Menu Plan Monday

(Yes, I know today is Tuesday. I'm ok with that.)

 
Once upon a time we had a 3-week rotation system.  It worked for us for a while, and then we got away from it.  

When I looked it up recently I realized our tastes, needs, and shopping habits have all changed, so I came up with a new system.  This one has 4 weeks of 6 meals.  We are two weeks in and loving it so far.

Here is week three (which, even though it is Tuesday we haven't even started yet, because I am still finishing up meals planned for last week!):

Garlic Chicken and Spinach Pasta

 - Saute onion until soft.  Add minced or crushed garlic cloves.  Add crushed or chopped tomatoes, canned or fresh.  Simmer while pasta (your choice) cooks.  Add basil, etc.  Stir in 1/2 bag or so of fresh baby spinach.  Simmer until wilted.  Mix in cooked, drained pasta.  Optional: sprinkle on parmesan cheese.

Honey Mustard Drumsticks

 - Marinate drumsticks in honey and Dijon mustard, among other things.  Grill.  Or bake.  This recipe (and several others we are enjoying) came from Saving Dinner.  Full of 4 seasons of recipes and serving suggestions.  There are quite a few recipes from each section of this book that we love!   

Chicken Under a Brick

 - I originally posted about this one here, and called it "Pressed Chicken."  It's a Rachael Ray recipe, and one of our favorites!

Curried Lentils

 - Lentils, rice,onion, garlic, celery, cilantro, curry.  Optional: top with a dollop of plain yogurt.  Cheap.  Easy.  Yummy.

Beans and Rice

- Another cheapie.  Just like it sounds: beans, rice.  Seasoning.  Maybe some sausage of some sort.  Won't be served back-to-back with lentils and rice.

Breakfast for supper

- Goodness.  We are eating cheap this week.  I had no idea until I saw it all written out here.  Oh well... my guys love breakfast for supper.  Usually either pancakes or waffles, scrambled eggs.  Maybe fried potatoes or fresh fruit.  

 How do you keep meals on the table and still keep the kitchen cool during the scorching month of August?  Have any good crockpot recipes to share?

Where we school

The majority of our schooling happens right at the kitchen table.  Not only am I excited about showing our 'school room' I am also happy to be giving you all a sneak peek at our newly re-done kitchen!  (I'll be posting more of that later this week.)

So, anyway... school.  At the far left is our chalkboard door, a new addition.  So far we've been posting our daily schedule on it.  Just around the corner from the chalk-door is our dry erase calendar.  We love labeling and drawing our own symbols for special days, and marking off each day as it passes.

A view from the other direction, mainly to show our window to the backyard.  It's nice to be able to look out and see the boys playing or, in the winter, the birds at our feeders.  We currently have a hummingbird feeder out this window that.... um... needs to be filled.  Can't seem to remember to get to that.

My Mom the Librarian helped me with one of my favorite organizational upgrades for this year.  We have school books lined up on bookshelves all over the house, but this one in the kitchen is the main one.  It holds most of the resource type books that the boys have free access to.  While we have quite a few good books, the problem has been finding what we need (or, more accurately, remembering we have it) when we need it.

So, we categorized everything and color coded it.  Don't you love color coding?  Below is a picture of our science books, divided into 3 shades of green for earth science, animals, and plants.  More or less. ;)

And finally, the It's-on-extended-loan-to-me Hoosier, loaded up with all our miscellaneous school gear.  You can get the full story on this wonderful piece and how I came to have it in this post.

This is the picture I posted of it not long after it arrived last September.  The contents have changed and rearranged considerably, just since then, but you can still get the general idea.  I love using this to hide organize all our stuff!

 

Thanks for visiting, and happy NOT back to school blog hopping! :)

Weekly Wrap-up

Our week, in review:

Sunday - Much like waking up in the wee hours of the night to the sound of someone, somewhere in your home up-chucking, we woke up Sunday morning to find our computer ill.  As in, it had a virus.  A virus that wanted our credit card number and wouldn't let us do much else.

We were determined not to let such a distraction be a.... well... a distraction from worshiping.  It would have to be dealt with later.

Monday - Big day!  Daddy Buffalo started summer band, yet again.  But at a new school!  Yay!  We are very excited about this.

Also on Monday, those of us left at home began easing ourselves into our school routine.  This is the first time in years (if ever) that we are going to be able to have a consistent schedule, and I am very much looking forward to it.  Day 1 consisted of our getting up, fed, and dressed, followed by house-keeping type things, and one hour of schoolish things.  We aren't beginning any of our 'real' school stuff yet.  I'm calling it "Summer School" because I can, and my boys have no preconceived notions of what that ought to mean.  It's summer, we're doing school stuff, that makes it Summer School.  Our new school year starts in 10 days.

So, after having absolutely no structure whatsoever for over 3 months, Monday was a bit of a battle.  The goal was the schedule.  Not the 'school work' I had planned.  But we got it all done and made it through!

Tuesday through Friday went muuuuuch better as far as all things schedule were concerned.  I was really expecting the adjustment period to take longer, but the boys seemed to have jumped right in to scheduled life.  I'm still waiting for the other shoe to drop.

And even though Summer School has been mainly to get us in a routine and to practice time management and all that good stuff, we have accomplished academics too!  

Among other things: Alan finished his alphabet book, the boys sent out two letters each, and Dale started his new piano books!  Since they are mostly review for him at this point, we are hitting them hard for our two weeks of Summer School to get a jumpstart.  We'll back them down to once or twice a week after school starts.

As for the computer.... after some research, consultation, and other attempts, we were unable to eradicate the virus and decided the best course of action was to wipe the whole thing clean and start again.

Thankfully, we had all of our pictures, documents and the like backed up on an external hard drive.  So, in went the recovery disk, and off went my computer as I knew it, along with the stinkin' old bug.  While I am extremely grateful to have things up and running again (and for free!), the computer isn't back to it's old self yet, and just isn't as much fun.  Worst of all, it looks like the file I had saved all my "Favorites" in has gone missing, so my lists and lists of links to school stuff and recipes are gone.  I felt a little ill myself when I discovered that.  The biggest consolation to me is that it IS the internet.  If there was something I could think of, in theory anyway, I ought to be able to find it again.... right?  Oh but anyway.... I don't want to be whiny... I really am glad to have everything else saved!  It's all perspective, right?  I'll live. ;)  

In the meantime, I learned some valuable lessons this week on living with less computer time, and how that really (really) helps us when it comes to all that routine and scheduling business.  ;)

Visit Kris @ Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers to see more Weekly Wrap-ups.  Next week I'll try to have pictures... after I've reinstalled photoshop.  :)

Do I need a doctor's note?

I'm not big into those "I'm taking a bloggy break" type posts.  In my opinion, you're either posting or your're not.  
However, I wanted to explain my current and upcoming absence.


I'd rather be posting, but see.. well. it's like this: 
Our 'puter is sick. 


Got itself a virus, in spite of the whatever$ we spend on protection against that sort of thing. :(


So I'm begging and borrowing internet time where I can get it, but just doing the bare minimum.


In the mean-time we're getting into our school routine, getting ready for the new year to start in a couple of weeks.  Maybe not having a computer around is a good thing, eh?


See ya around.....

Tyler's first kiss

The family had a little get-together.  In attendance was one high-energy, fun-loving little dog.
Most of the time, Holly and Tyler were kept apart, but it only took a moment...

...and she greeted him right on the kisser.  Holly's owners were appalled and everyone started reaching and grabbing, but what did I do?  Well... the proof is in the picture!


In other news, Tyler is 7 months going on 37....months.

He's up to two (big) bowls of 'real' food a day, and insists it have texture.  That liquidy pureed stuff is not for him.   And really, bananas please, if you got 'em.


He crawls anywhere he pleases, and has done so for a couple of weeks.


He thinks he's as big as his brothers, and I've said a time or two lately he often prefers their company to mine.  That's okay with me.  Sniff.  Really.


Yesterday I put him down in the grass for the first time, to see what he would do.


What did he do?  Nothing different than he would inside: took off crawling for whatever he could find.  As usual, attempting to put most of it in his mouth.


After all that crawling through the grass I figured he'd be itchy, so we had another first... 

He usually bathes in the sink, and has had one bath in the big tub by himself.  He said he didn't know that the big boys bathed together, and thankfully doesn't have the capacity to be angry with me for holding out on him until now.  Instead, it truly made. his. day. to have a bath with his brothers.  


Since it was such fun, we let him play a good long time and really enjoy it.  And he came out with the wrinkles to prove it!

The Memory Verse Box

In the comments of yesterday's post Suzanne asked for more information about our memory box system.


The idea completely came from here on Simply Charlotte Mason.  I began this post thinking I would link up, but also give the directions here on how to do your own.  But you know what?  SCM does such a great job telling you how, I don't see the need to repeat it all. :)


Basically, it is a rotation system, where new verses are reviewed daily, then every other day, then weekly, then monthly.  Easy to do, and all you need is your Bible, index cards, and a box with dividers.  We usually go through ours while sitting at the breakfast table each morning.


The only difference we have in ours from the one linked above, is that because we don't have 30 days worth of verses yet, we have all of our monthlies on days 1-10 and go over them 3 times each month instead of one.  On the 11th and 21st of the month we start over at 1 again.  As we start accumulating more verses we will switch over to the monthly system as described on SCM.  If you haven't read the SCM instructions on making a box what I just said may not have made a lick of sense.


In case you are looking for ideas of which verses to start with, I am listing a few of ours below.  SCM has a list as well.


When learning a new verse we read it together several times in a row until it is committed enough to memory to begin reciting.  I like to write down longer verses (or ones that we are using for character issues) and post them on the wall or the refrigerator, too.


Verses in our box:
John 10:10 (The thief cometh not...)
Luke 2:8-14
Psalm 100 (Make a joyful noise...)
Psalm 33:4 
John 1:1 (In the beginning...)
James 1:19-20 (...quick to listen, slow to speak...)
Proverbs 3:5-6 (Trust in the Lord...)
Proverbs 4:20-22 (...attend to my words...)
I Corinthians 14:40
Matthew 4:19-20 (...fishers of men...)
Ephesians 4:32 (And be ye kind...)
Luke 1:37
I Corinthians 13:4
Genesis 1:1 (In the beginning...)
Psalm 119:11 (Thy word have I hid...)
Ephesians 6:1 (Children obey your parents...)
I Timothy 6:6 (But godliness...)
Galatians 5:22-23 (fruit of the spirit)
Luke 19:10
Joshua 1:9
John 3:16


We also have a card for "The Gospels" (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John) and "The Books of the Law" (Genesis - Deuteronomy). 


Another benefit of Scripture memory with your kids?  You learn them, too!

How do you choose verses and passages for your kids?  What are some of your favorites?

2010-2011 Goals

Our family is only a week or two away from a definitive "New Beginning".  For the first time in 3 years (or more) life will be such that we will be able to have routine.  Predictability to our days.  We need the structure. We crave the routine.  Greg and I are both optimistic it will bring changes.  Good ones.


Driving home from one of our last trips of the summer, we recently talked about goals for our boys.  Where we want them to be a year from now.  I loved that conversation, and the focus that has come from it.  Honestly, it is the first time we have really taken such an assessment.  We've spent a lot of time just surviving and getting by in times past.  Again, we are so hopeful about our fresh start and the seasons ahead of us.


Some of the ideas we talked about have always been there, but we've refined them a little bit.  Some of them are new.  Seeing both in writing is helpful.  Greg and I agree that overall, academics are secondary, especially in the first several weeks of our new school year.  Our primary goals involve establishing our new routines, and taking more care in training the boys in their roles in our home.  As Greg put it, our focus is Bible first, routine second, and everything else to follow.  With that framework, here are some of our goals for the boys this school year.


Dale:
Taking ownership of his household responsibilities.  In other words, to know what is expected of him when, and how.  Dale has become a willing worker, and usually shows up with a good attitude.  However, staying on task and recognizing what needs to be done have been a challenge.  For example, if we ask him to clean off the table, we want him to be able to recognize what needs to be done with everything on the table, and stay with it until the job is done.  We want our days to have such flow and predictability that Dale (and Alan) aren't surprised or interrupted by the chores at hand, and even expect them as what is coming next.  One of our ultimate goals in this (and I expect this to take most of childhood to accomplish) is to raise self-starters.  Adults that identify something that needs to be done, and do it.

Gardening.  This spring we intend to hand over a lot of our vegetable garden responsibility over to Dale.  Working side-by-side, of course, but giving him some ownership in it, and keeping him in the action until the job is done.  #1, he needs the 'something to do', and #2, we want to raise our kiddos to be hard workers.  And in theory, the time together will be fun.  I'm even considering putting him in charge of the 'flower beds' (that haven't grown flowers in a couple of years) out front.


Scripture Memory.  We have slacked off for the summer, but we use the memory box system and plan on stepping it up again for the school year.  Dale is more than ready to be memorizing passages instead of verses.

Academic

Bible - Memorize the books of the Bible and be able to find them quickly.  To know the author and main events and ideas of most books. 

Math - Memorize addition facts.  Begin memorizing multiplication facts.  Complete Singapore 2.

Language Arts - Be able to independently write a letter with correct capitalization, punctuation, spelling, and structure.
Piano - Main goal here is consistency.  To have lessons and practice regularly each week to make progress.

Alan:
To know what is expected of him when, and how.  Just like our goal for his brother but on a smaller scale.

Scripture Memory.  Alan already has a handful of verses he knows from our daily trek through the memory verse box.  We will simply be adding in more specifically for him on a consistent basis.


Academic
Recognize and be able to recount major Bible stories and characters.
Letter sounds. He already knows most of these, I just want to solidify it and make sure we've got 'em all. 


Recognize sight words.  Those are the conservative pre-reading goals.  Hopefully by next summer Alan will be well on his way to being a reader.  We'll see. :)


Basic math. Count to 20 and recognize the written numbers to 20.  He'll pick up plenty other math skills in daily living.

For both big boys:
Exposure - This covers history, social studies, science, literature, music, art, etc.  My goal is to expose them to a wide variety of subjects and ideas.  The ones that spark their interest we can take further.  The nuggets they truly learn and love will be with them forever.  The rest will hopefully be familiar if they ever encounter it again someday.


Even though the academic goals are listed separately from the others, any homeschooler knows that learning isn't isolated like that.  Alan will be learning to count to 12 when we put away 12 toys from his room, and Dale will be developing his self-starter skills when he gets going on his math lesson while I'm busy doing something else. 


And, although randomly thrown in here at the last, it is worth mentioning our hope is to constantly be pointing our boys to the Lord in everything we do.  In our family rules, in expecting first-time obedience, in all issues that come up in daily living.  I'm glad our children are still young, because the truth is we are still training ourselves how to train them!

Last but not least, I even have goals for little Tyler.  There again, they are more for me regarding Tyler.  My intention in every day is to make sure at least once every day I sit down with him and look him in the eye.  To put everything else on hold and take the time to play pat-a-cake and sing a song and play a tickle game.  There's no doubt he'll be held and fed and changed and loved and kissed, but I want to enjoy him.


And really?  That sounds like a worthy goal for all the boys.  These days go so fast, don't they?

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