Christmas Tree Decorating

Well we had a nice quiet Thanksgiving with nothing overly eventful happening.  Everyone had a good time, and then yesterday and today we decided to dig out all the Christmas decorations and start going at it.  For some strange reason we couldn't find our stand to our Christmas tree so we had to go out and buy a replacement which unfortunately didn't quite fit right.  We rigged it up anyways but if the tree in the pics is slightly leaning, that it why!  haha  Oh well, we got it up anyways.  The kids had fun decorating and Little guy even got in on the action.  This is awesome because he used to be afraid of Christmas trees and tinsel.  Speaking of little guy, he has been attempting to talk up a storm.  He is not real understandable yet, but his therapists are hugely impressed at his new willingness to try!  So Merry Christmas to us!

Anyway, we had a good time today watching Christmas cartoons on Netflix and getting the tree all set up.  I am sure we will be doing tons of Christmas projects for school starting next week.  Hopefully I have time to post pictures.  With the baby's due date closing in, we are really crunching on time between Little Guy's therapy appointments and my increasing OB appointments.  It is going to be a crazy holiday season this year!  We are starting a unit on Reindeer using http://www.thesimplehomeschool.com/.  We really love their interactive online unit studies.  They are awesome for science.  I think it will tie in perfectly with what's on the kids' minds right now.

Curriculum Reviews

Well, we are almost halfway through our school year so now would be a good time to review the homeschooling materials we have.  First we have been using Alpha Omega Publishing's Horizons math.  At first I was hugely impressed.  The lessons are colorful and engaging and they integrate the review problems right in with everything else.  However as we went further into the year, my son became more and more frustrated.  For him I think it might just have too much review.  It is a lot of busy work for him and not enough to keep him fully engaged.  He tends to pick math up very quickly so having to re-practice that many problems a day just became a battle for him.

Now for Science and Social Studies we started out using Alpha Omega Publishing's Lifepacs.  I decided very early on that I really don't care for Lifepacs.  I love that they are Christian based, but they are very wordy and put a high focus on memorizing vocabulary while I prefer a more hands-on learning experience for him.  I also found the curriculum to be very lacking in pictures which is horrible for my very visual learner.  I found myself having to read the lessons to him with my laptop at my side so I could google illustrations to help him understand what they were talking about.  Really I was adapting it so much that we quit after a couple of units and started just using science and social studies related books for a while.

Here we are halfway through the year and I am struggling to get him back on track.  We signed back up for Time4Learning which I really think is the best thing for us right now.  We are using it primarily for Math and Language arts and some for Social Studies.  For science we are trying out The Simple Homeschool's online interactive unit studies.  We are working on the Solar System Unit right now which is a tad over his head since it is for sixth graders and he is only in fourth grade, but it is on sale right now for only $5.  Really he seems to be enjoying it and we will probably sign up for a full subscription soon so we can access all the different unit studies on the site.

Meanwhile, I am going to sell what is left of my Lifepacs and Horizons and stick with more computer based school for now.  Really, Horizon's Math is great and I still highly recommend it, but unfortunately isn't a great fit for my Little Man.  Lifepacs on the other hand, I was not very impressed with for any child and I don't recommend it.

Slow cooker Dairy Free Pumpkin Pie Pudding (yes it is a re-post but a yummy one)

Well considering that Thanksgiving is well on the way here, I decided to re-post my recipe for Dairy Free Slow Cooker Pumpkin Pie Pudding.  I was digging around for the recipe and I plan on making it tomorrow so why not re-post?  Anyways, my Little Guy is still allergic to all dairy products.  We did a re-trial of baked in dairy a few weeks ago and unfortunately he still reacted, so more dairy free holiday fun this year.  I am afraid that even if he does outgrow it at this point, he may never like dairy.  He is very particular about even his brand of soy milk, so he might be on it for good anyways.  It would be nice to not have to check labels on everything someday though.  He's going on three years old and still hasn't outgrown it, though so I am not sure what the odds are that he will.  Oh well, here is the awesome recipe that I just love myself anyways!

Ingredients

• 1 (15 ounce) can solid pack pumpkin
• 1 (12 ounce) can coconut milk
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup biscuit/baking mix
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 2 tablespoons butter or margarine, melted
• 2 1/2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Combine all ingredients and transfer into a greased slow cooker and cook on low for about four hours.  I use a slow cooker liner because this one does tend to make for sticky cleanup.