Paper Chains and Countdowns

*Photo credit: CraftElf.com

My kids are always asking me about how far it is until a birthday or upcoming holiday... and it gets a little frustrating when I've already answered the same question multiple times in one day.

I remember making paper chains as a kid; they were always so fun and helped me remember when something was coming up. With all the birthdays and holidays in the near future, I thought it might be helpful to make up some paper chains with the kids, in hopes of getting them to stop asking me the same questions over and over again learn a sense of time.

When I was at A.C. Moore a few weeks ago, I bought a huge 500 pack of multi-colored construction paper with a 50% off coupon (YAY for coupons!) After cutting them into 1" strips (and deciding that I need to buy a paper cutter...), the kids had plenty of fun helping me gluing the ends together. Now, they can remove one chain link every day and they'll be one more day towards whatever holiday or birthday is coming up.

We'll see if this curbs their questions, but it was still a fun thing to do! I think we'll have to do this new tradition with all the upcoming holidays.

As The Blog Turns...

I haven't updated in a little while, mainly because we still weren't completely sure about homeschooling. Last year was horrible in public school... to the point where we were so upset with the school that we never wanted to send Sweet Pea to school ever again. But then I met Pea's kindergarten teacher for this year and what a difference!

We're still planning on somewhat homeschooling Bug until he starts school next year. In the meantime, I'll be posting crafts to do with the kids, recipes, etc... it just won't be all that much about homeschooling.

On that note, Fall is my favorite time of year! Maybe it's because my birthday happens to be this month... or maybe it's because all the beautiful scenery. Either way, it's my most favorite time of year! I'll be posting about all our fun crafts and decorations, our old traditions and hopefully adding some new traditions, so stay tuned :)

$25 Amazon Gift Card Giveaway on Cherishing the Moment

Yet another great giveaway at another homeschoolers blog: Cherishing the Moment. She is giving away a $25 gift card to Amazon, which is a great place to buy cheap books for school!

Good luck! :)

Super Easy Meatloaf

I'm always looking for something quick and easy to make for dinner, so when the hubby asked for meatloaf - I groaned... Not because it's hard to make, but because it takes an hour in the oven.

In all honesty, it only takes less than 10 minutes to prep.

-1 1/2 lbs ground turkey (or ground beef)
-1 large egg
-1 cup of skim milk
-1 cup breadcrumbs
-pinch of salt/pepper
-2 tbsp. brown sugar
-2 tbsp. mustard
-1/3 cup ketchup

Mix ground turkey, egg, milk, breadcrumbs and salt/pepper together and put into a greased bread pan. Make sauce by mixing brown sugar, mustard and ketchup together and pour over the meatloaf. Bake at 350 degrees for one hour.

You can also add onions and peppers to the meat part of the recipe, but the kids and I are not fond of either, so they were left out. We paired the meatloaf with some corn, mashed potatoes and gravy.

What's your favorite easy to make recipe?

Summer Daze THL Giveaway

Cheap Supplies

Lately, I've been scouring the clearance racks and going to garage sales to pick up cheap supplies for homeschooling. I found a bunch of stuff between garage sales, Dollar Tree and T.J. Maxx/Marshalls. T.J. Maxx and Marshalls had a bunch of "Match It" games/puzzles for super cheap. I found 9 total and paid less than half of what I would've spent at TLJI's website. Dollar Tree has sooooo many neat things, I've made a point to stop there frequently.

I still have to find a cheap way to store everything though...



*Side Note: I am employed by the TJX companies, however they do not have any influence on my opinions about the products they carry. All opinions are my own and I was not paid or reimbursed for this post by anyone.

Weekly Homeschool Planner Giveaway at Confessions of a Homeschooler!!

Once again, "Confessions of a Homeschooler" has another fabulous giveaway going on! Jolanthe from "Homeschool Creations" has made an awesome, completely customizable homeschool planner that is being given away on COAH.

Click here to try editing a sample for yourself

Click here for a sample of what you'll get

Here's what's inside:

• 138 planning pages ~ 8 1/2" x 11" sized
• 12 blank month-at-a-glance pages
• 40 weeks of weekly planning and journal sheets: each page can be customized to the subjects that your family studies and can be saved to your computer!
• Preschool planning sheets
• Field trip/Event plan sheets
• Yearly curriculum planning sheets
• Yearly planning and evaluation sheets
• Yearly attendance tracking sheets
• Field trip/Event plan sheets
• Daily to-do lists
• Main dish menu planner
• Customizable chore charts
• Important contacts info
• Additional note space
• Standardized testing and yearly assessment result tracking
• Homeschooling requirement planning

In my opinion, this is an awesome planner that you can reuse year after year!!! You can either buy this planner for $20 here or you can enter the giveaway here for your chance to win (if you buy it and end up winning the giveaway, Jolanthe will refund your money!).

Sneaky Squirrel Giveaway at Confessions of a Homeschooler!!

I have to say, I absolutely love the blog "Confessions of a Homeschooler"!!!! I found it a few months back before we had made the decision to homeschool, and I have to say that I was in awe when I saw her school room! I highly recommend her blog!!!!

Well, she is giving away the Sneaky Squirrel game from Educational Insights which ends tonight, so hurry on over to this link to enter!

Field Trip Ideas

We live in Western New York, so I figured I'd try to get some ideas together for field trips. One of the things that disappoints me about Pea's school is the rarity of field trips and I personally think field trips are a big part of learning. We'll start homeschooling in the Fall (seeing as this school year is done very shortly), but I want to be as prepared as can be before then.

I'll probably add to this list as we go, but at least I have some starting point as to where we can go for field trips.

Albright-Knox Art Gallery

Aquarium of Niagara

Buffalo and Erie County Botanical Gardens

Buffalo Fire Historical Society Museum

Buffalo Museum of Science

Buffalo Naval Park

Buffalo Philharmonic/Kleinhans Music Hall

Buffalo Zoo

Corning Museum of Glass

Explore & More Children's Museum

Ferguson Planetarium

Frank Lloyd Wright's Martin House

Great Pumpkin Farm

Griffis Sculpture Park

Lancaster Opera House

Niagara Falls (the waterfall)

Penn Dixie Site

Shea's Performing Arts

The Strong Museum of Play

Tifft Farms Nature Preserve

I figure that we could also go to the local police station, fire department, possibly a bank (seeing as our Federal Reserve Branch closed down), Post Office, and a restaurant.

New Adventures

So, this is my new blog... hopefully I stick with it... I don't have a very good track record with blogs, but this blog is about something near and dear to my heart - my kids.

I've been thinking of homeschooling for a while now, but hubby has been against it. Earlier today, he finally agreed with me that homeschooling might be the best for our family. We had a long conversation about it in the car, and he's mainly worried about socialization and wanting our children to be smarter than us. After explaining that our kids will be just fine, and that we can do a test run year if he'd like, he finally sided with me.

I wanted to start a blog for this new adventure in life and I'm going to share what works and what doesn't work with my family. This is a learning process for us, so this will be my "diary" for our homeschooling.