Identity Crisis! Help!

Please help me... I need your input!  I'm going through a "mid-blogging" crisis ; )  When I started this blog in August, it was my intent to just blog about our homeschooling journey and all Tyler is learning and doing in school.  However, in the past few months I've "spread my wings" so to speak and have blogged a few recipes and craft ideas.  I love sharing about Tyler's school happenings, but I also have found I love sharing the craft projects I have found time to complete...  I have always enjoyed crafting and find it is my "outlet!"  So, the big question is:

Should I change my blog name to better suit all that I am writing about??  I don't want to confuse the readers that I have or will have, but I feel weird blogging about anything other than school because of my blog name!!  Am I crazy?!  I won't be sharing crafts and recipes more than school stuff so that is where I am torn.

Should my blog name be more general?

I find myself needing to change things up every once and a while....  I have already changed my blogs background!  And who knows what will change next!  Lol!  I don't do it so much now with two littles, but I was changing our furniture around every few months for "something new!"  I was the same way when I was younger, my mom would come home to find my room outside in the hall as I was changing things up... again! 

I would love your insight!  For those that have decided to follow because of the crafts I've blogged about... does my blog title throw you off?  And for those that have followed because I am sharing snippets of our homeschooling journey, are you thrown off by my craft posts? 

...Okay, so you get the point!

What should I do?!!!

Blackberry Oatmeal Smoothie

Tyler LOVES smoothies-- loves, loves, loves!  I really should make them more often, and thanks to Pinterest I pinned a great idea, DIY Smoothie Packs!  But like many things I've pinned, I still have yet to do that...

Anyways, I pinned a Strawberry Oatmeal Smoothie recipe (which was adapted from this recipe), but since we didn't have any strawberries, I changed it to blackberries!  It was pretty good-- I am not really a big fan of oatmeal in my smoothie; it makes it chunkier.  Although, the blackberry seeds probably didn't help either.  Tyler loved it though, so that is all that matters.  It was for him anyways!    He loved helping me make it, too : )  He is such a good helper! 

• 1 cup ice
• 1 small package of blackberries 
• 1/2 cup Greek yogurt 
• 1 banana
• 1/2 cup old-fashioned rolled oats
• 1 tablespoon sweetener (tried honey, but we ended up adding straight-up sugar!)
• 1 cup milk 

This smoothie turns into the prettiest deep purple color!  Enjoy! 

Feel free to check out my "Thirsty" Pin Board if you have a chance, I've pinned smoothies, iced coffee, hot chocolate... etc.  All this blogging about drinks really IS making me thirsty! 

FIAR: The Little Red Lighthouse and the Great Gray Bridge

I just adored everything about this book!  It's a classic-- a Parents' Choice Honors and Reading Rainbow book; definitely one I will be looking for at book sales!  And if you have a chance to visit New York City one day, you can check out the little red lighthouse for yourself!  Yes!  It actually still sits on the edge of the Hudson River. 

"A little red lighthouse looks at circumstances and draws wrong conclusions.  But, with the help of the great gray bridge, he discovers the truth; that he still has useful work to do."-- summary from FIAR manual

Social Studies:

• Located New York on our map; found the Hudson River and Erie Canal.  Decorated a page All About New York with stickers and a colored picture.  After reading several books, I had Tyler narrate what he remembered, which was actually him going page by page in a book and telling me!

I asked Tyler, "Wouldn't it be fun to go to New York City?  We could go to the zoo, see the Lighthouse and the bridge, see the Statue of Liberty, etc."  And Tyler says, "No. I don't like New York."

"Tyler, you've never been there."

"Well, I just want to stay home and play the Wii."..... oh, brother!

Now mind you, the only time he plays is at night!

Language Arts:

• Personification-- I had a great idea for this lesson, but try finding stickers of just facial expressions... Yeah, well... I didn't!  I did find something close, but it wasn't exactly what I was looking for.

• Creative Writing-- after pointing out personification in the story and in just about every Disney movie he loves, Tyler wrote about a heart.

• Compound Words-- Printed and laminated some super cute compound word cards for Tyler to match.  Then we used our artistic abilities to draw our own! 

Math: Nothing notable!  Just worked on addition and used Carissa's Angry Bird math printable to talk about before, after, and in between on a number line.  Asking him to find the number before such and such tripped him up at first, but he quickly got the hang of it.   



Last minute idea I came up with-- Map the Coordinates

Art:

• Made our own toilet paper tube Lighthouse
• Talked about the drawings contrasting the size of the bridge and lighthouse.  He didn't have any interest in doing his own drawing...
• Learned How to Draw a Lighthouse 

Science:

• Simple Paper Bridge Experiment-- here we asked the question, "Does the shape of a bridge affect how much weight it is able to carry?"  The answer is, "Yes!  Design matters!"

 The first couple of bridges only held >10 pennies; the folded bridge held at least 26... we ran out of pennies!

• Just for fun, we checked out Steve Spanglers Science website and tried and failed a couple of his experiments!  We tried Balloon Skewer and Color Changing Milk. 
• Read some books and checked out a website to learn more about Lighthouses and light keepers. 
• Talked about the use of rivers and reminded him of the Yangzte River in China that we learned about when we read, The Story about Ping. 
• Built model bridges and determined which bridge is the weakest and which was the strongest.  Found this experiment in "Fun Science Projects: Making Shapes" by Gary Gibson.

Bridge in the back is a simple Beam Bridge; the middle bridge is a Suspension Bridge; and the bridge in the front is an Arch Bridge.  Which one do you want to travel across?

 The Beam Bridge collapses!

The strongest bridge is the Arch Bridge because the weight of the juggling ball is spread out over the whole length of the bridge.

As I am writing this, I don't feel like we did much this week... I think my lack of actual sit down planning is getting to me; although, I am constantly looking up stuff.  I think I need a better system so it all flows...  or maybe it's just that Tyler isn't as easy going with his lessons as he used to be.  I don't know what it is... I'm just rambling, excuse me!

Oh, and here are some more links you may enjoy!
New York Coloring Page
Lighthouse Hidden Picture
Little Red Lighthouse YouTube clip
View from inside the lighthouse
Lighthouse Unit from Chestnut Grove Academy
Little Red Lighthouse from Academy at Thousand Oaks
Little Red Lighthouse Row from Delightful Learning

Next is Mirette!

Show n' Share Saturday

No Sew Heart Ruffle Onesie

So the other day I needed a break-- you know, one of those long days that just seemed to be dragging...     I popped in a short movie for the kiddos and escaped for 15 minutes to get my craft on! Yes!  This adorable Valentine's onesie only took that long!  And actually, it was probably less than that because I was experimenting with paint and stickers on another onesie and that turned out to be a flop. 


Anyways, here is what you need to get started!

• fabric glue
• 1/2 yard of some pretty chiffon-like rosette ribbon from the craft store (spent $1.99)
• a onesie or shirt 

Yes, I know the heart is wayyy off here, just wanted to show you how I was applying the ribbon!

You may want to iron the onesie first.  Our ironing board is buried in the closet, so I just went for it... hoping the heart would end up in the middle.  I practiced folding the ribbon into a heart shape onto the onesie first; once I was satisfied with the look, I applied the fabric glue underneath the ribbon.  Make sure you have something in between the onesie, so you don't end up gluing the onesie shut!  Gently push the ribbon into the glue and you are done.  Put it somewhere to dry and start a new project ; ) 

Here it is on my sweet girl!  Enjoy!

Read.Your.Way Scavenger Hunt

We jumped back into learning new sight words this week with You Can Read: Unit 16-- of, now, there, and say.  To mix in our last day of reviewing the new words with reading CVC words, I made up this Read.Your.Way Scavenger Hunt.  Tyler knew *most* of the words and the ones he didn't, he really tried to sound them out!  I was so proud.  He LOVED this!!  And I should have known he would like something like this because he loves to play hide n seek, and this is kinda sorta similar!  I really want to encourage him to be confident in his abilities! 

On small pieces of paper, I wrote four "clues."  He was able to read these all by himself!  And he just giggled when he read number 4, not believing I hid the last sight word in his car bin!

His scavenger hunt begins!  He read the board with some help from me and was excited to be on his way!

After finding each sight word, I stuck it on the board so we knew how many he still had to find.  He would find the clue and come running back to me ready to read and find out what the clue said!

When he found the four sight words, he insisted it was my turn to find them all!  He hurried and hid them and said, "Ready!"  I told Tyler I didn't have a clue to read, and he ended up telling me where they all were-- and he followed me to make sure I got them all.  Definitely will be doing this again!

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