Category: Homeschool-Family

Categories
Homeschool Parenting Tips Homeschool-Family Homeschooler Health

Menu Planning Tips for Busy Moms and Dads

soupImage source: Soup Of The Day

What’s For Dinner? Menu Planning Tips for Busy Moms

Dinner is the last meal of the day and a time when families can get together and discuss their day. It is also a hectic meal for busy moms who are just getting off of work or who have been busy with other activities all day. If you are a busy mom or you know a busy mom, here are some menu planning tips to help make dinner meals easy and even fun.

1.    Schedule your meals a week in advance.  This is one of the most important planning tips for meals. Knowing what you are going to eat throughout the week means less chance that you will stop off at the closest fast food joint for a convenient, but unhealthy meal. Decide on the last day of the previous week (let’s say Saturday for the sake of argument) what the menu will be for the following week. Create your shopping list from the list of ingredients to avoid buying what you don’t need at the grocery store.

2.    Look for bargains. Clip coupons, read advertising circulars and the like to decide where the best grocery to shop is for your menu items. If one ingredient is a common denominator in many meals, consider buying in bulk to save money. Common staples like milk, eggs, bread and sugar can be bought in bulk as well. Some stores will have double or triple coupon days when you can save even more.

3.    Search online. After a while your family will get tired of chicken and rice every Thursday. You can get into a menu rut sometimes. Use the Internet to search for new and exciting recipes. Learn to put a twist on old recipes for a new taste.

4.    Have a leftover night. After preparing meals for five or six days, there is bound to be some food left over. Designate one night to be leftover night and let everyone mix and match for dinner. It saves mom from having to throw away any food.

5.    Cook your meals in advance. After deciding on a menu plan for the week, go ahead and fix as many meals as you can. Choose a day when the entire family can help like Saturday morning or Sunday afternoon. Each person can take one meal and fix it for the following week. Once everything has cooled, store it in sealed containers or casserole dishes to be frozen until the night it is needed.

6.    Do prep work in advance. All of the meals can’t be cooked at once. Some foods just taste better freshly prepared. For them, so as much prep work in advance as you can. Enlist your kids to help chop (give them the kitchen shears instead) vegetables, dice cooked meat and mix together dry ingredients. The night of the meal, all that is needed is to add the wet ingredients and bake.

Meal time doesn’t have to be all on mom. The entire family can help with dinner so it is a relaxing meal for everyone.

More recipe ideas check out: Recipe Ideas from The Cookware HeadQuarters

Categories
Homeschool Parenting Tips Homeschool-Family Homeschooler Health

Start Kids Morning Right With Breakfast

Quick and Healthy Breakfast Ideas

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Unfortunately, many of us neglect breakfast. And there’s a lot of evidence to suggest that your body and mind will suffer unless you have a healthy breakfast each morning.

You spend six to eight hours sleeping. After that time, your body needs fuel to keep going. Without breakfast at home, your options for on the run nutrition may amount to too much fat, too much sugar and too many carbs. And, that convenient run to the fast food joint is not as convenient and time saving as you think if everyone else has the same idea. The fifteen or twenty minutes spent in line could have been used to fill your belly with something good at home.

If you are the type to skip breakfast, here is a solution to starting the day with a good breakfast which will help you keep hunger in check as well as give you the natural energy boost to start your day.

1. Oatmeal – This food makes a good hot meal that contains lots of filling fiber to keep you from getting hungry later on in the morning. Depending on your taste, you can take five minutes to fix it on the stove or use the microwave for instant oatmeal. Kids tend to like the variety of flavors that come with instant oatmeal. The night before, put together a container of add-ins like blueberries, strawberries and bananas that can be tossed on top for a bit of antioxidant power.

2. Fruit smoothies – These are good any morning but particularly on a hot day. You’ll have to blend the ingredients together in the morning, but the prep work can be done at night. Cube your fruit and place it into a container. Instead of frozen yogurt in the morning, use a cup of plain yogurt. Add ice cubes, a little water and blend.

3. Egg sandwich – The eggs can be cooked the night before and placed in a sealed container. In the morning, warm up the eggs in the microwave. If you want, add some chopped veggies or shredded cheese. Serve on toasted wheat bread. The night before, place two pieces of bread into a Ziploc bag for each family member. They can toast their bread as they get up and place the sandwich in the bag for easy transport in the car to work or school.

4. Yogurt with granola and fruit – Some people like to eat yogurt. But, yogurt by itself won’t keep you from being hungry. Add some granola and a few blueberries to the mix. This makes a great breakfast idea for those mornings when you are running late. Keep small bags of granola and blueberries in the fridge next to the yogurt so you can grab them and run.

Are you fighting the breakfast battle? To get a filling meal you don’t have to opt for too much fat, calories or carbs. These quick and easy breakfast ideas can be made within minutes and are a much healthier alternative to skipping breakfast or grabbing a high fat alternative.

Categories
Homeschool Parenting Tips Homeschool-Family

How To Do Home Organization: Easy Steps to a Clutter Free Home

clutter2

Image source:Home Organization Book

Home Orgnization 101 Tips:

When you first move into your home it seems like you have so much space.  As the years pass, you might find yourself becoming a pack rat.  What are you going to do with all the stuff you have accumulated?  Perhaps it’s time to weed out the unnecessary items and organize your home.

Home organization is a step-by-step process.  It will take more than a day or even a week to get everything to a manageable level, but once you do staying organized is an easier task.  If you have a family, enlist their help.  They can pitch in and learn a thing or two about controlling clutter in their life.

1. Start with the high traffic areas.  The living room and kitchen are usually the two most used rooms in the house.  Everything gets dropped on a counter or the couch in these two places.  Concentrate on getting everything set up the way that you like it before moving on to another room.

2. Use storage containers.  Over the years, the style of storage containers has upgraded to be pretty as well as functional.  Instead of storing containers in stacks in the garage, purchase ones that match your décor in each room and integrate them so that no one would even notice they were being used for storage.

3. Divide items into categories.  You can use heavy duty trash bags for this part.  Everything that you find can go into a pile: KEEP, THROW AWAY, GIVE AWAY, and RELOCATE.  Items that will stay in that room are to keep.  Things that you don’t need or are broken can be thrown away.  Clothes or furniture still in great condition can be donated and scheduled for pickup by the Veteran’s association or Goodwill.  Anything that definitely belongs in another room can be labeled for relocation when you get to that room.

4. Remove everything from drawers and cabinets.  This is a time-consuming process but it is easier to start with an empty space and fill it instead of simply pushing things around.  If you line things up on the counter, someone else can help by putting the items in some type of order.

5. Make use of all of your available space.  In the kitchen, for example, appliances or extra containers can be stored on top of the cabinets provided they don’t extend all the way to the ceiling.  That’s extra storage space without benefit of a storage container.  Also use the top of the refrigerator for cereal boxes and breakfast food like boxes of instant oatmeal or grits.  In the bedroom, shoes and winter clothes can go into flat storage bins that slide easily under the bed or the dresser.

6. Label your containers.  Use tape and a permanent marker to identify the contents of your storage containers.  Avoid writing on the actual container in case they are reused and the contents are changed.  Labeling also makes for easy identification if you decide to sell or give away a container of books or something.  You won’t have to open each container to locate them.

Organizing your entire house takes time.  But, once it is done, returning everything you use to its proper place will maintain that same level of organization.

Categories
Homeschool Parenting Tips Homeschool-Family Homeschooler Health

Eating Together As Family: Important Family Tips

Dinner with the Family: It’s More Important than you Might Think

When was the last time you had dinner with your family? It is the meal we often skip because we work late, the kids have sporting events or we get tired from daily activities. But, skipping dinner with the family is detrimental to the family dynamic.

Family dinners are more than just a meal. It is about the only time that families have to share time through the week. Whether you sit down to the dinner table or enjoy a meal on tray tables and a movie in the family room, the important thing is that you are together.

There are some interesting facts surrounding family dinner time. For instance, teens that spend dinner time eating with their family are less likely to get involved in drugs, alcohol or other illicit activity. This is a point many parents will find interesting. Out of all of the things you do to try to keep your kids away from bad influences, the one thing that is the greatest influence is still the event that we skip routinely.

Why is dinner so important? For one thing, it is a time to share thoughts and feelings. All day, kids are influenced by teachers, friends and the outside world. At the dinner table, they get a chance to connect with their parents on tough issues like schoolwork, peer pressure, friendships and other things. They can each share and help one another with helpful suggestions. Parents can even talk about work or family finances over a meal.

The main point is that conversation is taking place. The average parent talks to their child less than 40 minutes a week. It takes a second to say “Hi” when you come in at night, but that isn’t effective communication. When dinner is shared by the family, you spend at least 45 minutes to an hour talking about everything and anything that may be on your mind. Even if you are watching a television program, engaging questions can arise from topics addressed in the program.

Young children learn how to communicate with their siblings and parents. They are the center of attention with questions about their day and it makes them feel happy. You know that kids always want to be in the limelight when they are a certain age and this helps them learn to share the spot with others.

For teenage girls, body image is everything. Learning to prepare and eat healthy meals with their families is a sign that eating right will keep their bodies in shape and not avoiding food. Teen girls are less likely to become the victim of an eating disorder but develop a healthy view of food and their bodies when they eat dinner with their families.

There are many benefits to eating dinner with the family. It is a time for meaningful communication that leads to stronger self-images that resist the urge of drugs, alcohol and other destructive behaviors in your kids and teens.

Categories
Homeschool Finance Homeschool-Family

Work At Home Moms: How To Be With Kids and Earn Money

HBideasImage source: Home Business Ideas

WAHM: Your Ticket to Being Home with the Kids & Earning an Income for Your Family

Have you ever dreamed of a job where you could spend time with your family and earn money at the same time? Most traditional jobs don’t offer that. But, becoming a WAHM could be your ticket to your dream. But, before embarking on such a quest, here is some helpful information detailing what it’s all about.

What is WAHM?

Just what do these letters stand for? WAHM stands for Work At Home Mom. Over the past 20 years, more and more women have come out of the workplace and gone back into the home.

The decision hasn’t been an easy one. It became apparent a long time ago that men were the only ones being allowed to “have their cake and eat it too.” They could pursue a corporate career and still come home in the evenings to the family.

Women with careers had a different path to follow. Besides working longer hours to achieve the same pay and credibility as their male counterparts, they also had to contend with the housework and the kids. After a long day at the office and doing the household chores, the kids sadly got what was left over which was usually a very worn out mother.

That has since changed. WAHMs are proving everyday that women can contribute to the family financial situation and nurture their families. Both online and off, a network of support has been created for any woman who wants to consider an option that will help them meet their needs.

How to get started?

When you talk to your family about the possibility you want to have an idea of the direction you will take. Check out sites like Blogging as Business and other Home Business Ideas They offer helpful hints to moms getting started with a work at home enterprise and also a network of opportunities for connecting with other WAHMs.

If your income has been a big part of the monthly family finances, then switching to a work at home enterprise will cause your finances to take a hit. Be sure there is enough financial cushion in your bank account to weather the first six months of your new career. It will take time to establish your business.

Finding Opportunities

First, figure out your interests and skills. WAHMs can find business opportunities to work for someone else doing everything from audio transcription to writing articles to accounting. Be aware that there are scams about and that legitimate companies looking for professionals won’t ask for money upfront from you.

Some WAHMs carve out their own niche and begin an online business. If you are skilled with crafting, you can create a website to promote your crafts and sell products. A blog is also another idea. Blog about your area of expertise and develop a following. Combine that with affiliate or search engine marketing to generate revenue.

Making it work

With new career comes the issue of balance between home and work. Just because you are home doesn’t mean you won’t need help around the house or time away from the kids in order to work. Consider these tips for creating a balance:

•    Develop a set schedule for work and play on a weekly basis
•    Discuss dividing up household chores between you, your spouse, and older kids
•    Do pre-work such as fixing lunches, prepping breakfast, choosing clothing the night before
•    Hire a babysitter once or twice a week
•    Separate home office space inside the house

There are advantages to being a WAHM. Plan carefully and be patient. Support from your family makes all the difference.

Categories
Homeschool Parenting Tips homeschool-Children

Tips for Toddler Tantrums

Many Young parents get scared when they hear stories about the “terrible twos.” Take courage, though, you will survive the toddler stage. It’s not easy to understand why your toddler has a tantrum but at such a young age, a child is consumed with thoughts of themselves. Everything is about them and how they feel. Until they are taught how to share, every toy or piece of food they see automatically belongs to them.

Toddler temper tantrums can have a variety of effects. Your first thought might be that everyone is focused on you and your screaming child, but getting embarrassed won’t diffuse the situation. Besides, as a parent, you have many more years of embarrassing situations to look forward to courtesy of your children. So worrying about what others think during this situation is simply going to stress you and make you feel worse.

Here are a few tips to help you cope during tantrums:

Taming Toddler Tantrums: Tips that Really Work

1. Ignore the tantrum. This technique works best when at home. In public places, you don’t want to ever leave your child unattended as a form of punishment. Good behavior in public begins at home. Ignoring a toddler is not harsh. If your child is squirming on the floor screaming for a cookie, continue to talk to them as if you never noticed. Eventually, they will get the hint and stop screaming.

2. Avoid instant gratification. In public, toddlers throw tantrums when they are denied something that they want. Some parents give in to keep their child quiet but a child learns quickly. Tantrums will continue if they know you will cave. Simply tell them “no” and keep moving.

3. Don’t get angry. When you scream and they scream the situation is wildly out of control. You’ll end up crying and your toddler will still be screaming. In any situation, raised voices mean civilized conversation has ended in favor of basic primal instincts. Don’t revert back to the days of early man. Keep using the same calm voice you use when they are behaving to get your child to calm down as well.

4. Praise your toddler when they behave well. Positive reinforcement is better than negative. In the absence of positive attention a child will behave badly just to get some attention at all. Acting out and throwing tantrums may be a cry for attention. Don’t let it get to this point. Clap and celebrate when they go to the potty successfully and when they put away their toys. Good manners such as saying “please” and “thank you” deserve a smile and a hand clap as well.

5. Run errands after nap time. Kids get punchy when they get tired. A toddler misbehaves more often if they are dragged around when they are tired.

6. Carry snacks with you. Low blood sugar can lead to tantrums. If you are out longer than anticipated and lunch or dinner time is close at hand, let them eat a healthy snack to keep their hunger pains at bay and sugar levels stable.

7. Be consistent in your punishment. At home, you might use “time out” to deal with a tantrum for bad behavior. In public do the same. Sit your child on a bench for five minutes or take them to the car. Eventually they will learn that you are not a pushover and they will begin to behave.

You will survive the toddler years. Nip temper tantrums in the bud with the above tips.

Categories
Homeschool FAQ Homeschool-Family Homeschooling tips

How to Maintain Discipline in Homeschooling

51aSN9Ozn4L

Is there such thing as Discipline in Homeschooling? How do you manage it all?

When the child stays at home all day, and mommy is the teacher,
there are certain issues of discipline at stake. It is easy for he
child to misconstrue the freedom he has at home and feel that
homeschooling is just a long summer holiday. This is a potential
landmine and children need to be disciplined right at the start.

Homeschooling gives you and your child a truly immense amount of
flexibility. You and your child decide where to learn, how much to
learn and when to learn. But,these should be decisions made at
the beginning stages. If your child is too little to take an
active part in the decision, chart out a few hours of the day for
the various activities, and stick to it. When there is no outside
agency to supervise and no exams to answer, it is easy to get
sidetracked. If your child is old enough, consult him and find out
when he wants to learn. Apply your parental discretion and come up
with a timetable.

Homework is also a part of homeschooling. What this means is that
once lessons have been taught, the child should be asked to do
some part of the course work by himself without your guidance. You
will need to make sure that your child sits willingly and finishes
his work.

Courtesy, manners and punctuality are some of the various facets
of discipline that a child has to imbibe in the early years of his
life. The school where he interacts with his peers, his seniors
and juniors and his teachers mould these values quite
automatically. At homeschool, the child should be taught the
importance of speaking and behaving in a proper manner and
appropriate corrections need to be meted out if behavior is
unsatisfactory.

It is advisable to keep aside a particular room or a part of the
room for your homeschool. The child should be expected to reach
his desk at the appointed time, in proper attire with all the
necessary material. It is easy to allow the school to become an
extension of play if these ground rules are not laid out and
followed. As the teacher, supervisor, principal and janitor rolled
into one, you should also approach the study area with a cool
professionalism.

Homeschooling is doomed to fail without patience. In spite of all
the precautions and steps one takes, it is easy for a child to get
familiar’ at homeschool. At such times, it may be difficult to
discipline the child and get him to listen to you attentively.
When this happens, switch to something new. Allow the child to
take a breather and enjoy a break yourself.

Homeschooling is not easy. It requires a lot of hard work and
patience. The very informality of the whole procedure sometimes
works against it by making it too easy. If you take steps to
establish rules at the very beginning and adhere to these rules,
your homeschooling experience will be a huge success.

Categories
Homeschool FAQ Homeschool-Family Homeschooling tips

Montessori Method Of Homeschooling

Montessori education is characterized by an emphasis on independence, freedom within limits, and respect for a child’s natural psychological development. Although a range of practices exists under the name “Montessori”, the Association Montessori Internationale (AMI) and the American Montessori Society (AMS) cite these elements as essential

  • mixed age classrooms, with classrooms for children aged 2½ or 3 to 6 years old by far the most common
  • student choice of activity from within a prescribed range of options
  • uninterrupted blocks of work time
  • a constructivist or “discovery” model, where students learn concepts from working with materials, rather than by direct instruction
  • specialized educational materials developed by Montessori and her collaborators

In addition, many Montessori schools design their programs with reference to Montessori’s model of human development from her published works, and use pedagogy, lessons, and materials introduced in teacher training derived from courses presented by Montessori during her lifetime.
Developed from the work of Dr. Maria Montessori, this style of
teaching aims at duplicating natural laws that a child faces in
life. Thus the aim of the teacher is to control the environment
and not the child. It was observed that children who are left free
to interact with their environment developed an innate
self-discipline, love for order and natural curiosity.

The Montessori method of teaching is especially suitable to the
preschooler who wants to do everything by himself. Finding ways in
which your child can participate in the cleaning, washing,
cooking, gardening and other ‘adult’ activities sets the perfect
backdrop for the learning experience. By providing such
opportunities for independence, the child’s self-esteem also gets
a huge boost.

Artistic, cultural and scientific activities abound in the
Montessori 3-6 class. There is no TV, junk food, or computer.
Material is selected carefully. The child is never forced to work.
Instead he is encouraged to do things that interest him, and the
teacher picks up the teaching from cues given by the child.  The
Montessori method focuses on the child’s inborn ability to learn
from his surroundings. Thus the teacher aims to encourage the
natural curiosity of the child. He is never forced to learn or
explore. When the child understands why he needs to learn
something, he will love the learning process.

Categories
Homeschool FAQ Homeschool-Family Homeschooling tips

Is Homeschooling Your Child Legal?

The answer is YES!

Without a doubt, homeschooling is legal in all the 50 States of
the U.s. But, that is just about where the similarity ends. Laws
and regulations regarding homeschooling vary from state to state.
Interpretations of these laws can vary from scholl district to
school district. Additionally, these laws may change every year.

The National Home Education network is a wonderful resource when
it comes to the legalities of homeschooling. It has a listing of
the actual state laws for each state in the U.S. Reading the laws
that pertain to your state is perhaps the best way to get accurate
information about these laws. But, most people need to get the
laws interpreted by a qualified attorney. You can get valuable
information from the support group at your locality. Additionally,
many state education departments have online resources that will
help you in interpreting the state requirements for homeschooling.
The internet is also a good source of information.

It is a good idea to check out your state laws regarding
homeschooling before you start educating your child at home. This
will prevent any nasty surprises on the way. If you have to move,
you will need to be aware of any tests or exams that your child
may need to take.

Categories
Homeschool FAQ Homeschool-Family Homeschooling tips

Pros and Cons of Homeschooling

What are the Advantages And Disadvantages of homeschooling? Looking at the both side some type helps to see a balanced picture and here it is a balance view of pros and cons of homeschooling.

People new to the idea and concept of homeschooling often have a thousand of questions to raise.  Here is some helpful information to guide you in weighing things out:

Some homeschooling advantages:

1.    Allow quality time, providing individualized attention and instruction.  Homeschooling parents can better understand their children; observe how kids progress, what areas they find difficult and help them out.

2.    Children learn in their own pace.  At homeschool, children can advance at any time, not waiting on others or if the kid is a slow learner or having difficulties in a certain subject area, she/he can remain to focus on that area without pressure that others are already moving on.

3.    Parents pattern their teaching style and curriculum in accordance with the child’s learning style, allowing him/her to successfully understand the subject matter, thus better results are achieved.

4.    No peer pressure.  At a homeschool, age classification is not a factor, therefore children not only associate with children their same age level, but with children of different ages and adults as well, so they can decide on their own without the influence of peers.

5.    “Hands on learning”.  Activities which are outside the context of books are very much essential to the child’s learning process.  Trips to the park, the museum, the zoo, going fishing with mom and dad can be a great time to spend an afternoon educating your child.

Some homeschooling disadvantages:

1.    For the homeschool parent, much time and effort is required for preparation of teaching materials, lessons and managing the child’s opportunities in order to cultivate friendships and expand on the child’s interests.

2.    Parents who homeschool do not have enough time to spend for themselves when kids are constantly at home.  This frequent time of being together can be at times suffocating and, therefore, can not work in certain families.

3.    Homeschooled children do not have a lot of opportunities to bond and develop friendships with peers.  For many families, this really is not a problem and is supplemented by taking the kids out to play in the park, attend lessons in ballet, jazz, etc.  However it takes a lot of effort on the part of parents to insure that their kids have these opportunities.

Whether to homeschool or not, it all depends on you, as a parent, on how much are you willing to give your child.  On top of all the learning materials, the field trips, home schooling entails a lot of love, patience and encouragement.