Homeschooling Year 1 Review: What I learned

Our First Day of Homeschool for 2014

Okay so our first year homeschooling was rough.  There is no sugar coating it.  Toward the end of the school year I was ready to throw in the towel.  To the point that Señor Hotness contacted the school, and I began drilling the kids on the standardized test they would take as a re-entry assessment.  Then we did something simple but kind of radical (for us anyway).

  We banned the TV.  We didn't get rid of it, but we did unplug it and banned it from our house during the week, and it is only watched by the kids during quiet time on Saturdays and Sundays.  (I will confess that they watched TV almost non-stop during our month long summer break.  Things got ugly.)  Do you want to have your children explore their talents?  Read more?  Play better together?  I can tell you getting rid of TV watching is the way to go.  Our house is more peaceful without the TV.  My ladies fight less, and I find that my patience is better when there isn't a constant amount of background noise happening behind the noise we already make.  Believe me when I say the mini horde produce more than enough noise all on their own.  Cutting the TV revitalized our family, and gave me the hope that homeschooling really could work in our home.

Another thing homeschooling taught me was not to skimp on breakfast!  While cereal is quick, easy and tasty, brain food it is not.  My crew was drastically less cranky, and much more able to get work done and concentrate when we had a good home cooked breakfast.  Our favorite is doing breakfast hash, muffins, oatmeal, or homemade granola.  Cereal is a rare thing now.  What about pancakes you ask?  I will confess that we don't ever eat pancakes for breakfast.  Pancakes are a dinner meal around here.

I learned that family style learning is awesome, but certainly not all the time.  At least for us.  So we do a few things family style, and then we break up to finish out our school day.  What do we do family style you ask?  We do scripture study, and handwriting family style.  Everything else is more independent.

I learned that life is happier, neater, and I get much less screamy when everyone pulls their weight in the chore department.  No matter how small.

I learned that individual desks aren't necessary, but sure are nice.  Thanks to some really awesome people at church who gave these to us (you know who you are).  I will be forever grateful.  Our girls get WAY more into doing their work knowing that they have their own special place to do it.  They also want to dress these up so stay tuned to see what we do with them.

I learned to never undervalue the need for a really good pencil sharpener.  I bought our first electric one from Walmart.  It broke within the first week.  I bought our second from an office supply store, but I made a huge mistake when I bought the mid-grade one thinking it was still better than the Walmart variety.  It was, but we still managed to kill that one within a month.  So then I went in and got their most expensive model.  Sometimes how expensive something is really is a good reflection of quality.  This one while it looks simple is a workhorse, and has withstood all kinds of wear and tear.  Destructo Girl even tried to sharpen her eraser in this thing.  After I got the eraser out it was as good as new.  The downfall of having such an awesome sharpener is that it can literally sharpen a new pencil down to a nub if you aren't careful.  You've been warned.

I learned that a well stocked crayon box...or two...or three is a truly priceless tool for homeschooling smaller kiddos.  Each subject lesson for the younger kiddos is nothing more than a few minutes long, and doesn't take long to complete.  So whats a kid to do in a house with banned TV?  They LOVE to color, and are crazy about mazes (here is our favorite site for free maze printables).  So what we do is have coloring time between each of their lessons which lets me help my older girls with their work as needed.  Heaven bless crayons.

I learned the value of uplifting music.  While the songs playing on the regular radio may not be bad, they also don't cultivate a feeling of calm, happiness, and focus.  So during school hours we often listen to the Mormon Music Channel, which is a free online streaming radio station.  We have discovered that this sets the tone for the day we want to have.  We save the more energetic tunes for after school hours.

I have learned that if we take a short 15 minute cleaning break every couple of hours our house is much less likely to feel trashed by the end of the day.  A less trashed house equals a much happier mom, and a much happier mom equals a much happier teacher.  Which equals much happier students in a learning environment not stifled by clutter.  In all honesty we struggle with this one.  I will find myself having a hard time not being lazy, and dragging the horde down with me into laziness.  Its a work in progress.

I have learned that a laser printer is worth its weight in gold.  THE. END.

I have learned that a detailed meal plan is a lifesaver.  Its better if I'm not having to think up a meal on the spot while I'm already managing several other things.  Its nice to look at a menu to see whats for dinner, and then prepare accordingly.   This too is a work in progress.

So long story short I am a fickle person, and while I told many people that we were putting them back in public school...I lied.  We made changes and are keeping them home, and why wouldn't I when my kids are this stinking awesome.

Miss E my 7th grader is trying out jazz hands

Miss H my 5th grader, and Miss P the photobomber.

Miss A is my sassy 1st grader.

Miss J wasn't happy at all to be taking start of school pictures without her stuffed animal entourage, but Miss P was more than delighted with another photobombing opportunity.

Miss P is always game for another photo-op.

Any and all pictures at our house ALWAYS have to include a funny face picture.

I'm looking forward to this upcoming school year when my ladies and I will learn together.

Linked up at: www.savvysouthernstyle.net, jannolson.blogspot.com, thebrambleberrycottage.blogspot.com

Easy Pantry Friendly Stroganoff

Back in the day Señor Hotness and I lived off of convenience foods. Why you might wonder?  Its probably because I was a teenage bride that knew how to cook three things.  The first was spaghetti, but who can't make spaghetti.  The second was homemade yeast rolls, and my love for bread is still strong.  The last thing I could make was a pot of truly kick-butt chicken and dumplings (recipe to come).  Man, however, was not meant to live on chicken and dumplings alone.  So in those days my idea of a home cooked meal was browning up some ground meat and making a box of hamburger helper.  I shudder now to even think about eating it.  Fast forward a couple of years, and I was a stay at home mom.  Budget living took on a whole new meaning then.  I soon realized its WAY cheaper to buy ingredients to make my own casseroles and pasta dishes than it is to buy them ready made.  So a few years ago I realized that I hadn't bought a box of hamburger helper in a few years.  I started feeling nostalgic.  You can see where this is going right?  So which one did I get? The stroganoff.  It had always been our favorite.  It was awful.  I discovered that I preferred my recipe better.  The best thing about it is that its cheaper, and is made entirely out of what, to most, are stock pantry items.

The white bucket is what I use to keep my flour in.  I only buy it in bulk.  I'm working on a more reasonable everyday storage system.

You'll need:
1 lb ground sausage (we use turkey)
1/2 onion, (chopped or diced)
1 small can of mushrooms (drained)
1 package cream cheese (softened)
1/4 cup butter (or margarine)
1/4 cup flour (I really like to use wheat, but white works too)
6 cubes of beef flavored bouillon
4 cups of water
Worcestershire sauce (just a dash)
2 lbs of elbow macaroni pasta (any kind works well)
2 tsp basil (optional)

In a pan sauté the onions with a little bit of oil for a few minutes.  I only use extra virgin olive oil, but any kind will do.

The strange looking utensil is actually a pampered chef product that I LOVE.  It breaks up the meat so well.  So you don't have big clumps of meat.  I'm very anti-clumps.

Then add in the sausage, and cook until browned.

In a large liquid measuring cup drop the 6 bouillon cubes, and then microwave for a minute.  This will help the bouillon to start breaking down.

 My daughter thought this picture of it degrading was really cool.

As you can see it will start to break apart on it own.  If you want to give it a stir it will help the process along, or you could choose to substitute beef broth for this portion.

When the meat is all browned drain off the fat.  It is best to put your colander in a big bowl to catch the dripping versus draining directly into the sink because it will ruin your plumbing.

Using the same pan that you used for your meat mixture, place the 1/4 cup of butter over medium heat to melt, and slightly brown.

Lets all agree to not talk about how fat my hand is.

When your butter is melted, and slightly browned whisk in the 1/4 cup of flour.  It will be clumpy.

Slowly whisk in your water and beef bouillon mixture.  If you add the water to quickly your sauce will get super lumpy.  So it is super important to pour only a small bit of liquid at a time, and make sure to fully mix it with the whisk before add any additional liquid.

After all the liquid is added let it simmer for a few minutes while you constantly stir.  It will allow it to thicken further.

Then add the mushrooms.

The cream cheese I took out that morning to sit on the counter to soften.  You can also throw it in the microwave for 30-45 seconds.

Mix the softened cream cheese into the sauce.  It helps to cube the cream cheese before hand.  When the cream cheese is fully incorporated stir in your meat mixture.  Add a dash of worcestershire sauce, and salt and pepper to taste.  I personally prefer using garlic salt, but regular salt will do well do.  A little will go a long way since the bouillon is rather salty already.

While the sauce was coming together.  I had the pasta on to boil.  We used elbow macaroni this time which only takes about 6 minutes. 

After the pasta has fully drained pour the sauce over the top.

Mix until the sauce has been fully distributed to all the noodles.

Another beautiful shot from my twelve year old Miss E.

Miss P. was feeling excessively impatient while I was trying to get pictures of the food.

Miss J. aka Destructo Girl took a much cuter, and sweet approach to getting her food.

Miss A. just wanted her picture taken...

and, in the end, Miss P. finally got in the spirit of using charm instead whining to get her food.

The stroganoff sauce itself is incredibly yummy on pasta, rice or potatoes all of which are usually standard pantry items.  This is a favorite at our house to eat on Sunday evenings after church when we aren't wanting to make a big effort on dinner.  This is also a great main dish to be paired with green beans, broccoli or even salad.  This is a super easy and versatile recipe, and I hope you all enjoy it as much as we do.  Happy Eating!

Disclaimer: Most of the photos used, were taken by my 12 year old who is in love with photography.  So some pictures she thinks are super cool, but aren't necessarily all that great for a photo tutorial.

Linked up at: Daily Cup with Mrs. Olsen, internationalbloggersassociation.com

Hidden In Plain Sight

Remember how I said we were not going to be homeschooling this next year?  I would just like to apologize for being a huge fibber.  We have made some huge changes in our family recently, and decided to steamroll ahead for one more year. (I'm going to be blogging about what we are doing differently, but hint hint it involves the TV.)

Ok so we homeschool in our regular living space.  I'm super selfish, and don't want to dedicate any one space as strictly homeschool.  Our house is much spacier than our last home, but not so spacey that I feel like I can dedicate a room to it.  So here at our house we homeschool in the kitchen.  If you have been hanging around for a while you will know that we have a ginormous (technical term) island that you can read about here.  It is roughly nine feet long by five feet wide.  It can easily seat 12, but I only have seating for 8.  It is one of my favorite things about this house.  It provides tons of space for my girls to spread out their school work, and get to working on it. (or cooking or anything else)

For all that I needed something to store all of our homeschool supplies, and there were plenty of them.  It also needed to look at home in my kitchen.  So I started scouring Craigslist for the perfect piece.  This one Señor Hotness had a demand for, however, I had to find a piece that didn't need to be worked on.  As you all can guess this was so hard for me to agree to because that meant I was going to have to find something that was full price that actually matched my idea of cool.  I was so happy to find something that I loved that looked good with the room, and didn't break the bank.  Thank you desperate movers!

Isn't it beautiful!  My appliances are black so the color was perfect, and the style matched that of my cabinets perfectly.

When we got this the glass was kind of a problem for me.  This piece was all about concealing its actual purpose.  Helping it blend into the background.  Then I had an idea.  It involved tissue paper, my DIY decoupage glue (that you can find here).  I wanted to frost the windows, but I didn't want it to be permanent.  So I was all about mocking the look.  While the front of this is paned the back side of the doors are just one solid piece of glass.  So my thought was that I could just paint decoupage on the backside of the doors where the glass is solid then place the tissue paper over it.  Word to the wise unless you are crazy awesome this WILL wrinkle.  I personally like the wrinkled look.  I used a full-sized sheet on there.  This had excess hanging all over the place.  When the decoupage fully dried I used a butter knife, and gently cute the edges and pulled off the excess.  Then I went over the entire thing with another layer of decoupage glue.  Warning, be careful.  Tissue paper is super fragile period, but its even more fragile when wet.  So this will be crazy easy to tear, but when you are all done it will come out looking like this.

I really like how it turned out, and it was beyond super duper easy to do.

This faux frosting also hid the fact that what is stored in this isn't cutsie dishes, but where I keep our extra curriculum packets, crayons, markers, scissors, counting blocks, etc.

This gives you a view of what we keep inside, and what the inside of the doors look like.

Now let me tell you about the bottom.  In the bottom we keep what I call our "school tubs".  The ladies all have individual containers that hold all the packets that we are currently working on.

The tubs are the perfect fit. 

In the drawers we keep books.

In the crate on the left we keep more books and magazines.

In the crate on the right we keep all of our extra spiral notebooks.

An just to throw everyone off.  We keep the cook books in the metal magazine holders in the middle.

In the end we have a piece that doesn't look out of place in the kitchen, but allows us to have a class room when we need it or a completely mundane kitchen when we want it.  Oh how I wish my entire house was this organized.

Linked up at: internationalbloggersassociation.com

Being a Dirty, Filthy, Food Sneak!

When you become a mom all kinds of things happen.  Hair brushing becomes optional.  You learn how to enjoy three seconds of blissful chocolate eating in the bathroom/closet/dark pantry.  You deal with being used as a human kleenex far, FAR too often.  Most importantly though you learn how to be a dirty filthy food hider.

So I've been so incredibly busy here lately just living life.  In short I haven't finished any projects in a few weeks.  So I thought I would share my favorite way to sneak veggies into my kiddos meals.  When I buy ground meat I always mince up vegetables, and sauté them and cook them with the meat.

In there I have 4 carrots, 4 celery stalks, 2 zucchini, and an onion. (I've also used cabbage before too)

I ninja'ed the heck out of it until it is all super tiny.  Then I put a little bit of olive oil in the bottom of a ginormous (actual word, I swear) pan, seasoned it with salt/pepper, and lightly sauté it all. After a few minutes I put in the ground meat.

Maybe I should have said that we eat super lean ground turkey here.  I have strong opinions about the fat content of meat.  I also have strong opinions about spending tons of money on groceries.  FYI:  super lean ground turkey is WAY cheaper than super lean ground beef.

The vegetables will create more drippings than just browning your ground meat alone so make sure to drain it.

And that ladies and gentlemen is how I turned 3 pounds of lean ground turkey into 6 pounds worth.

This mixture is great for sloppy joes, chili, taco meat, soup, and every type of casserole that calls for ground meat.

The best is that I have been doing this for years, and it wasn't until this year with the girls home all the time that they even figured out that this is how we have been eating it.  I love that they didn't even notice.  

And on that note please don't tell the horde that regular rice is white, and not brownish and chewy...okay?  Thanks.  

Linked up at: internationalbloggersassociation.com