Life on Planet Caddick

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...

Obviously the answer to that is 'yes'.  Sadly, I've been meaning to get on here for a while, but just seem to run out of time. So much has been going on; but before I continue with the everyday things (that seem oh so important ~ because they are!) I must say something about my mom. My mom's birthday was March 21.  She would have been 63 if she was still with us.  I still miss her dearly, but have learned to block some of the bad days.  Her birthday is one of them.  So, I changed my background to bees in honor of my mom.  She loved bees - not the real kind, but she amassed a collection of bee stuff, some of which graces my desk and holds my pens.  I don't think she chose  to collect bee items, I think it happened because she was known as "Mrs. B" to my friends, and "Gramma B" to the kids at the school she worked at (shout out to St. Therese in Lansing!).  Over the years they bought her bee themed gifts and as we all know, small groups of things b...