Slices of Life

Evan finished off his math book last Friday and Ian was taking an end of unit test in his math book when I told the boys that we'd be taking this whole week off from school.  Each of them took turns saying "except for spelling" "except for reading" "except for math"... and I said no excepts; the whole week!  No work.  We need a break and this is a good time to take one.  We tried to plan something fun to break up each day but expected to spend a lot of time around the house just relaxing. On Friday , they each took their spelling tests and got a 100.  Ian did decide to just do two of the three pages in his unit test on Friday and asked me to set out the last page for him to do on Monday so I guess he'll be doing a bit of work on our week off but I hope that's all.   Alec whipped through two more pages in his math book and all three boys did a bit of reading.  Evan finished up Cheetahs while Alec read a couple more chapters in the Crysta...

After watching another few episodes of Cupcake Wars again over the weekend, Alec really wanted to try his hand at making cupcakes with a filling. He decided to try making Dirt Cake Cupcakes;   A vanilla cupcake with a pudding/cookie/cool whip filling topped with cream cheese frosting, Oreo cookie crumbs, and a gummy worm. Use your favorite vanilla cupcake recipe.  I'd share the one we used but we were not all that happy with them.  They were kind of wet and spongy in texture; not light and flaky like tend to enjoy but I reminded Alec that it's all part of trying out new recipes! We let them cool at room temperature for a few hours after baking then we used our new cupcake corer to take out the middles of each of the cupcakes. We mixed up 1 cup milk and two small boxes of vanilla instant pudding in our stand mixer.  We folded in 1/2 a container of cool whip and about 1 cup of crushed Oreo cookies. We put the pudding into a gallon size Ziploc bag and used it...

While this may not be a traditional word one thinks of when talking about homeschooling, I knew that for our family K had to be Kitchen. The kitchen is the most important room in our home. One might say it is even the heart of our home.   It's where we always come together. We sit at our kitchen table for most of our schoolwork. We play family games several nights a week gathered round the kitchen table.   My boys are learning their way around the kitchen, cooking meals, trying out recipes and putting their skills to the test.  We eat family dinners around the kitchen table 7 nights a week most weeks.   We talk, share food and form bonds. We often gather together with extended family around our kitchen table for parties and holidays too.   So many of our family and schooling memories are centered around our kitchen and homeschooling would just not be the same without it. Homeschooling Through the Alphabet: A is for ...

We needed a much needed break from our normal homeschooling routine this week so we're taking a week off from our studies and trying to fill our days with fun. What fun activities and lessons do you have to to share with us? Thanks for stopping by and I hope that you'll join us in linking up to fun some blog posts and social media shares! Welcome to the Love to Learn Blog Hop A collection of educational activities to instill a life long love of learning in our children. Enjoy learning through play, nature, crafts, and many other educational activities. This is a PIN-IT PARTY Your hosts will pin our favorite posts to our Pinterest boards! I encourage you to do the same! and SOCIAL MEDIA HOP! Add all or some of your favorite social media links below the main hop. Please: Follow your Host & Co-hosts We work hard to share all your fantastic content! Click on our badges, or scroll down to the social media link up and follow on your favorite channels. If you leave your link, com...

I never really used to do much meal planning.  I'd buy a bunch of groceries at the store each week. We'd decide the night before what we would be eating for dinner the next night and take out the foods we needed from the freezer; occasionally heading back to the store to pick up an occasional ingredient or two or changing up what we had planned to make. For the whole first year we homeschooled I kept up with our normal routine.  However, I used to grocery shop when the boys were in school and taking all three boys to the grocery store every week was not fun.  It was also difficult to find time to get to the store each week with all of our schoolwork, activities, field trips, and events. Much like how I keep up with the laundry and how I find time to do all the housework , we needed an overhaul of our grocery and meal planning techniques! I started reading blog after blog about grocery shopping once a month with a full menu planned for family breakfast, lunches, dinn...

My husband loves chili but he's usually the only one that eats it and I always felt like it was a bit of a waste to prepare a whole crock pot full of chili for one person. We've tried various recipes over the years and I'm always looking for new ways to make chili more enticing.   A few weeks ago we had chicken fajitas for dinner and we had a lot of the chicken/ green pepper/ onion mixture left over with all of the seasonings.  I knew I didn't want to throw it away and thought I might be able to use it to come up with a new chili recipe. Voila!  The Chicken Fajita Chili was born. We have a nice small crock pot that was perfect to set the chili in for the day but you could easily prepare this in a medium sized pot. Since my chili recipe was thrown together using a lot of leftover ingredients all amounts are approximate. You will need: 2-3 Chicken tenderloins 1/2 green pepper 1 can sliced mushrooms 1/4 onion 1/2 package of fajita flavoring packet 1/2 ca...

I was so unmotivated to read this month.  All of the books I started seemed to take me forever to read. I just couldn't decide if it was the fault of the book or just because I had many other things I could choose to do instead of reading... then a Nor' Easter hit and I had plenty of time to snuggle up with some good books. 1.   The Secrets of Lake Road by Karen Katchur -- by the second page I was hooked.  A girl is spending the summer at her grandmother's cottage in the Pocono mountains when someone drowns and she uncovers a secret about her mother and another drowning that took place when her mom was younger. 2.   The Mistress by Danielle Steel -- Natasha is saved from starving and dying on a street in Moscow by a very wealthy and dangerous man.  Kept as his mistress she has all the protection and luxury she has ever wanted.  But when she discovers his secrets she has to decide which she wants more; protection or freedom. 3.   L...

We had a very busy week this week!  So busy that we've decided to take a little break from school next week and enjoy some downtime.  I felt this was one of those weeks where we just kept trying to squeeze one more subject in and I realized by Tuesday that I was exhausted.  We haven't taken any time off since Christmas break so it's long overdue. Tuesday Alec decided to try and tackle a new cupcake recipe.  He wanted to play around with our new cupcake corer  and put filling inside his cupcakes; this meant finding time to make cupcakes, mix up a filling, AND make frosting but it was worth it; they were so yummy and he was so proud! We had a shortened day of school on Friday since we were heading out to meet up with some friends and family.  Alec read How to Catch a Leprechaun out loud to us all.  Evan read Do Not Bring Your Dragon to the Library.  Ian read Mrs. Meyer is on Fire .  They all took their spelling tests and worked in their ma...