Life on Planet Caddick

Wow! I can't believe I've been gone so long. I think about blogging here a lot, but then I realize that honestly, we aren't doing anything that awesome. I guess that's not the point though - the point is to get stuff down as a record mostly for myself. So I will try to be better. It's time to pick curriculum for next year. I don't know why this is so agonizing - and it gets worse as we get closer to high school. I'm planning 8th grade now. 8th grade {insert big 'Home Alone' face here}! I knew it was coming, yet somehow I'm still not completely prepared. I've realized that no matter how it's presented, Zach hates History. That it was always my favorite subject doesn't matter to him at all. So, I'm going to teach the way I want to and he's just going to have to get with the program. I'm going to go with Sonlight (World History Core W) for that and LA (since they come together). We will still do Lifepacs for Science. I'm ...

It's that time of year, when all the homeschool parents are looking at next year. Everybody has probably made some changes during the year ~ I know we have! ~ and are now spending hours upon hours hunting down the steals and deals on curriculum for next year. I've done all my ordering and have started receiving our books for next year. That always makes it harder to stay focused on this year and finish strong (at least for me!). Now that my items have arrived, I feel I can now share what we've decided to do for next year (7th grade folks - it's a biggie!). History, Geography, and Language Arts: We opted for Winter Promise American Crossing for history and geography. I chose this particular program for a variety of reasons. First, it includes a state study (yes, my son recently asked if Connecticut was a state or a country - it's time for a state study!), it was easy to remove the Bible portion and still have solid reading and other activities, and most importantly...

I missed connecting with Hip Homeschool Moms this week on their Tuesday Hip Homeschool Hop. Boo! We are about six weeks into our school year and we've made some changes (who's surprised?), but that's how it goes around here. Remember this picture? Yeah, well the only thing left that we're using is actually the math. And little man is complaining about how it repeats, but we are staying the course with math. I know he needs the spiral approach with math, so he's just going to have to deal. So, what are we using know? Well, we are using Horizons Math. It works, and if he gets it, I don't assign every problem. That's helped calm him down a lot about the repetitiveness of it all. We really love Alpha Omega products. I know a lot of homeschoolers think they are not advanced enough, or whatever. The small sections work great for Zach, who is ADD, so I can't say enough good things about them. We switched from the AOP lifepacs in...