A few nights ago I wanted to stay up and watch a movie with my children, and we decided we wanted some Spinach and Artichoke Dip. However, upon inspection of my cupboard we discovered no artichokes. So, I poked around in my fridge and thought about what could I substitute? I did a quick search on-line and found a spinach and leek dip, but it was sour cream based and did not have any cheese. Continue Reading >>
Testing is (ridiculous? valuable? worthless? important?) for Homeschoolers
Wow. This is a tough topic. For every ten homeschooling families you meet, I bet you will find fifteen different opinions about the touchy subject of testing. Why fifteen? I have a love-hate relationship with standardized testing, vacillating between two different extremes. My husband thinks differently about standardized testing then I do. I am sure we are not the only spouses with Continue Reading >>
Book Review: A Is For Adam by Ken and Mally Ham
You can tell from the pictures that the revised edition of A is For Adam by Ken and Mally Ham is very bright and colorful! My children were immediately captivated by the illustrations and wanted to know "What's that Mommy?" A Is For Adam is an alphabet book designed to to teach some basic concepts about Creation from a Young-Earth Creationist point of view and also point out fallacies in the Continue Reading >>
Top Ten Lessons Learned about Making Crayons (Shape Molds)
So we tried making our own crayons as gifts for the neighborhood on Valentine's Day. I read a bunch of stuff online, but frankly following the online directions did not work well for me. So here are a few things to add to the basic directions you will find on line. I'm calling it my Top Ten Lessons Learned (for making crayons in shaped molds). #10. Make extras, your children will want to keep Continue Reading >>
Get Out and Go! Field Trips Make Learning Fun
I've been pondering all of the different field trips through the years. There was that field trip to Corning Glass Museum for which Mapquest took me a full 1.5 hours out of the way and made me late. Watching the man blow glass was pretty cool but if my kids remember anything it would be that long drive through the Finger Lakes and arriving late! Then there was that time we went to a lighthouse Continue Reading >>
Lego Ninjago Cupcakes for my Lego Fanatic
Caleb wanted Lego Ninjago cupcakes for his birthday. I did a little bit of searching online and found several versions of this cupcake -- which makes the entire cupcake a ninja's head. Although it is not necessary, I did choose to put a layer of lego yellow frosting on each cupcake first. I was concerned that without this the cupcakes would not have enough icing. To get a nice deep color you Continue Reading >>