Articles written by Teresa McClary

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About me - Teresa McClary

I am a SAHM and a WAHM who likes DIY and uses GTD. On a daily basis I am an artist whose main medium is dolls, a wife, a mom to two great boys, and a blog writer (where you can figure out what SAHM, WAHM, and GTD mean if that part made no sense to you).

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Parenting & Pregnancy > Tweens & Pre-Teens Teens: Parental interference vs. parenting: 2 of 20

The concept of parental interference versus parenting is not a area of thought for only the parents of teenagers. The choices of when to to interfere, when to guide, and when to step back and let the child make the decisions begin to appear from the moment a child first begins to interact with the world. Do you help the infa...
Hobbies & Games > Kids Crafts Crafts with children: Using recycled materials: 2 of 8

The mega-super-mart-stores would like parents to believe that children need kits full of brightly colored foam and sparkles before they will be willing to sit still long enough to craft. Many kids, however, jump at any opportunity to make something. The most popular projects are rarely of the pre-packaged from the spif...
Hobbies & Games > Kids Games & Toys Do children need educational toys?: 7 of 19

The best toys are educational toys. But what is an educational toy? Does it have to be sold at a trendy toy store in a fancy box with paragraph after paragraph of so called experts spewing forth study results about why this toy will make your child a genius? Any toy that encourages a child to think is an educational toy. Any...
Education > Homeschooling Tips for homeschooling inexpensively: 7 of 14

Plan your days with a dry erase marker and some index cards. We have tried a lot of different scheduling methods over the years, including no scheduling. The biggest failures were definitely the pre-planned full curriculum type (Calvert and k-12) and the no schedule at all. Unschooling is awesome, but the whole family has to...
Politics, News & Issues > US Military (Other) Should children from military families receive college tuition discounts?: 8 of 13

I openly admit that my viewpoints toward the military and its actions lean towards the liberal side of the political spectrum. I also freely admit that there is a need to maintain a military, even when I do not agree with the way our government chooses to use them. Honest disclosure dictates I make those statement before now...
Education > Learning Styles & Skills Handcrafts in the curriculum: 2 of 3

Years ago it would have been called part of home economics, now it is often called handcrafts. Skills such as sewing, knitting, crochet and cooking are still important to learn in today's technology driven society. Why? People still need to wear clothes, sleep under blankets, keep their feet warm in socks, and eat. It is imp...
Hobbies & Games > Hobbies & Games (Other) Best websites for games: 12 of 16

What makes a good game website? There are three areas that help distinguish the good from the bad. All three areas must me dealt with acceptably for a game site to really be called good. First is visual appeal. No visitor will last long enough to find out about the game or games if the site is ugly. The overuse of distractin...
Hobbies & Games > Card Games Yu-Gi-Oh: It's not just a children's card game anymore: 4 of 5

Yu-Gi-Oh was once an active resident in our home. He, and his cards, were first brought into my home by my oldest son who was, at the time, around 8 years old. We have since moved onto other interests, but Yu-Gi-Oh was not just a games for the kids it was a family game. Too often fun is misinterpreted as childish. We had pla...
Society & Lifestyle > Personal Morals & Values Honesty is the best policy: 93 of 93

To be honest is a goal of many. The question is what defines honesty to you. The best policy, in my opinion, is honesty to yourself. Does that mean that you must never tell a little white lie to protect someone? Of course not. Why? Because before telling that little lie you asked yourself what was more important to you prote...
Education > Education (Other) Should schools give BMI index scorecards for their overweight students?: 27 of 27

This was the first year in the last five years that we have lived in this school district that the school year was not shortened due to budget constraints. Our school district is not the only one that seems to suffer from financial problems. On the contrary, almost every school district in the United States makes the same cl...