Life on Planet Caddick

Our first year of homeschooling we used Sonlight. Obviously we've moved away from that - when I get ready for a new year though I always look at Sonlight. There were so many things I loved about it, but far more that I didn't - so I know not to go down that road again. By far my favorite part of Sonlight was read alouds. We read Charlotte's Web, Mrs. Piggle Wiggle, and tons of other books that year. Some I'd read and some I'd never heard of before. I always enjoyed that time. This is our first year homeschooling again after my son spent fourth and fifth grade in public school, which is why we are having some adjustment problems this year. A third grader is really different than a sixth grader! Yeah, we'll call that one of my "duh, mom" moments. In our recent revamping I've started reading out loud to my son again. I know, he's almost twelve (12 - oh my goodness!), and probably doesn't need me reading out loud to him. But although he's a...

OK, maybe you don't - but I know we sure did. I did tons of research. I did some of my own budgeting and failed. Let's face it, we're not the best with handling money. I don't know why I'm not, my dad was very good at it, so I must have got it from my mom. But I even I soon realized that the way we were handling things just wasn't working anymore. Enter You Need a Budget, or YNAB. What a difference this program has made to our finances. Before YNAB I was juggling bills and we were basically living off next months paycheck. In effect, living off money we didn't have. It was extremely frustrating and time consuming trying to time every bill to a paycheck. I was good at it though, we never missed a payment! YNAB has a four step method - give every dollar a job, save for a rainy day, roll with the punches, and live off last month's income. Seem impossible? I thought so, but it really works. Trust me on this, if I can follow this plan anyone can. Give...

We have been doing some revamping here. Our struggle with Monarch for history and science has led us to unit studies. Honestly, I did that our first year of homeschooling too - the year when I didn't know what I was doing and just kind of tried to handle everything the way I thought was best. Our first return into unit studies started with Animal Classification, a Hands of a Child Project Pack. I love these and bought a bunch the first year we homeschooled. My heavy spending year one as most certainly helped our small budget now! We do these a little differently - my son is not a huge fan of cutting, coloring, or pasting (ok - he loves pasting), so we do most of the work notebook style with just a few of the cut out projects that would go in a lap book. I noticed right away that even though he had to write a lot more he was definitely more engaged. I worked on the white board, we sat in the living room, and I learned that my son loves Venn Diagrams! Who knew? Since the science went...

I honestly thought I wrote a post this year. Hmm. Yeah, I guess not! Maybe I should change my blog name to "Slacking on Planet Caddick"! I still have to order my blog book for last year too. I love having those in print to look at when I want. It's kind of fun to see the ups and downs right next to each other. Sometimes I even wonder what I was thinking! Right now though, I'm thinking about retirement. Not mine of course, I did that 5 years ago next month. Nope, this is my husbands retirement and it's a little more frightening. I like to call it crazy fear because it had no merit (most of the time) - it's just a sudden panic of "Oh my God, what's going to happen when we have no ties with the military any more?" It includes all kinds of things, where will move (if we move), what about a job, can I move and do school at the same time? Sometimes these ideas come all at one time - sometimes they come by themselves, randomly, usually when I'm in...