Midlife Credo Blog
Peanut Butter Chocolate Banana Smoothie
Yesterday my daughter made me a smoothie sooooo yummy that it deserves to be shared. It's like eating ice cream or a milk shake without all the diet-busting stuff. This is about 200 calories and is a great pre-workout boost to get you going at the gym. Ingredients 1 C...
Sugar Free Dark Hot Cocoa
This diet-saving hot cocoa made it onto Instagram today. I concocted this out of various other recipes about five years ago and have never tired of it. As I'm trying to be diligent about calories, this drink has given me the chocolatey sweetness that reduces my...
The Best (and Mostly Free) Homeschool Kindergarten Curriculum Ever Created
As the implications of Common Core are felt more and more by students/parents/families, I am asked more often than ever, "How do I start homeschooling?" One of the single most common questions I have encountered is, "What is the best curriculum for kindergarten?" I...
What's So Bad About Common Core?
It Is Not the Standards Most people trying to combat Common Core seem to be focused on proving that the standards are bad, wrong, harmful, stupid, and otherwise nefarious. I think this is the wrong approach. "Common Core standards" are not some magical,...
But I Want to Go to School! – How to Respond When Your Child Doesn't Want to Homeschool
Question: Should I let my child go to a public school? We've decided to homeschool this year, but my daughter is hearing all about school from her friends. Now she wants to go. What are my options or, better yet, is there a way to change her mind? Answer: Yes, but you...
Dixie Allen, Common Core, and Why We Homeschool
Utah proudly claims to be the reddest state in the union — meaning that we like to think we are more conservative than anyone on earth. But we're not. We're not much different, collectively, than the nearest progressive, voting in favor of more and more stuff that we...
Why I Don't Teach Cursive
Massachusetts is one of several states that wants to keep penmanship as part of the curriculum. A few hours ago a Facebook friend asked if others thought cursive should be kept alive. My answer: No — unless you have nothing more important to do. In my experience,...
You Can Homeschool – You Just Don't Want To
Let's just get this out of the way right up top. The vast majority of people can homeschool. They just don't want to. And the vast majority of homeschoolers don't care. Debating a 6-Year-Old I was a 30-year-old college graduate and mother of three (6,3,1) with a...
How to Start a Homeschool Game Club
If you're anything like me, public school socialization was one of the worst parts of growing up "in the system." With little oversight and children highly motivated to be "king of the hill," the stereotypical school bullying is is so common it's legendary. One of the...
12 Steps to Start Homeschooling Tomorrow
No matter how damaging or harmful — or boring — public school is for their children, many people feel they cannot transition to homeschooling. It's unknown. It's unfamiliar. It's scary. (Not to mention weird.) They think they need to plan and prepare and research and...
Do You Need to Be Organized and Detoxified to Begin Homeschooling?
The Big Getting-Ready-to-Homeschool Question Well over a decade ago, when we lived in Florida, a friend (whose kids were in public school) called in desperation. Two of them were tanking in school and, given the environment, feeling worse and worse with each passing...
Solving the Homeschool Field Trip No Show Problem
People Don't Value Free Events In 1997, when we lived in Florida, my best buddy and I decided to team together to start a homeschool choir for elementary aged kids. Becky would play the piano, I would conduct. We'd hold it at my house. Since we had, at the time, six...