Life's little interruptions...

Sometimes, when you are going along at full speed, making progress, life happens. One of the positive positives about homeschooling is flexibility. We had planned to have school on Labor Day and save our day "off" for later when the new baby decides to make her appearance, but something came up that changed our plans.

We will not be doing school on Friday, either, as a few of the kids and I are planning to leave for a family reunion out of state. (Dad and the other kids will stay home and take care of the livestock while we enjoy a couple of days away.) This means that we only have three days left to do school this week, so we have two choices: We can do three days of school this week, or fit five days of schoolwork into three.

Since all of the kids were at their desks yesterday morning, ready to do school, we discussed our options and took a vote. The majority ruled, and they voted to do longer days on Tuesday and Thursday and finish two days of school work on each of those days. It works.

So yesterday, I got the opportunity to rub shoulders with some other homeschool Moms and compare notes. One of them is doing My Father's World - Creation to the Greeks with her children and they are thoroughly enjoying their days as well as we are. We shared our methods of recording attendance and book lists and suggested ways to organize our portfolios. Iron sharpens iron.

According to the calendar, the first day of Autumn is still a little over two weeks away, but thanks, in part, to Tropical Storm Lee who decided to take a little trip across the country, we are enjoying more Fall-like days this week. The mornings are a little crisper, the nights are nippier, and the afternoons are nice and enjoyable. The stanza of the poem we studied in our 6th grade English class today seemed very appropriate...

A haze on the far horizon,

The infinite, tender sky,

The ripe rich tint of the cornfields,

And the wild geese sailing high --

And all over upland and lowland

The charm of the golden-rod --

Some of us call it Autumn

And others call it God.

From Each in His Own Tongue, by William Herbert Carruth

Also, before I close this post, I'll give a report on our Monarch Project. So far, three of our caterpillars have entered the chrysalis stage, and two caterpillars are still munching away on fresh milkweed. It should take 10-14 days for beautiful butterflies to emerge from their life changing cocoons. We are (trying to) wait patiently.

The chrysalis on the right (above) has just changed from a caterpillar this morning. You can still see the stripes as it has not turned into the green jeweled chrysalis as the ones in the back have.

You may notice the black object to the right of the caterpillar on the left in the bottom photo. It is not a fly - it is the caterpillar skin our new chrysalis removed as it took on its new form.

Mornings around here

Yesterday I said I would share today what we do with our breakfast routine in our bustling house of 10 (going on 11). The kids are required to be up at 8 am, make their beds, take care of their morning hygiene and then they are on their own for breakfast. We have a "breakfast station" in the kitchen. In the top cabinet, we keep a stock of bagels, English muffins, oatmeal, grits, and peanut butter. On the counter under the cabinet is the toaster, so they can make any toasted foods at this station. (As a rule, we have found that Pop Tarts and other convenience foods packed full of corn syrup and sugars create behavior problems in our house, so we try to avoid them.)

There is a cabinet in the dining room that holds the cereals and granola items. Other items, such as the raw milk and eggs are in the fridge for use as needed. While we eat together, each child chooses what he will eat, prepares it himself, (except for the younger ones who get help from older siblings), and then all are required to clean up any messes they made, leaving the table nice and clean for lunchtime later in the day. This is much easier than planning meals for breakfast as everyone has their own favorites and can learn the responsibility of feeding themselves.

The children who have been assigned loading and unloading the dishwasher for the month must be sure that clean dishes are put away and the dishwasher has been reloaded and started before school starts at 9 am.

I like this system for a couple of reasons. First, I have free time in the morning to have breakfast with my husband and go over the schedule and activities for the day, and secondly, the children learn to take responsibility to get themselves up, feed and clean up after themselves.

I prepare lunch (based on our schedule posted yesterday) and dinner (based on our Once a Month Cooking Menu which will be posted later). I will also tell you about our chore system in a later post. As our friend from the 100 acre wood would say, Tata for now! :)

At Peace with What is Right

Did you ever notice that when you are doing what you are supposed to be doing, everything just feels right? There is a sense of peace pervading our home today. :) Everyone enjoyed school and we began our half hour of read aloud time. While the kids worked on their John 3:16 posters, I read the first chapter of Little Women by Louisa May Alcott to them. As they left the classroom to clean up their rooms before lunch, the gentleness of the sisters in the story seemed to go with them. Ah, bliss...

Organizing the Lunch Menu

I thought I would share our lunch system today. One thing that robs my time is trying to figure out what we're going to eat. We devised a schedule that has our lunches planned out for us. I asked the kids to give me a list of their favorite lunches. Then, I made a two week schedule that is repeated. List A is what we eat Week 1 and 3. List B is what we eat Week 2 and 4. We alternate every other week, so we have the same thing for lunch every other week.

Week A:
Monday: Pizza (homemade, English muffin pizzas or mini pizzas, pocket pizza sandwiches)
Tuesday: Soup or Stew (homemade chicken noodle, Hearty Hamburger Tomato Stew, etc.)
Wednesday: Sloppy Joes
Thursday: Grilled Cheese/Tomato Soup, Ham and Cheese pockets
Friday: Chili

Week B:
Monday: Baked Macaroni and Cheese
Tuesday: Hot Dogs/Sweater Dogs/Corn Dogs
Wednesday: Popcorn Chicken or Chicken Fingers
Thursday: Beef or Chicken Tacos
Friday: Pasta and Meatballs

So far, this seems to be working well. We only repeat every other week, so we're not having the same thing over and over.

Sunday afternoon, I sit down and look at the menu for the week. Then I go to the store once and get the things we need for breakfast, lunch and anything we may need to go with our dinners. This way we save money by not making several trips to the store (where we inevitably end up with more in the cart than we need!)

Tomorrow, I'll fill you in on how we handle breakfast. :)

Blessings to you and may the peace that passes understanding pervade your world today!