Homeschool conventions can be either a blessing or a blight to home educating families. Notoriously expensive to attend, what with registration, transportation, and hotel fees, many families find that the cost to merely walk though the convention door can amount to hundreds of dollars. Is it worth it? How can you get the most out of a homeschool conference? Homeschool conferences offer two enticements: speakers and vendors. You will be miles ahead in making a financially prudent decision by knowing who is attending. While we can’t speak impartially to the value of attending just for the speakers – we have...

On birthdays it isn't uncommon to have these delicious cinnamon rolls requested by the birthday person, sometimes instead of birthday cake! The family story behind the name is that whoever makes the cinnamon rolls claims the privilege of referring to them as (insert baker's name here)'s Most Famous Cinnamon Rolls. Most Famous Cinnamon Roll Recipe Ingredients ½ cup warm water 2 packages yeast 2 tablespoons sugar 1 package instant vanilla pudding 2 cups milk - room temperature ½ cup butter - melted 2 large eggs - beaten 1 teaspoon salt 8 cups all-purpose flour ***** 1 cup butter - melted...

Our family-favorite caramel corn recipe. We are serving it today as part of our first traditional Monday Meal of the year! Microwave Caramel Corn Ingredients: Popcorn, popped, approximately 6 quarts2 cups brown sugar ½ lb. butter½ cup white corn syrup1 teaspoon vanilla1 teaspoon salt1 teaspoon baking sodaPecans, toasted, if desired Put brown sugar, butter, and corn syrup in a saucepan. Cook on medium low and bring to a boil. Boil for 5 minutes. Remove from heat. Add vanilla, salt, and baking soda. Blend and pour over popcorn. If you plan to add nuts, do so immediately after you pour on...

Let's Build Curriculum Kits Families tell us they love our Curriculum Kits but I wonder how many realize why it took us so long to offer that option. For over twenty years we clung to the belief that if you were going to go to the work of homeschooling, you would want to hand-select each item for each child. After all, that was what our family had chosen to do! Of course, we had always been eager to help families, and it was not uncommon for a mom to call asking where to start for a particular grade. We would give some...

Krissy is the daughter of dear friends of ours and received an autism diagnosis at age 2. Despite participation in various early interventions through the public school system, she made agonizingly slow progress. At five years old, Krissy finally began to talk, and at age six had developed a large vocabulary of words, but had very limited communication skills. For instance, if she wanted a banana, she did not know to come and ask for one. Instead, if you asked her, “Do you want a banana?” she would echo, “banana” if she did want it, or be silent if she didn’t. Occasionally...