Homeschool Questions: How Long is Your School Day?

One of the most common questions among homeschoolers and those looking to homeschool alike (and let's face it-non homeschoolers as this all the time, too) is, "How long is your school day?"  Everyone wants to know how long it takes to homeschool a child.  Does it take all day?  Can you do it quickly?  What about when you have multiple children to homeschool?  Are you going to be stuck at your table all day long?  Is there time for fun stuff?  Time for work from home moms to get work done?

So today....I'm going to tackle this question!

To start, I must preface this by saying that your individual teaching style and your kids' learning styles will undoubtedly have a HUGE impact on the amount of time you spend each day "schooling" your children.  If you are a parent who aims to recreate a traditional school setting at home, your day will likely look a lot different than a mom who aims to make her homeschool unlike anything at a traditional school.  Neither is right or wrong, just different, but they will affect how much time you spend homeschooling.

I lean towards the relaxed homeschooler, student-led, interest based type style in our home.  I consider our "sit-down school" to be math and language.  History, science, geography, social studies, art, fitness, home economics, and reading are all subjects that are generally taught through living books or hands on projects, with all the kids together, at varying times during the day.  These subjects are relaxed, and accomplished all over the house, and outside of the house.  Sometimes these are even done via audio books at bedtime.


Now that we've got that out of the way...


On most days, my kids are done with all aspects of math and language within an hour total.  Yes, an hour.  And for some of them, it's actually less (like my kindergarteners).  These are often the first subjects we tackle in the morning since they are our "sit down" subjects, and it feels good to get them done.  Once these are done, all other subjects are much more relaxed throughout the day.

Kindergarten is usually a breeze.  I'm currently on my 3rd kindergarten student, and have found that EVERY subject can be easily covered in just two hours if you are teaching just a single kindergarten student (not accounting for play breaks).  Each grade level beyond this adds a little more time to accomplish all subject matter.

I currently have a 5th grader, a 3rd grader, a kindergartener, and a preschooler.  All children work on language and math with me at the table in the morning.  Sometimes, one child may start earlier than the others, and other times we all start together.  If one child is needing a lot of hands-on direction, I might send the other kids to go play a while so we can work distraction free. On these types of days, our day will extend a little longer.  Otherwise, it works really well to have all the children working on math at the same time while I'm available at the table to help them all out as needed.  I have early birds, and when my children have highly motivated mornings, we are sometimes done with math and language and even a few other tasks by 9:00 in the morning!  Those are fun days, with lots of time for exploring and playing.

Beyond math and language, which take us about 1 hour in the morning, it is actually difficult to put a finger on how much time we spend on school each day because it generally is so relaxed and weaves into our day so well.  We read books in the living room or outside together, do projects at the table while I cook in the kitchen, and regularly watch Youtube videos to answer the five-million questions that pop up throughout the day.  We do martial arts in the evenings all together as a family, co op classes once a month, field trips twice a month, and meet up with friends in between.  I would estimate that in total (even with four kids), we spend only 4 hours on school-related activities each day, but it's very broken up.

As a mom who also runs a business on the side, I find that I have more than enough time to get all my work on the computer done throughout the week.  I can usually budget time to work on my Kindermusik business, write for my blog, and work on building and household projects.

The kids go grocery shopping with me, and I use this as a learning experience for them (lots of math can be done here!).  The children are responsible for helping with household chores like laundry, sweeping, cleaning bathrooms, washing windows, taking care of animals, and more.  This means they not only are helping around the house but are learning their home economics.  My girls (8 & almost 10) are responsible for making lunches nearly every day.  They love to work in the kitchen and so I give them lots of opportunities to do so.

In my opinion, a lot of school can be done just by being intentional about every day life with them.  There are so many great opportunities for learning throughout the day, and I just try to capitalize on them.

Remember, every homeschool will be different.  Your style may mean that your day is longer or shorter than mine.  Hopefully this glimpse into how long it takes us to homeschool with my style of homeschooling is helpful for you.  Find what works for you and your family.  What is important?  What subjects do you feel you need to do everyday?  What subjects make you feel accomplished?  School doesn't have to take all day.  Start with those and move onto the others throughout your day.  Don't forget to plan time for play and exploration and FUN!


Do you already homeschool?  How much time do you spend on school each day?  

Why I Don't Lesson Plan Ahead of Time for our Homeschool

Even in the summer, we do a good amount of school! 

I used to spend time at the start of each school week lesson planning and plotting out our whole school week.  When teaching classes of students this was a necessity, and since it was habit for me, I just continued doing it.  The problem was that I am much more flexible with my own homeschooling kids than I could ever have been in a classroom setting.  I'd find that one day we would never get to history, and at the same time one child decided to do three lessons worth of language.  Maybe we'd skip the whole day for a field trip for hands on learning or the book I planned was terribly boring and we nixed it altogether.  Nothing in my lesson planning book EVER lined up like I thought it should.

I quickly found that lesson planning really did not work for me.  And yet, at various times in our four years of homeschooling, I've given it another shot (with the same frustrating results).  Lesson planning simply does not work for us like I want it to.  It looks nice and neat, until nearly everything has to be erased, added to, moved, etc.  And then I just end up annoyed. 

There are so many "awesome homeschooling planners" out there-both in book form and in digital form, that it seemed like I just couldn't figure it out.  Or maybe, there are so many out there because it doesn't work for many others, either. 

I am a total type A personality.  I like things in order, and I like a plan.  But specific lesson planning in my homeschool simply does not work for my easy-going, follow my kids' lead, let them dive into the things they are curious about now attitude.  Instead, I've found that I like to lesson plan AFTER we do school.  I know, it sounds ridiculous, but let me explain...

I keep my lesson planner handy while doing school, just like I would if I were going by the plans inside it.  But instead of a full planner, I start with an empty one.  Instead of "subjects" at the top of my planner, I fill in my kids names:  Ellie, Zoe, Aaron,  and "Altogether" (Levi doesn't need a section yet).  

As I go about the day, I fill in what we've done.  Books read, lessons finished, lessons started, topics explored, etc. all goes into my planner.  This allows me to see where we most recently finished off (no more guessing about where we stopped the previous time) and pick up in the correct spot the next time we return to that subject.  It also allows me to track things that I otherwise forget about.  Those weeks where you feel like you didn't accomplish much in your homeschool?  You can look back and see that you DID accomplish something and find encouragement from that.  I often forget about the books my kids have sat and read or about the topics we explored online.  This allows me to remember exactly what we spent time on during the week.  

I love not having to erase, move, and rewrite that dang geography lesson that we couldn't seem to get to during the week.  I love being able to easily track how many math lessons we completed or how often each child spent reading.  I love that my planner accurately represents our school day, and that instead of feeling let down that we didn't finish everything inside it, I can rejoice in knowing that everything inside it IS finished.  

It's important to note that I have not thrown planning to the wind.   I still set goals for progress, write down topics we'd like to cover, and reference our curriculum books for what's next, but I simply do not plan out the details of any of it.  I often find that when I wait for curiosity to start a topic, we can easily spend hours on the topic, completing many of the lessons all at once.  Why not wait for their curiosity and make it easier on myself?!?!  

Because I allow this flexibility in our homeschool, we are often on various lesson days of each subject.  Currently, my 8 year old is on lesson 50 of 3rd grade math, while on lesson 79 of 4th grade language.  All of my kids do history together, and so we're on lesson 1 (when we officially start back to school) of 4th grade history.  I could easily lose track of where each child is at in each subject (which I've done many a time).  Lesson planning as we go gives me a visual reference to where everyone is at.

So if you are frustrated with lesson planning and are feeling defeated because you can never stick to what you have written down, I suggest you give lesson planning as you go through the day a shot.  It really has helped me feel much less stressed as I go throughout our week, and has given me more freedom to follow my kids' lead. It's made me MORE organized, because I can quickly glance at my book and see exactly which lesson I need to do next.  

I realize this may not work for everyone, but hopefully for some of you, it will give you the freedom you've been looking for in your homeschool lesson planning pursuits! 

What We Buy to Homeschool Kindergarten

I am often asked (or overhear others asking) what it is exactly that a parent should buy for their homeschool curriculum if they plan to use A Beka.  It can be SO overwhelming to look at the site and see all these books, not knowing which you really need, or which ones you can get by without, or even what they are specifically FOR.  Additionally, figuring out which other products would be helpful is yet another challenge.  Since I've answered this question for multiple friends and acquaintances, I figured perhaps a post on the subject would be helpful to many more.

I'll first list my A Beka curriculum suggestions, and then I'll list all our other favorite homeschool products for this age.

There are SO many curriculums out there.  If you're unsure of which curriculum to use, my suggestion would be to ask other homeschoolers.  There is no "one size fits all" curriculum, and even within our family, we've found that some of our children do better with one method or curriculum over another.  For this post, I will be specifically detailing what our family buys for the Kindergarten school year, with A Beka as the primary curriculum.  A Beka is a Christian based curriculum, and has been around for a long time with a great academic track record.  It is used by both Christian private schools and homeschoolers.  Although with older grades we've branched out to some other curriculums based on our daughter's needs, we continue to use A Beka for Kindergarten because I feel that it is such a great program.

(This is not a sponsored post, just my honest feedback for what we find useful and/or necessary for Kindergarten when using A Beka curriculum products.  Some of the below Amazon links, however, are my affiliate links). 

Some helpful tips:

*When you visit the A Beka site, you will select the Kindergarten: 5 year old (4 year old Kindergarten is just their preschool program).

*A Beka offers both cursive and manuscript even at the Kindergarten age.  You can start with either (cursive is actually easier for children to write).  In our home, we start with manuscript in Kindergarten, and then introduce cursive in 1st grade.  Our reasoning being that most things they read are in manuscript, so learning to write manuscript first just makes more sense.  We've found that cursive in 1st grade comes very naturally since they already know all their letters and how to write in manuscript.

For the Parent:

*Curriculum book: Necessary. This was recently redone and is now so much easier as all subjects are in the same curriculum book.  If you look for used curriculums, you will likely find a great deal, but be sure to find each of the curriculum books (one for language, one for math, etc.).

*Basic Phonics Flashcards:  Helpful.  These are not totally necessary, but are definitely helpful to aid in teaching your child phonics.  The curriculum books do call for them quite regularly.

*Phonics Charts and Games:  Necessary.  I have always found all the charts for all grade levels to be quite necessary and well used.  I'd definitely recommend buying and laminating these.

*Numbers Charts and Games: Necessary.  Same as above, we always get a ton of use out of our charts.

Optional but Not Necessary (in my opinion):

*Manuscript Curriculum.  Not Necessary.  There is a Manuscript Curriculum book available, but I just don't find this necessary for teaching handwriting.  I will just follow the lead of the student book, and spend time demonstrating letters on the board, tracing in the air, finger tracing on sand, etc. and then let the child do their handwriting page for the day.

*Homeschool Learning Games.  This must be new as we've never used this and I can't recall seeing it previously.  Since we don't often use all of the games included in the Numbers Charts & Games and Phonics Charts & Games, I'm guessing our family would not use these a great deal either.


For the Child:

*K5 Child Kit (manuscript or cursive):  This child kit really has all the essentials in it, and you'll save a little bit of money by ordering it as a kit.  We use all of these in their entirety.  This kit includes your child's handwriting books, math books, and language books, as well as all the basic phonics readers.

*Classroom coins kit.  These are large coins that we laminate to last a long time.  We still use them with our 3rd/4th grader.  They are optional, but we use them a lot and find it's easier to have these than keep real coins readily available for school all the time.

*Science: I don't use A Beka's science curriculum until 3rd grade.  Up until that point, we just use books from the library and explore outdoors and utilize Pinterest for fun experiments.

*Social Studies: Same as above.  We don't utilize A Beka's K5 social studies curriculum.  Plenty of great library books can be found to accomplish any of our social studies needs at this age


As far as our core curriculum goes, the above is it.  Beyond that, we have a variety of other products that we love and use regularly in our homeschool at this age.  The great thing about these is that so many of these products will grow with your child over many years, being used in a variety of ways for different age groups.  So once you buy these, you'll get many years of use out of it.


Extras that we use (optional, but these are the things we use often):

*Various counters for math purposes- Mathlink cubes, Bug counters, and Two Color Counters are some examples.  We'll also find holiday themed items to use as counters from the Dollar Store.

*Bucket Balance- All of my children enjoy experimenting with the balance-from my 2 year old on up to my 4th grader.

*Butterfly garden- We love utilizing these butterfly gardens for science!

 

*Various Dice- We utilize big foam dice a lot in kinder, and also find that we use these polyhedral dice for various games, especially later in the year.

*Dixon Ticonderoga Beginners Pencils- These are AMAZING.  I no longer by any cheap pencils, but only buy Dixon Ticonderoga (I'm tired of wasting half a pencil while trying to get it to sharper properly).  For my Kindergarteners, though, I use these "Beginners" ones, which are a bit thicker and SO much easier for them to grip and write with correctly.  LOVE these!

 

*Snap Circuits- We first discovered these at our local Discovery Museum and fell in love.  We bought a deluxe set last year, and while all of my children enjoy creating different circuits, it's actually my Kindergartener that loves it the most!

 

*Microscope- All of our kiddos love exploring with our microscopes.  We actually have two sets so multiple kids can explore and study together.  As they got older, we also ordered additional sets of pre-made slides for them to use.



Do YOU need all of these?  Not really.  You'll probably see and find lots of great products and resources that you love as you get going.  If you are going to start with A Beka, however, most of the A Beka products I listed above are really quite necessary to get going.  Please remember that eBay and Facebook swap boards are great places to find used curriculum books, but you'll probably want to buy all your workbooks new from the main A Beka site.

Questions still?  Ask away in the comments!  Best of luck to you in your homeschooling journey!



(Some of the links in this post are my referral/affiliate links.  Read my disclosure policy HERE.  Thank you for supporting the continuation of this blog by using my links!)

Four New and Unique Ways to Save Money at Disneyland

We went to Disneyland last week for a family vacation.  It was hands-down our best family vacation ever!  Besides being our first family trip with all four children, our baby is the easiest going baby we've ever had, which significantly eased our stress.  It's our every other year trip, but this year we planned it for over Ellie's 7th birthday.

Any time we take a Disneyland trip, I'm always sure to share with you all the planning details for our trip, and how we saved money.  Disneyland is NOT an inexpensive vacation, that's for sure, but you can definitely save a few bucks here or there.  And this time, I've got some new creative money saving tips for your to try!


Condo vs. Hotel

The first different thing about this trip was that we stayed in a condo (< < that link will take you to the one we stayed in!). Considering that we usually rent two rooms at our normal hotel (we rent one and Ben's parents rent one), this was actually a cheaper option, with more space and benefits.  It was BEAUTIFUL.  We rented a 3 bed, 2 1/2 bath, totally remodeled condo from a wonderful family.  It came with a fully functional kitchen with everything we needed to cook/eat, a washer and dryer, baby gates, high chairs, kids toys, kids dress up clothing, a garage, patio with BBQ, and more.

Our experience with a condo compared to a hotel?  Condo won hands down!  The major winning points were:

*more space
*we could put the kids to bed at night upstairs and stay up later ourselves
*we could cook our own meals, saving us money and tons of calories over restaurant food
*cheaper for us (when compared to our usual two rooms booked)
*we were supporting a local young family instead of a big hotel chain
*it felt like "home"
*we could pack less clothing because we could do laundry (and packing less when traveling with four kids is a GOOD thing!)

Overall, I would choose a condo again in a heartbeat.  More specifically, I'd choose to rent from this family again as they were amazing!  When the hot water heater broker late our first night, he even drove out and got someone to come fix it right away (at 10pm!).

(My husband, cooking away in the kitchen, and refusing to give me a "normal" smile)

There are so many rental options on sites like vrbo.com, that you can easily find something in your budget and location.

Total condo rental (including all cleaning fees) for Monday-Friday=$1100 (remember, we usually need two hotel rooms).


Car Rental-Individual vs. Big Company

We wanted to rent a car for this trip, but renting a car that seats 8 people AND has enough space for our luggage AND wasn't an absurd amount of money was really hard.  Most places were in the $500-$600 for a Monday-Friday rental (even Costco was $550!).  Somewhere along the line, I stumbled across a site called "RelayRides".  Relay Rides is a car rental company that is nationwide, except all the cars listed for rent are from individual people who live in the city.

*We could ask questions about the specific car we were renting instead of just hoping the car we get is decent.
*It was almost half the cost of a regular car rental place.
*We were, again, supporting an individual person.
*All your payment stuff goes through the website and is secure.

The only thing that I would change about this was that our drop off arrangement was not very organized.  The car owner wanted to meet at a Starbucks near the airport, instead of just at the airport.  It wasn't a huge deal (he was going to then drop my husband back off at the airport), but he didn't specify which Starbucks to meet at, so my husband went to the wrong one and then had to go find him at another.  Annoying, but not a huge deal.

For a Monday-Friday rental of a car that seated 8 (GMC Acadia), we paid $308, plus $20 in gas.  Total car rental expense= $328.


Grocery Delivery

Staying at a condo meant we could cook our own food.  Instead of heading to the grocery store after getting off the airplane, we did our grocery shopping online a couple days before we left our house.  We shopped at Safeway/Vons online and chose a delivery time for our groceries to be delivered right to the door of our condo!  I seriously need this feature where I live!  It was so easy, and price-wise, it was the same as shopping in store.  Be sure to search for coupon codes on their website, and you can enter more than one at checkout.

What we bought:

For breakfasts, we bought: eggs, bacon, oatmeal, cereal, orange juice, pancake mix and syrup, milk, butter, toast.
For lunches, we bought: loaves of bread, peanut butter, jelly, cheese, turkey, salami, lettuce, tomatoes.
For dinners, we bought: spaghetti and burgers for our main meals, with mac and cheese and salad makings for sides.
For snacks, we bought: apples, bananas, carrots, cheese sticks, granola bars, pretzels.
We also, of course, bought some already-ground Peet's coffee!

We made sandwiches for our lunches in the park, and for our lunch on the airplane ride home.  This saved a ton of money; lunch in the park is super expensive (though we did eat in the park one day).  We would bring in our own snacks and water bottles, too.  We ate out for dinner twice, and made our dinners at home twice.  We ate all our breakfasts at home.

We also had many of the granola bars/oatmeal/etc. leftover, and we were able to take some of it back home in our suitcases ;)

Our grocery store cost was $173.  We ate 9 meals, so that totals $19.20 per meal for 8 people, which means we ate at a cost of $2.40 per meal per person.  This is WAY cheaper than eating out all the time.  Plus, all that eating out on vacation can add a ton of calories and leave you feeling not so great.


Do Your Own Hair

Since we were at Disneyland for Ellie's birthday, I really wanted to do something special.  I looked into the little places where they can get their hair done like princesses, but the started cost for those was $50!!!  Absurd!  So, I brought along bobby pins, glitter, hair ties, flowers, combs, etc. and did her hair myself on her birthday (and Zoe's hair, too, of course!).  I payed attention on our first day in the park to the girls who clearly had their hair done...then, I gave her an option.  1. Elsa hair, or 2. Up high princess hair.  They both chose Elsa hair.

I realize that this may be a difficult option if you have zero hair-doing skills, but if you have some, it's a great way to make your little girl feel special, without paying an exorbitant amount of money.

This saved us a MINIMUM of $100 between the two girls!

Here are some of my older posts on saving money on Disneyland:

Post 1
Post 2

Fall Homeschool Schedule

School has been "going" for a month now at our house.  This year we have a 2nd grader, a Kindergartener, a preschooler, and the baby.  So far, so good, though we're still getting into the swing of how things will work this year with three of them doing school.  I can't even begin to think about what life with 4 elementary aged children will be like in a few years!

Here's what our weekday schedule looks like this fall:

*We generally do school in the mornings, M-F.  This time is flexible, and depending on what we're learning, either all the kids will do school at the same time, or they'll all take turns-one after the other.   

*We use the morning for language arts and math.  We typically do sciences, social studies, history, etc. in the afternoon or whenever we're in the mood for it :)

*We try to use each "life" experience to our advantage, i.e. grocery stores, gas stations, restaurants, neighborhood walks, etc.  There's something to be learned from everything!

*On TUESDAYS, the kids come with me to one of my AM Kindermusik classes.  They love music and dancing, and this class is a family style class (0-7 year olds), so they fit right in!

*On WEDNESDAYS, the girls have soccer practice.  This is our only evening devoted to sports.  Generally, evenings are our family time, so we try to not to do much.  Ben coaches Zoe's team.

*On THURSDAYS, we have our co-op classes.  This fall, Ellie is taking an Art class and Ballet; Zoe is taking Spanish and Ballet; Aaron is taking preschool; Levi parties in the nursery with the other babies.  This gives them great classes, and time with other kids their own ages, too.

*On FRIDAYS, the big three take swim lessons.  It has taken me MONTHS to find private swim lessons for the three of them that could actually fit in my budget, and I'm SO happy to finally have found someone (group instruction didn't go so well this summer).  

We also try to do one park play date each week with some friends from another homeschool co-op.

At this point, we are loving the new school year.  We are learning lots of new things, trying lots of new activities, and meeting lots of new friends.  

How is the new school year going for you?  What are your favorite parts?

Planning for Disney...and a FREE Planning DVD

Ben and I started planning this years' Disney trip last week.  I am SO excited.  We aim to go every other year.  It's definitely getting more expensive as our kids get older (and Disney raised their ticket prices quite a bit this year, AND 3 year olds now have to pay...I'm fairly sure they used to be free, right?), and I'm starting to think about how we'll make it work this year.

Anyway.  Now that the planning has started, I am working on a financial and savings plan of attack, Ben is checking out various hotels (other than our go-to: Embassy Suites Anaheim South), Ellie is stalking pictures of princesses on the internet, and all the kids are constantly wondering if they'll be tall enough to go on all the rides.  

I grab every flyer and vacation packet that has anything to do with Disney, and Ben has been checking at the Costco counter to see if they are going to get discount tickets in again this year (those saved us A LOT of money last time).  This FREE Disney Vacation Planning DVD was perfect timing!  You can click on the picture above to get your own free DVD.

Here are two posts I've done on saving money at Disney:

How to Save at Disney
Disneyland on a Dime

I'm sure I'll be doing another one this year as we plan this year's trip with all FOUR of our kids.  THAT is going to be ca-ray-zee!

Are you planning a Disney trip this year?  Do you have any Disney tips to share?



(The links in this post may be my referral/affiliate links, meaning there is no added cost to you, but I may receive a portion of the sales.  Read my disclosure policy HERE.  Thank you for supporting the continuation of this blog by using my links!)

Christmas Around the Corner

It's October!  And thus begins the happiest months of the year for me!  

School is going smoothly.

The weather is slowly changing.

I'm almost due and have an excuse to wear comfy pants at any time and on any day. 

It's the season of adding pumpkin to anything and everything.

I've been freezer cooking to stock my freezer for the weeks following this little guys' arrival.

I'm starting to Christmas shop (a little behind this year).

I'm finishing up my first ebook.

My kids are enjoying soccer.

My husband is as hot as ever. 

And I'm just generally enjoying life.

I'm feeling more prepared food-wise just because I've at least started to freezer cook.  But it's this whole Christmas thing that's got me a little bit worried this year.  Last year, we did an entirely homemade Christmas.  Almost every gift was hand made, and our kids enjoyed it.  I really don't want our kids (or us) to fall into the trap of needing "stuff" or the newest, coolest toy or whatever.  We kept it simple, frugal, fun, and personal.  

That being said, I have no clue what to do this year!  I love the homemade stuff, but I also love other little fun things, too.  It just takes a bit of time to shop for good deals and what-not so that Christmas doesn't come with a big price-tag.

 Last week, I found these antique jewelry pieces on Amazon for just $1.59 shipped!  They had a whole bunch of different styles to choose from, but I just chose one for myself and one for a gift.  It's just one thing, but hey, it's a start!

I shared last week about how I am using my Swagbucks to earn free Amazon gift cards.  If I keep my eyes open, I seem to find great deals on Amazon here or there, which are perfect for Christmas.  I also have Amazon Prime, so I get free 2-day shipping on almost anything, which really makes shopping online much more cost-effective.  If you've never tried Amazon Prime before, I highly suggest it!  They are offering a free 30-day trial right now (perfect to get some of those Christmas gifts shipped for free!) and it also includes access to their shows and movies (kind of like Netflix).  You also get a huge discount on diapers (20%, I think).

So basically, I'm clueless about Christmas this year and I have no clue when I'll have time to make stuff for my kiddos.  I'm stalking Amazon for great deals, and hoping my house gets decorated at the end of November.

Have you started preparing for Christmas yet?  If not, when do you start?

Multipurpose DIY Wipe-Off Board

Today was our first official day EVER of homeschooling.  Not gonna lie...I rocked it.  

I have a 1st grader and two preschoolers (ages 2 & 4).  

I had this huge frame in my closet.  It's been there for at least 2 years, unused.  I was trying to figure out a way to easily move around a calendar, white board, etc. (because we school in the kitchen), when I remembered this frame sitting in my closet.  

We used a poster board (thanks, Sarah) to cover the back, and attached a Dollar Store calendar I bought last week, a word strip for the month/year (also from the Dollar Store), a section with lined/dotted paper for demonstrating handwriting, and a "Today's weather is" sign.

We used the top blank space to write their memory verse.  See that cursive "e"?  I can't believe my little  girl is learning cursive...and I totally suck at it.  Like, really bad.  I had to keep re-writing things to make them perfect.  She thought it was funny.  

Anywho, this board was super easy to assemble, and you could really add or take out anything you want!  The possibilities are endless, and since it's glass, just remember to use a white-board marker and everything wipes right off!

DIY Wipe-Off Calendar

If you've hung around me or my blog for any amount of time, you already know how much I love all things calendars, planners, notes, lists, charts, etc.  I use Excel spreadsheets to plan our packing for trips, and I create lists every morning with my to-do's.  

So, it was about time I make myself a wipe-off calendar.  I've wanted to do it for a while now, but just hadn't gotten around to it.  I have notes and plans and schedules and more all over the house, and now I can get at least a few of those things to disappear!  

This is so easy to do, and I honestly didn't even take pictures during the process.  I think you can create one of these babies using just about anything, so create away!  Mine was made using scrapbook paper and ribbons (both of which I found in my craft cabinets at home).  I used a simple glue stick to get the scrapbook strips to stick together, and hot glue to stick on the ribbons.  I re-used a frame that I had which was not getting any use.  So, this project was quite frugal!  You can use any size frame, just created your paper strips (or whatever you decide to use) to fit the frame.  I had lots of extra space, so I added a vertical strip for "Notes" on the side.  

Use an expo marker to write on the dates and fill in your calendar!  So easy!  

Have you ever made a wipe-off calendar?  What creative ideas do you have for making one?  

Household Organization Binder

I love to plan.  I love lists and calendars and Excel spreadsheets.  Not in a completely crazy way; I can totally function without them and don't get stressed if something is not perfectly planned.  But I love them in a "My days run smoothly and I get all the essentials done and I rarely forget 'things'" kinda way.  They just make life simple, that's all.

Now that I'm in process of transitioning out of my Kindergarten teaching job (I only work one day a week), I'm home a lot more, which is great.  Over the years, though, I've learned that a day at home without some sort of plan, no matter how loose or simple that plan may be, always leads to dissatisfaction with myself, chaos in the way my house looks, and grumpy or bored children.  It's no bueno.

So, I've been busy creating a new "home organization binder" to include a little bit of everything for my life (organizationally speaking).  Not only am I staying home now with 3 kids under age 6 (and a 4th arriving in October), but I am going to be homeschooling my children come fall (I swore I would never, ever, under any circumstances homeschool my children...see...never say never!).  I am also devoting a bit more of my time on my blog each day, usually about 2 hours.  I would like to grow my blog to be a small business for my family (I love seeing you all on my blog and I love and appreciate when you "share" my blog with other people, too).  I also handle the finances in our house (any major decisions are always made together), the majority of the cleaning, and all the cooking.

I've found some great planning resources for my home binder, and wanted to share the links to them in case you, too, are finding that you need a little more organization in your life!

Pinch a Little, Save a Lot has an amazing financial printable pack.  I probably won't use a few of these ones myself, but I'm already using several of them!  She also has a printable Kids Chore Chart, and a Cleaning Checklists printable too!

Confessionsofahomeschooler.com has a super cute printable 2013 blog planner (for those of you who blog, too).  I printed it out this morning in b&w (because that's all I have) and it is so cute and helpful!

Livingwellspendingless.com has a free printable homeschooling calendar/planner.  I love all the different pages in this pack-daily planning, weekly planning, quarterly planning, etc.  I'm super thankful someone else has made this already for me to use!

The sections in my binder, in case you are wondering, are Master Calendar (I printed out a basic calendar and EVERYTHING goes on it), Homeschool (I used the homeschool pack above), Financial (also used the printable above), Blog (used printable above), and Special Events (I use this to plan all the little details of birthday parties and such).  I will soon be adding a Menu/Food section, and a Cleaning section to organized household chores.

How do you stay organized?  Do you have some sort of a family binder system?  Charts?  I'm curious to see what others use and enjoy.

Menu Plan 1/20-1/26

Here is this week's menu plan for our family:

Crock pot BBQ Pulled Chicken (on hot dog buns): This is an easy recipe because it used the crock pot! My favorite!  In a 3 qt. crock pot, I dump a package of chicken thighs, and 1 cup BBQ sauce.  I cook on high for 4 hours.  Shred with a fork towards the end.  Serve on hot dog buns (defrosted from the freezer).

Twice Baked Taco Potatoes:  I used this recipe HERE.  Everyone but Ellie enjoyed them.  I made a double batch, and individually wrapped the leftovers with aluminum foil, bagged into a Ziploc, and froze for another day.  Two meals in one!  Score!

Lentil Tacos:  Seriously, I love these.  And they are healthy and cheap, too, which is why they make it on to our menu almost every week.  Plus I have a big bag of corn tortillas from Costco, so I'm trying to use them up.  I'll freeze some of them into Ziploc bags later this week.

Stuffed Bell Peppers:  I'll try to post our stuffed bell peppers recipe this week.  I have cooked ground beef as well as pasta sauce in my freezer that I'll use for this recipe.

Pizza: I will use frozen sauce, a homemade dough, and the remaining peppers, mushrooms, and zucchini in my fridge.  I also have mozzarella in my fridge already, so I'll use that up.  I may use some cooked chicken from my freezer, too.

Tacos/Taco Salad:  I'll be using lettuce, cooked taco meat from the freezer, shredded cheddar cheese, tomatoes, homemade refried beans, corn tortillas (folded and fried on the stove into crunchy shells), sour cream and salsa.

Tomato Soup & Grilled Cheese:  Last time I made tomato soup, I froze half the batch.  So, I'll be using that this week to make one of my days a little easier on myself.  I'll make fresh bread for the grilled cheese sandwiches.

Chipotle Fajitas:  I'll use cooked chicken from my freezer and season them with a Pampered Chef Chipotle seasoning.  I'll use the corn tortillas, sour cream, grilled onions, grilled bell peppers, grilled mushrooms, and salsa.


I somehow have everything listed above on hand.  I have gone to the store twice in the last two weeks, and have only had to buy produce, lentils, black beans, and a 25 lb bag of oats.  I have spent less than $70 on groceries over the last two weeks.  It pays to buy in bulk at lower prices, stock up when items are at a low cost, and freeze extras and leftovers!  It also helps to double recipes and freeze half for a later date (known as "freezer cooking").  It saves time and money!

What's on your menu this week?

Our Adventure to Financial Freedom

 

Our money saving adventure began in the Fall of 2009.  I was at a woman's retreat where I heard a friend of a friend rave about some guy named Dave Ramsey.  As she detailed her family's personal adventure and the difficulties and huge rewards that came with their financial freedom, I knew that this was what we had to do.  I quickly began spouting out info about this magical guy to my husband when I got home.  I looked him up on the internet and began reading his articles.  I realized we were not in the best financial place, and that we needed to get out of it quickly!  We needed to make some changes, and Ben agreed.

At this time in our lives, Ben worked on staff at a church, and I was the director of a preschool program that functioned at the church.  Our then 2 year old came to class with me, and Ben kept our new baby in the office with him.  I'd sneak in to nurse her when necessary, though I only worked part time.  It was a great set-up.

Together, we had a really great income.  Our mortgage was high, and we were enormously upside down in our home.  We were really good at spending, and not so good at saving.  We had two new-to-us newer cars (our Honda Pilot and an Audi A6).  They each had $350/month payments.  We both worked at the same place, which so happened to only be 5 minutes from our house (you can see why our two expensive cars were a "necessity", right?).  We had a budget on paper, but we didn't really live it out (I thought we did; turns out I was in denial).

After that conference, our next chuck of cash that came in went straight to pay off an existing hospital debt.  I thought "this is really easy!".   This got our "debt snowball" rolling.  A few months passed, 2010 came, and I really desired to quit my job and be home with my babies.  There was no way we could do that with our financial state.  We immediately decided to sell the Audi.  It was a sad day; Ben was super hot in that car.  Ben was able to sell it for a little more than we owed on it, which was great.

We thought a lot about our house over the next couple months.  There was a lot about that house that we did not like.  Looking back, we wished we would have been open to renting a place and had never bought the house, but hindsight is 20/20, right?  We owned it, we were upside down, and we didn't want it.  We considered a short sale.  If we were able to rent for cheaper, I could quit my job.  It was really a hard decision for us.  We were "rule" people.  We like playing by the rules, and we don't like people breaking the rules.  We felt like a short sale was "breaking the rules".  We decided that my emotional health and me being home with our babies far outweighed any negative effects the short sale may have had.  We proceeded with it, and sold our house easily.  I quit my job, and we found a rental home that was in a better and newer neighborhood, and was far more beautiful than we could have imagined.  It had 10 fruit trees, which is what I kept telling God through this process (will you please help us find a house with fruit trees?).  It was amazing.

At this point, we still needed a bit of help in our budget.  We continued with paying off debt, though the process became slower as our budget was tighter.  This is when I stumbled upon couponing.  I quickly and effectively used coupons to cut our consumables budget (food, toiletries, paper products, etc.) down from $1000 a month to $500.  With a little more time and practice, I was able to cut another $100 out of that. This freed up a lot of money for debt.

We got pregnant with Aaron that year. We started making double payments on our Pilot.  We adapted to life with one car.  I continued saving money and learned for the first time how to really stick to a budget.

In 2011, we used our most of our tax return to pay off the remaining balance on our car.  This was our first HUGE success in our financial freedom adventure.  It was the first time that we chose to make a wise financial decision with our tax return instead of just spending it on "fun stuff".  Aaron was born later that year, adding another large chunk of debt to our plan.  I went back to work in October out of necessity.  That was a hard decision, but we knew Ben would be going off staff at the church in January, and he didn't have another job lined up.

There was a two month lapse in jobs for Ben, but because we had become more financially wise over the last two years, we had savings enough (plus my job) to make it 4 months without a job for him.  It was a GREAT feeling to have that financial security-we'd never had that before.  We were on track to be debt free by December 2012.

In May, Ben suffered a crazy soccer injury.  This totaled $100,000.  We had to pay about $20,000 of it.  This was a definite set-back, but we refused to be discouraged.  We did what we could.  Paid when we were able.  Saved, even though it was a small amount.  Believed God would provide.  

It's January of 2013.  I thought we'd be debt free and have an emergency fund by now.  We aren't.  We don't.  It's okay.  I thought I'd be home with my babies again by now.  I'm not.  But I have a goal to be soon.  I'm still working at cutting our budget.  Cut, adapt, cut.  I'm used to it now.  I like it.  It's a fun challenge.  And someday, when we're debt free someday, we will already be used to living below our means and will be able to save a lot more.

Has it been hard?  Absolutely.  Has it been worth it? 110%, absolutely, without a doubt, YES!!!

I hope (and I know) that someday I will be able to post the final steps in our adventure to financial freedom.  It's coming.  Someday.  I can feel it!



Why did I write and share all this?  Over the years, I've found the most encouragement from hearing other peoples' stories about the journey they made to financial freedom.  Everyone's story is different.  Everyone's story has it's ups and downs.  Everyone makes decisions differently, and prioritizes differently.  I love learning from them-pulling ideas or concepts to try, encouragement from their success, and motivation to keep going.

God has called us to be good stewards of our money.  Our journey to financial freedom is about being good stewards of what God has given us.  It's about getting rid of debt (and avoiding those situations again) so that we can live more freely, give more freely, and enjoy life so much more!


Over the years, we have done numerous things to cut our budget.  Over the next couple weeks, I will be posting on some very practical things that you, too, can try to help you cut your budget little by little!

10 Weeks to an Organized Christmas: Master Plan (printables included!)

(Joining us for the 10 Weeks to an Organized Christmas series for the first time?  Check out the previous posts HERE)

Last year, on about December 10th, I remembered that I had wanted to do a Christmas activity with my girls each day of the month; something that pointed to Jesus, and celebrated who He is, as well as other cute Christmas crafts and such.  But it was already the 10th.  We had made an ornament...one.  By the 15th I realized that I had not ordered my Christmas cards, nor did I have any particularly great photos to use for said cards (Did anyone get a card from us?  I don't think I ever did them).  On the 23rd I hurried to make two more gifts for neighbors that I had intended to gift, but had forgotten.  And that's when it dawned on me...I must be more organized when it comes to Christmas.

If you've been following along in the 10 Weeks to an Organized Christmas, you are probably already feeling quite organized.  You should have a budget written down (and ideas to get any extra money you may be needing for Christmas), a list of people to gift, some basic ideas for gifts, and a good inventory list of your supplies (baking, wrapping, etc.).

Today we will be working to create a master plan list.  Begin thinking about all the things you'd like to do/play/explore/bake/decorate/craft, etc. during December.  Write them down.  Pretty simple, right?  You can also add "deadlines" for yourself if you want (I like deadlines...they make me stay on top of things).

Here are some ideas to include on your calendar:

• Goal dates for completing hand-made gifts
• Goals & ideas for kids activities/lessons/crafts/etc.
• Family pictures 
• Ordering Christmas cards
• Baking activities
• Crafting & Decorating goals/ideas/plans
• Goal date to finish all shopping
• Dates for gift deliveries (friends, co-workers, neighbors, etc.)
• Shipping dates (for any gifts that need to be shipped)
• Family fun events you may want to plan/participate in
• Kids' parties to plan and/or gift exchanges you may be a part of
• Donations and outreach ideas/plans
• Adult parties
• Goal date for wrapping gifts
• Anything else you can think of!

You can include anything and everything on this list.  It is just a list to help you remember to plan ahead for the things you want to do.  Giving yourself deadlines will help you to keep on top of completing things on your list.  I have made up a calendar for you to transpose your list onto, as well as a list for organizing and planning for any kids activities you may want to do in December.  I am planning on doing 25 activities with my kids throughout the month.  I will share some of those with you later.  For now, though, feel free to begin filling in your calendar with your ideas, projects, baking days, delivery days, parties, and deadlines.

Click here to print my December Planning Calendar, as well as a Kid's Christmas Activities Planner.  

Free Vacation Planning DVD

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(The link in this post are my referral/affiliate links.  Read my disclosure policy HERE) 

10 Weeks to an Organized Christmas-Week 2

Alright.  Hopefully by now you've completed your first challenge (see last week's post HERE).  Last weeks challenge was to 1. Establish a Christmas budget  and 2. Write down a list of every person that you want/intend to "gift" in some fashion.

How did it go for you?  Were you surprised at the amount of people you plan to give "gifts" to?  Was your "plan to spend" budget within the budget that you feasibly have?  Or do you need to find some extra money over the next two months?  Did you come up with some ideas of how to do that?  I'd love to hear your stories!

This week we will be expanding our people list to include gift ideas, and breaking down our budget among people.  Gasp.  We can totally do it.

1.  Write Down Gift Ideas

You may already know exactly what you want to get someone.  If that's the case, go ahead and write that down!  For others, you may just know that you want to get them a gift card or a toy, or that you want to bake or sew or hand-make something.  Maybe you even want to gift someone a service (free babysitting, house cleaning, lawn mowing).  That's okay.  Just write your general idea down.  For instance, if I want to hand make something for my mom, I will just write "hand-made gift" next to her name.  As we get closer to Christmas and we start looking into different homemade gifts, you can narrow down exactly what that "hand-made gift" will be.  Last year I made my homemade chai mix for many people on my list.  It was fun, frugal, and a really fun gift to give!

2.  Break Down Your Budget Among People

Now that you've established your budget and have a general idea of what you'd like to get each person on your list, start playing with the numbers and assign a specific amount to each person.  Maybe this looks very detailed and person specific to you (i.e. Husband-$50), or maybe it is a bit more generic (Son's classmates-$20 total).  However you begin to break it down, just make sure that your funds will cover your intended gifts.  Avoid that credit card!  A debt free Christmas is so much more fun and freeing!  Remember, there are always small things you can do to earn a little money if you come up short (check out some ideas from the first post in this series HERE).

Finish these two things throughout the week and we'll move ahead next week in the "10 Weeks to an Organized Christmas" series.

Leave your thoughts, progress, and stories about getting organized for Christmas in the comments below!

10 Weeks to an Organized Christmas

Before kids, I was ready for Christmas long before Christmas Day.  Even when I had my first and second children, I was still pretty "on top" of all things Christmas.  Last year, with three little people and a job, I was shopping and baking and planning up until the day before Christmas.  I was scatter brained and forgot many things.  I don't know about you, but I would WAY rather spend the days surrounding Christmas celebrating and enjoying my time with my family and friends.

This year I'm determined to be prepared.  I'm determined to have a plan, a budget, and spend lots of quality time with my family.  I'm going to be breaking down "10 Week to an Organized Christmas" into several bite-sized parts.  Each week, starting today, I will present an idea or two to help us start organizing ourselves for Christmas.  By the time Christmas rolls around, we should be totally done and prepared with any "gifts" we might be giving, have fun activities and teaching points for our children prepared/completed, and have our homes and hearts ready to celebrate the birth of our Savior!

This week's challenge:

There are two challenges for this week, and they both have to do with the "gifts" side of Christmas.

1.  Determine your Christmas budget.

How much do you want/plan to spend?  Have you been saving up throughout the year, or do you need to start saving now?  Where will the money come from?  Think about the amount of money that you can realistically come up with and the amount that you are willing to spend.

Is your desired budget more than what you can realistically come up with right now?  If so, consider some of the following ideas to come up with the difference:

• Sign up for Swagbucks.  Swagbucks is a really easy way to earn gift cards.  I redeem mine for Amazon gift cards, and then use those to buy my gifts online (450 points=$5 Amazon card).  You can use their search engine to earn points, complete special offers or polls, or trade in things like old cell phones.  It's pretty easy to earn points by spending just a couple minutes a day.  
• Sell unused/unwanted items on Craigslist or eBay.  Trade in old books to places like Amazon, or sell old baby clothes to places such as Once Upon a Child.
• Do you have any special skills that you could use to earn extra money such as babysitting?  Odds and ends jobs?  Housecleaning?  Baking?

By the end of this week, have a written Christmas budget, and any plans to earn the extra money you may be wanting to spend on Christmas.

2.  Make your people list.

Write down each and every person to whom you'd like to give a gift.  From you husband and children to your next door neighbors, write down everyone.  It doesn't matter if you plan on giving them an extravagant gift or baking them a muffin.  Write down their name.  If you already have an idea of what you'd like to give them, go ahead and jot that down.  Otherwise, we will start planning out our gifts in next weeks "Organized Christmas" challenge.

People to remember/consider on your list:

• Family-immediate and extended
• Friends
• Teachers, bus drivers, delivery drivers
• Classmates, students, co-workers, clients
• Neighbors
• ???

By the end of this week, plan to have every person on your "gifts list" written down.

That's it for this weeks' "10 Weeks to an Organized Christmas"!  Have fun with this, and keep checking back for more on this challenge!  There will be one part of this series posted each week. As we get closer to Christmas, there will be several post throughout the weeks, as well, containing teaching, crafting, baking, and decorating ideas.  Thanks for reading!

Out with the To-Do List!

Alright.  I've been pretty busy lately.  Besides being a wife, raising three kids under age 5, working 20 hours a week as a kindergarten teacher, beginning Kindergarten homeschool with Ellie, leading a church with my husband, and running a blog, I recently began selling Pampered Chef to supplement our income for the impending student loan payment (Ben's *almost* done with his master's program-yay!).

I have this love/hate relationship with lists.  I mostly love them.  I use them a lot.  On my days at home (Mondays and Fridays), I've had to limit my "to-do list" to one side of a college ruled/lined sheet of paper.  Yes, you read that correctly.  I've had to limit it to just one sheet.  No, I'm not exaggerating.  It's ridiculous.

I've got most things down to a science in order to accommodate the completion of my long lists.  I can go to Walmart with three kids and shop for our weekly family groceries, Pampered Chef supplies, a church dinner, and be home within 1 hour total.  I'm totally that crazy lady flying down the aisles (insert apology here).

Well, yesterday (Friday), I refused to make a list.  I had some things to do, and I did a couple of them, but I most definitely forgot a few things.  I baked and played with the kids.  I sat and drank a homemade pumpkin spice latte and ate a homemade pumpkin scone.  I forgot things.  We ate leftovers for lunch.  I didn't plan dinner ahead (I let Ben be responsible for dinner that night).  I held my baby boy.  We dug in the mud in the backyard.  We had fun.  The house was a mess (which I quickly cleaned before Ben's arrival home from work).

What did I learn through throwing out my list?  Well, the house didn't burn down.  I felt refreshed.  My kids had fun (I think they always have fun, I just notice it more when I'm actually having fun with them).

I just may yell Out with the To-Do List  more often ;)

Preparing for back to school

And so it is that time of year again.  School.  It's a week before I get a new set of eager 5 year olds ready for their kindergarten year.  This also means I have a week left of crazy planning, prepping, and *doing* to get everything all ready for my new kids and their parents.  So much to do!

Although I've been working 2 days a week through the summer, it is very different, and does not feel like school at all.  Something about the fall brings a sense of order to my life.  It makes me plan things out a little better.  It makes me organize more efficiently.  It makes me bake more and do more from scratch.  Pumpkin Spice Lattes made with fresh pumpkin anyone?   I.  Love.  It.

Any other back-to-school, organization, fall weather lovers out there?

Weekly Menu Plan

Here are the meals I plan to make over the next week.

1.  Pizza.  I use this no-rise pizza crust recipe-it's my favorite!  I'm thinking I'll do grilled chicken, grilled onions, prosciutto, mozzarella, red sauce, and red & orange sweet peppers.  Yum!  Did you know it took me 5 years to figure out how to make a delicious homemade pizza? 
2.  Teriyaki Chicken Stir Fry with brown rice.
3.  Potatoes & Ham Au Gratin.  I am planning on chopping up the leftover Easter ham for this and freezing some, too.
4.  Taco Soup with cornbread.
5. Black Bean & Salsa chicken in the crockpot (use in tacos).
6.  BBQ chicken, grilled veggies, sweet potato fries
7.  Leftovers

I'm starting to learn that my family has favorites that we like to enjoy weekly.  This has made menu planning much easier!  Instead of trying a bazillion different things each week, I can try 2-3 new things and do a couple of our favorites, too.

What's on your menu this week? Trying anything new?