foreverRead More →

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Fascinating Biology from Fascinating Education – A Homeschool Review Crew review My daughter loves biology, but most science textbooks work their way slowly through the information with a lot of review. This drives her bonkers and so when we got the opportunity to review Fascinating Biology, a high school biology course from Fascinating Education, we jumped at the chance. And this course did not disappoint. If you have children that need the review, they can have it by going through the relatively short lessons over several times until they understand everything. But if you have kids that pick up and understand the material right away, this courseRead More →

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This was a week filled with lazy summer days, loud chickens and parades. Our 4th of July Parade Our neighborhood has had a small parade on Independence Day every year for as long as I can remember. It is a chance to catch up with old acquaintances, reminisce with neighbors, and generally enjoy the small town-aspect of our neighborhood smack in the middle of a large city. The parade always starts with the local fire station engine, followed by all the kids in the neighborhood on bikes and skates and some pushed in strollers. Next come the new baby cars: convertibles and old classics showcasingRead More →

Y is for Yon Time

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​‘Y is for Yon Time’ is Week 25 of Blogging Through the Alphabet 26 Keys to My Happy Marriage My husband wakes each morning early in the ‘yon time’ and heads off to work. It is dark when he leaves, very dark. He gets up long before most of us wake, and shortly after we go to bed, so that he can keep us fed and happy and comfortable. Ten hours later he returns, worn and a bit slow. Life is hard when you live it in the ‘yon time’. What is ‘Yon Time’? In Scottish, yon time is late in the evening. I thinkRead More →

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Timelines were something I stressed over when we began homeschooling. I looked at the options we could purchase, but couldn’t find something that fit our lifestyle. So, I put up a blank, homemade, timeline. It covered all of history, divided neatly into 100 year segments, a century on a piece of 8.5 by 11 paper. All I did was draw a line in pencil across each piece of paper in the same spot and label the start and end of the line with a year. It turned out that our dining room was perfectly sized to accommodate the entire timeline, taped up, end to end,Read More →

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In our house, these cookies don’t last long enough to make it overnight in the cookie jar. I put them in and by the next morning, the jar is empty.   Ingredients: 1/2 Cup Butter 1/2 Cup Margerine or Crisco or butter substitute (vegetable oil works as well) 1 1/2 Cups Sugar 2 Tbps molasses 2 eggs 1 tsp vanilla extract 2 1/2 cups rolled oats, ground to flour in the blender 1 tsp salt 1 tsp baking powder 1 tsp baking soda 12-16 oz chocolate chips 1/2 cup shredded coconut (optional but yummy) Directions: Preheat oven to 350 degrees Cream butter and sugar. AddRead More →

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​When do you think you can declare your homeschooling efforts a success? I was laying on my darkened hallway floor this afternoon, listening to my daughter playing her viola and began wondering if my homeschool efforts were successful. Would my kids turn out ok? How would I know we were on track? Is it when your homeschooled medical school graduate gets a Nobel prize for literature and physics and in her acceptance speech she chalks it all up to you, her mom, who slaved night and day homeschooling her for 13 long years? Nope. Ok, then let’s back up a bit. Do you declare yourRead More →