My Menu Board

This past year I purchased cheap dry erase boards for my Classical Conversations class.  I had an extra board and realized that with the magnets on the back, it would stick to my fridge as a nice sized post-it note of sorts.  I have used it in various ways throughout the year, mostly to leave notes or list chores.  Yesterday, when I arrived home from the grocery store, I was jotting down what meals I could make from my shopping.  I realized that if I made a chart, I might be able to help the children learn about meal planning.  So I divided my board into 4 sections: Snacks, Lunches, Breakfasts, Dinners.  Now we will see if the kids can figure this out.  Ideally, a hungry child would walk up to the board and then know what there is to snack on, go ahead and start a lunch, or even possibly in a dream world, add ingredients to the crockpot and get dinner going on their night to have kitchen duty.  I have more lunch and breakfast options, if I am cooking from scratch and have plenty of time.  This is just the listing of things that my kids can easily do for themselves.

Here are the ideas I wrote down from my Aldi Shopping Trip yesterday.

Snacks
raisins, cheese sticks, graham crackers, peanut butter crackers, popcorn, apples, carrots

Breakfasts
cold cereal, yogurt/granola, fruit, waffles, pb toast, bagels, eggs/bacon

Lunches
turkey sandwiches, mac/cheese, nachos, leftovers, pb&j sandwiches, smoothies, bean burritos, canned soup

Dinners
Teriyaki chicken w/egg rolls, pizza, hungry jack casserole, chicken enchiladas, spaghetti w/salad and bread, oversized meatballs, bbq chicken, crustless quiche

Today is my Monday...

We came home from a camping trip yesterday.  And with camping for 6 days, comes mountains of campfire scented, s'mores filled, laundry.  I started on it right away yesterday and this morning the last load is in the washer.  I also emptied the car and even got it vacuumed out.  I managed to get all of the coats back on hangers and I just delegated a certain 10 year old to deliver each of the TEN pairs of shoes that were in said laundry to bedrooms.  I put beans on to soak for tomorrow and thawed hamburger for tacos and tonight's dinner.  But there is still much to do.  It looks like our RV exploded in my house.  I have to somehow convince the children to sit by my side and complete 2-3 days of math, science, history, reading, spelling, writing, and copywork.  I have to come up with a "humorous interepretation" for the two middle children's presentation at classical conversations tomorrow.  I have to edit the oldest child's essay on "courage"... after I get her to write it, of course.  I have to prepare to teach my Challenge 1 class tomorrow...including LATIN.  I have to remember to take the littlest to the potty every hour and keep him nearby always so that I can train him and not have to clean up in his aftermath...and so on and so on.  So instead of sitting and thinking on all that is yet to be done, I will just "do the next thing."  I'll print out a pretty to do list and write down everything I get done as I finish it.  (sort of a to do list, but reversed?)  And then when the day ends, I will look at it and remind myself that my Thursday was still productive even if my house still looks somewhat like an RV exploded in it.  And I'll remind myself that bad company corrupts good character and tell Thursday that is what she gets for hanging our with the likes of "Monday."  We all know Monday's reputation!  And I'll sip blueberry tea with lots of honey and I'll try and not forget to hug the littles and remember they are just as frustrated with having to endure a MonThursday as I am and I'll encourage them instead of yell at them...well, that's how I'm envisioning it anyway.  So here's to a happy MonThursday to you all.  And just maybe you will have a regular Thursday instead, which is normally a very nice day on it's own.

Many Blessings,
Mrs. P

Daily To Do list printables...Large Family Logistics style

I found these neat printables for your daily to do list.  I really like that they incorporate the reminders from the Large Family Logistics Yahoo Group. (She now has written a book about her way of keeping home.)

You can find out more about Large Family Logistics at her website or in her book.  My take on her style of home management is that she has applied the FlyLady principles to a large Christian homeschooling family.

 She even has reminders for things like:

• lay out church clothes 
• Phonics time since in large families it seems someone is always in the process of learning to read
• Bible study, praying for your husband, etc
• find Bibles and shoes
• clip fingernails of little ones
• scrub an area of your bathroom while bathing a little one
• loads (haha) of laundry tips and tricks
• load up crockpots (yes, plural) Saturday night for Sunday lunch

While I only have 4 children (trust me, in home schooling circles, 4 is a small family), I find that all of her reminders, tips, etc really and truly apply to my home centered life.  She also has a farm, like me and cooks mostly from scratch.  I love that she has little menu plans for lunch.  Seriously, there are days that coming up with a lunch plan is a major issue around here.  As a former teacher, I remember that the little kids at school have the option of a hot lunch every single day and try to at least have hot lunches for them some times.  However, I can never seem to come up with hot lunch ideas that don't also make a huge mess in the kitchen, so that's when I look at her menu plan.  They are all easy, minimum mess dishes.  She also has a crockpot lunch menu that works well too.  Anyway, that's enough about why I love her website and have read it for years.  This past month I stumbled across the Desiring Virtue website and the owner has created the most lovely daily printable to do lists utilizing all of the LFL reminders.  

So I just really wanted to share the printable with you, but I guess I got off on a rabbit trail and turned it into a whole informercial.  Anyway, check out some of these neat internet resources.  Now I better get off the computer and actually put some action to my daily plans.  

Many blessings,

Mrs. P

Home Economics Resources (repost)

Training Daughters to be Keepers at Home

Training Our Daughters to Be Keepers at Home
by Ann Ward

Not everyone celebrates the year their daughter is in sixth grade, but I did.  I’ve been looking at this marvelous 7 year curriculum and waiting for Miss A to get old enough to justify the expense.  Well, now that she is in 6th grade, she has just 7 years before finishing high school.  Oh my!  How can it be?  Time really does fly.  So in my rainbow resource box I found this book just for me Miss A.  Here are the topics that I Miss A will learn about this year.
Year 1
Godly Womanhood (utilizing The King’s Daughter’s and Other Stories for Girls; circa 1910)
Sewing I
Cooking & Baking I (utilizing Sue Gregg’s Lunches & Snacks cookbook)
Gardening I (utilizing Square Foot Gardening, Weeds: A Golden Guide, Weeds and What They Tell)
Knitting I (I may substitute smocking since she wants to learn and I am knitting challenged)
Greeting Card Making I (utilizing various books from the library)

Before Miss A was old enough for this curriculum, I still taught some home economics skills.  I especially loved the books by the Pearables titled Home Ec for Home Schoolers.  I have all three levels and Miss J is thrilled to be old enough for level 1 this year. 
Level 1 Skills:
Nutrition
Baking
Cooking
Sewing
Cleaning
Organizing
Hospitality
for a detailed list see the link below. (my linky thing doesn’t work so you’ll have to copy and paste it.)
http://rainbowresource.com/pictures/018510/c/1/1249415261-1246826

Blessings,
Mrs. P

Homeschool or Clean House???

I have found that I firmly lay in one of two camps. Either I'm in the "clean house" camp OR I'm in the "we got all of our homeschool work done" camp. I find that it's hard to do both. For one thing I haven't trained all my little helpers as well as they should be trained; so messes are made at a rapid rate around here. For another thing, I tend to be a pack rat. I find myself holding onto various items with the thought that I might *need* it some day. The problem with this attitude is that I've now used up every square inch of space in my home storing all of this clutter. And guess what, I bring more things into the house daily. Every couple of months I add more books to my library. What homeschool mom doesn't? We have a new baby on the way and now I'm adding things that the baby will need. Those two things alone present a challenge to keeping a tidy and organized home. Now add in the home school day.

As far as school goes, I now have kids going into 7th grade, 3rd grade and 1st grade. The days of having my oldest two finished with school by noon or even earlier are long gone. So in a sense I have a full time job of teaching school, just like I did when I taught public school. One difference is that I'm teaching at home and I have no janitor to come and dust and vacuum my classroom everyday. In other words I get to clean up glue and glitter and scraps of paper. On top of that my "classroom" often has at least a load or two of laundry being folded. It isn't unheard of for me to find a missing sock in the crayon and marker bucket. So currently I'm to the point of just trying to do one thing at a time. I'm doing house keeping tasks before school, at lunch and after school and when it's school time I'm no longer attempting to multitask. Somehow a trip to reboot the laundry leads to a sweeping of the kitchen, thawing of dinner, and possibly even a straightening of cushions on the couch...all the while the students are now playing with legos and tea party sets instead of handwriting and math. So then I have to get them back on task and I find we've wasted lots of school time. And I also found that after 3:00 little children seem to zone out on you and so I really need to keep their school between the hours of 8 and 3. I have a couple of ideas on how I'm winning the war on clutter, even if it's one tiny baby step at a time.

I have loved the Flylady System, but never really fully implemented it where my house "cleans itself." However, even following it a little bit will improve your home management. I'm continually amazed at how much better my house looks after a 27 Fling Boogie or a Hot Spot Fire Drill. If you aren't familiar with it and you also collect clutter you should go visit her website. It does work and if you follow through the babysteps and establish good housekeeping habits while getting the clutter out you can find yourself in a really clean and peaceful house in about a month's time. Now if you are like me and somehow have to get the clutter under control as well as keep the home school running, then you might be interested to know about a yahoo group that I am a member of. It's called Large Family Logistics. It is sort of a Flylady meets the homeschool mom type of group. It is run by a real life home school mom with a whole house of kids. She also has a blog if you like the yahoo group. She does send out reminders like Flylady and also the group doesn't have discussion, like the Flylady. So when you sign up you will get her reminders and that's it. She also includes reminders about various homeschool tasks, daily Bible study, exercise and her weekly plan is set up for a mom at home with lots of kids. I also love that she sends an occasional reminder for things like "Friendship Friday." The notes on this reminder are: Schedule a lunch date with a friend for the first Friday of every month.

Friendship Friday
If the first Friday doesn't suit your life, pick a different date. Ideas: one on one at a restaurant, picnic lunch with the children, an afternoon of crafting

While I haven't yet followed through with this particular reminder, I do need to be reminded of it so that I don't forget to get out of the house or invite a friend over. I also love that she sends a reminder on Saturday night to lay out and iron church clothes, to send a child to gather everyone's Bible and start breakfast and load the crockpot for Sunday lunch.

One thing I've found is that by signing up for both groups and putting my settings to read on web only, I can customize the two systems into one. I use my yahoo mail for my email address on the yahoo groups. Once you get to your yahoo mail, choose to look at your calendar. All of the reminders will be on there even though you are set to read on the web only. You can then pick and choose the reminders that you want to come to your email box thus eliminating lots of email reminders that don't apply to you. For example, I chose to only get the Flylady morning routine reminder. There are even times that I have NO reminders sent to my email due to vacations or just really busy seasons of life. It's worked well for me and I hope this post helps other moms who like their clutter but also like a tidy house.

Blessings,
Mrs. P