Life on Planet Caddick

Today I'm linking up with the Hip Homeschool Hop . This week we tried our hand at making soap. I've been wanting to try making soap for a while, but while reading our latest book about Ben Franklin they have soap and candle making activities. Doing a "requirement" for school is definitely a reason to make it happen! We are going to tackle candle making later this week - but for now it's soap making. I know young Ben didn't make soap with a melt and pour goats milk base, and I know they didn't add color (or probably fragrance), but that's how we did ours. Bonus points - I'm counting it as this week's art project too. Little man did all the coloring and swirling so he gets credit for that. He really did all of it - I just supervised and gave him direction. That's the good thing about melt and pour instead of cold process - no lye. Poor young Ben, what a nasty job that must have been! Putting colors in the molds He made them very colorful All ...

I'm trying to make a concerted effort to include art this year in our homeschool. I'm not very artsy and I find teaching art - well, boring. But doing art, well even making bad art is fun! My son feels the same way, so we're going to do some fly by the seat of our pants painting and other projects this year. I pulled our first project off Pinterest (of course!). I'm not as addicted to that site as a lot of my friends, actually I rarely use it - but sometimes I find cool stuff I'd like to try and this idea was one of them The idea seemed super simple and I thought, why not - some cool artwork on the wall will be nice when we're done. So I drug the boy to Michaels, had him pick out some colors (along with the rest of the supplies), and we dove right in. He picked shades of blue and purple (which matches nothing in my house!) but again - it's more about the doing here... Hubby didn't paint - he was our photographer Hi Honey! All dry and waiting for our sw...

Today I'm linking up with the Hip Homeschool Hop! We have started our second week of 7th grade - woo hoo! So far things are going well. I'm using my new scheduling system and homemade planner, four days in I can say I'm enjoying using them both. Here's how I'm using my new system right now (we all know how us homeschoolers tweak everything as we go ~ at least I do!): This is what our week looks like scheduled out. I do my scheduling over the weekend - and yes, we only work four days a week. I use one sticky for each assignment, that's why there are so many! All our LA is on the green squares - so one says spelling, one says reading, and so on. It looks like a ton of work, but really, it's doable! Once the work is done I either write it in my book right away OR I stick the stickies into my book and write it in later. This usually happens at the end of the day when we are going full steam!  Eventually everything gets written in the book and my record keeping i...

Today I'm linking up with Hip Homeschool Moms Anyone else have trouble staying focused the last few weeks of the year? I know both my son and I are having issues right about now. We have a cruise coming up the first week of June (to celebrate my husbands retirement from the Air Force) and all of us - hubby included are kind of distracted. Ok, really distracted! =) When I brought my son home again this year I promised he could have summer break - so he could hang out with his PS friends and just relax. Now that time is getting closer and we just want to be finished. But I'm not a "let's say you did this when you didn't" kind of person. Even if I was the boy would have none of that! So, we are plodding along, desperately trying to stay focused and on track until the end. Wish us luck!

Homeschooling works differently for everyone, which is the beauty of it. Today I thought I'd share some of my favorite homeschool things. I'm not exactly sure how I managed to keep track of everything before this little wonder. I tried all kinds of planners - online, homemade, you name it. This just works. I balked at the cost at first, but it's well worth it. There's a place for grades, report cards, tear out shopping lists, and of course schedules. Since I have to prove what we taught all year having this in one spot is awesome. Colored pencils. These are more for me too. I grade with them and sometimes, yes, mom makes a mistake. Instead of crossing it out and making the page look all nasty and sloppy I can erase these. And I can choose any color I want. Yes, sometimes moms need to have some fun too! A calculator. I wish I had one this big! I'm not a math whiz and never will be, so when figuring grades I have to use this. What a ...

    I'm so jealous of the folks who homeschool without workbooks. On our homeschool journey we've spent  tried a lot of money on  curriculum. Sonlight, Abeka, Unit Studies, Monarch, and on and on. It really can be an expensive labor of love when you are trying to educate your own child. When I brought my son home again this year after two years in public school, all these missteps really came in handy though. I knew what would work for us, and what to stay away from. I wish I had been given the choice to learn a la Sonlight - I would have thrived, but I'm not the one doing the work. So, here is our curriculum for this year Yep, as you can see, all workbooks. Workbooks of all different kinds. Another lesson from all our previous mistakes! Sometimes I feel like we aren't doing it right because we are a workbook family. But in the end, it's all about making sure my son gets the best education. I've discovered that sometimes if you're not homescho...