Day in the Life {Homeschool Meals}

Hello There!

How are you friends? Thinking about turkey, stuffing, and cranberry sauce? I've just started thinking of all that myself.

Time to tell you more about our lifestyle around these parts. This wild adventure in educating at home. We "talked" a little about our morning routine and now our "talk" takes us to lunch time. Lunch time. This one is a challenge, I think, for many home educators. Mama and kids are immersed in math and writing and reading and . . . then its time to break away from it all for lunch. It can feel like such a break in the routine. It would be nice if there was a magic lunch fairy. We move aside our books and POOF, a healthy hot lunch appears on the table. We enjoy our repast and then POOF, the lunch fairy does the dishes. Aaah. . . sounds nice.

Well, ahem, I can't use a magic daily lunch as one of my three free wishes I suppose. So this is my reality. . .

Maybe you know that I LOVE food. I like a tasty variety of wholesome, nutritious foods. Granted, I often don't hold to high ideals because of time constraints. But I just find that I get bored quickly with the same old thing. Variety floats my boat! So when I began preparing for this school year, I knew I would have to vamp up my organization in every way, including meals. I have planned our dinners in advance for years now but I finally came to the conclusion that I needed to do some of that for breakfast and lunch as well. It seemed over-the-top organization but I knew if I was going to do this home educating well, I needed better organization to make it work.

For the past several months I have been planning out most of our breakfasts, lunches, and dinners. Breakfast and lunch are more loosely planned but overall the new routine has been quite helpful. No more racking my brain, "What shall I make today?" No more thinking in the grocery aisles, "What shall I buy for lunches?" I plan the meals, I write the lists, I buy. During the week when I wake up I ask myself,  "Which one of the lunches shall I make today?" If its rice and beans, then I get the rice and beans cooking early while we are still studying. Making the weekly menus is a chore but hey, its a chore anyway you look at it, right? Better done ahead of time than on the fly.

I think I've previously shared my affinity for Pinterest. Pinterest is my main go-to for meal planning. I have boards labeled "Breakfast" and "Lunch." I write down a few ideas from there and plan away. I also have a master list of ideas for both meals on my iPad.

Here is a list of a some of the things I might choose from:

Breakfast:
Apple Cinnamon Baked Oatmeal
Waffles
Eggs: boiled, scrambled, Egg McMuffin, breakfast burritos
Steel Cut Oats or Oatmeal (we have a whole assortment of ways to dress this up, quite versatile)
-a few:
http://blog.williams-sonoma.com/steel-cut-oats-with-honeyed-pears-and-glazed-pecans/
http://inthelittleredhouse.blogspot.com/2012/11/day-one.html
Bagels with nut butter and banana
Smoothies and toast
Cereal
Yogurt and granola
Muffins (a number of various recipes, mostly made on the weekend)
-these are wonderful. http://www.farmgirlfare.com/2008/01/100-whole-grain-ginger-pear-bran.html
Banana Split: banana, granola, yogurt
Pancakes (blueberry, pumpkin, zucchini, lemon poppy seed, apple, etc)
Cereal

Lunch:
Simple tacos (with meat or just beans)
Simple Spaghetti
Nachos (loaded with beans)
Hummus Veggie Wraps
Black Bean Soup
Pasta Salad
Irish Nachos
Loaded Baked Potatoes
Pizza on French bread
Tuna melt
Crackers with meat and cheese
Mac n Cheese with Hebrews Franks
Falafel
Simple Stir Fry
Layered Tostadas
Rice and Beans
Bean burritos

We often use the lunch hour to learn a little something. Not always but it can  be a special treat if I am able to do so. A couple months back I noticed that we really had a problem with poor manners at the table. We needed so much more than a constant barrage of "stop that" or "use your napkin!"  The kids and I have found a number of table manners for kids videos on youtube.com. We'll watch one of those and the kids will practice what they have seen. The past couple of weeks during lunch we have been slowly reading through "Emily Post's Table Manners for Kids." Now learning and practicing table manners has become a special interest for the kids. It is no longer just mom harping on them but a real idea worthy of time and energy to learn. Oh goodness, we still are far from being able to eat with dignity at a nice restaurant but hopefully we'll get there one day.

Youtube.com  Is youtube a regular part of your self-education as well? I know my hubby gets quite a bit of his know-how around the house from youtube. Youtube is definitely a source of entertaining education around here. Like I said, I don't show them videos during lunch often but it is so much fun when we do treat ourselves. It is a fabulous addition to the topics we are studying. One example is music. We are learning about the orchestra this semester. We've read some good books and listened to some good CDs in the car about the orchestra. We have found a number of videos on youtube about the orchestra.

Like this one with the Muppets:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12d1CiTRwJw
Or this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_ipa4JzNNc
Or this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8XepozFRbQ

Anyhow, time to go. Naptime for Mace and Math for the boys!! We love you!!