Three Things I’ve learned my First Year Home schooling

This is our first official year home schooling and it has certainly been a year of trials and errors. A few tears and a lot of frustration too. Here are some things we learned.

1. What works for one family may not work for us – I’ve always known we were going to home school but dredging through all of the different styles and curriculum was a daunting task. Everyone had advice, which was appreciated but at times it could be confusing. I ended up frustrated, especially when what we were doing wasn’t working out for us. I had aggravated girls and they had a stressed out mommy. It took me a while to realize that I had to do what was right for my family and there was no ‘right’ way to home school.

2. I’m home schooling two children with different needs – My
daughters are only two years apart. They are the best of friends and have so much fun together. I thought ‘Yeah, this is going to be easy!’ Well, I thought wrong. They are on completely different levels and learn completely differently. They even like to do school work at different times of the day. It has taken some flexibility on my part but now I have two very happy home schooled girls.


3. I had to remember why were home schooling to begin with – It came down to flexibility, we like to come and go as we please. Our family business’ busy season is the summer and we take our holiday in the winter. Meaning some times we can be more involved in the home schooling community than others. There are so many wonderful programs in our area for home schoolers that I started to feel guilty about what I could attend. It came down to just doing what works best for our family. I’ve let the guilt go!


I have a feeling that next year will be a lot easier on us. We found our rhythm and schooling styles. The girls are learning what they want to learn, not only what a schoolbook says they should be learning.

Saving Money While Eating Steak

Once a Month Shopping
I started this a few months ago and although it sounds crazy, it is really paying off. If you are like me, you are probably wondering 'What about fresh fruits and vegetables?' Don't worry, I'll get to that. I promise I eat healthy, no hot dogs and mac and cheese for us.
I take a weekend and make my way to a few different stores. I buy a lot of our snacks from Target, like our trail mix and archer brand chips. We buy enough to last us the entire month.
At Wal-mart we buy 10lb bags of quarter chicken for $6. I cut the chicken myself into thighs and legs and we get 5 meals out of each bag. So I buy a few bags depending on how much chicken I want to eat.
We make our way to the health food store to get our wild rice and raw honey before we go to Daytona where we stock up on off brand juice and a few different canned vegetables at Aldi's. Finally we go to Sam's wholesale club. We buy all of our meats, fish, eggs, milk, and cheese for the month. I get home and divide it all up freezing what we don't need for the week. We also buy all of our flour, crackers, dried fruits, cereal, oatmeal etc. 
 It really pays off for us because I cook from scratch a lot and the foods we eat rarely have coupons. Buying them in bulk makes them so much cheaper. I have saved so much money just shopping once a month because I'm not buying things I don't need. I'm really really bad at Target, whoever does their end caps is making them a lot of money! I can't leave that store without spending under $100, I just don't have the will power. When I go there on my once a month trip I'm in a hurry to get to so many stores I'm in and out!

Okay, now for the fruits and vegetables. I stock up when I'm at Sam's and freeze what I don't use fresh. In the winter I do have to pick up a few things at the farmer's market fruit wise but we eat canned veggies, frozen veggies, and lettuce we grow. In the summer we grow everything. We have blueberries, blackberries, tomatoes, carrots, lettuce, loquats, grapes, and much much more.
We've only been doing this a few months but I've developed a well stocked freezer and pantry. I find I'm buying less each time I go too.

I'm Back and I brought a friend

         

             I’m doing the happy dance because

                 I’m back from my sabbatical after my computer crashed. 
I wasn’t sure if I would be coming back because blogging can be so time consuming but I found help! Taking time for Mommy now has a co-owner named Amanda. She’s such a happy positive person. I knew right away that she was the perfect person to work with. We have big plans for Taking Time for Mommy and our Time 4 Mommy Community. So please keep checking back.

     Here is Amanda.......

        Hi, I'm Amanda and I feel incredibly privileged to be a part of the Taking Time for Mommy team!

I'm the mom of 3 teenagers, and my dh Jay and I are vegetarians who have been working from home online since 1999, and homeschooling our girls since 2007. We feel so blessed to have the freedom to work and learn from home as a family.

In addition to "Taking Time for Mommy", work-from-home and homeschooling articles, I'll also be sharing my time management and organization journeys with you lovely ladies. I'm an ADD closet hoarder married to a neatnick, so I'm constantly working on letting go of clutter and sticking to a schedule.

Thanks for taking the time to follow Taking Time for Mommy! Remember to join us on Facebook and at the Time 4 Mommy Community!

I look forward to reading your post comments and sharing with you my crazy adventures in working and learning from home, being a mom of teens, vegetarianism, weight loss, and even my funky hair colors.

Six Secrets of Organized Moms

A mom often wears many hats, taxi driver, cook, housekeeper, bread-winner, shoulder to cry on, and more. So, how does mom juggle it all? The following are six secrets of organized moms to help make things easier:

1. Routines. Organized moms serve dinner at the same time each night, have strict bed times, have after school routines with homework and socializing. If you want to be an organized mom, you have to have a routine you stick to. This might mean that you get your child up at the same time each day, and expect them to get dressed and make their bed before they come in to breakfast. You may have a few different routines, such as your morning routine, your after school and evening routine, and your weekend routine. A routine helps you, the mom, keep things on track, and helps your children to know what to expect, and what is expected of them.

2. Meal plans. Organized moms do not spend extra time in the grocery store, or standing in front of the refrigerator trying to determine what to prepare that night. Organized moms take a few minutes once a week to create a meal plan for the week. Monday: Soup, Tuesday: Chicken, Wednesday: Pizza, Thursday: Hamburgers, and the list goes on. The idea is that if you know what you are going to make you can be prepared throughout the day. For example, if you are going to roast a chicken for dinner, you will need to get it out of the freezer in the morning in order for it to be defrosted by dinner time.

3. Rules. Organized moms have rules or guidelines for their families. They may be simple like dinner is at 5:30. Or they may be more complex like, no friends, television, or snacking until your homework is completed. A mom can't keep the whole family organized without some participation, so rules, and guidelines are helpful. Make them clear, and enforce them.

4. Time off. An organized mom does not let herself get overly stressed, or overwhelmed because she knows when to say no, when to de-stress, and when to take a break. She knows that when she is starting to lose her cool, that letting dad take the kids to McDonald's rather than fixing a nice meal, is sometimes better, even if it is not the healthiest option. The organized mom knows when she needs a break, and figures out how to take one.

5. Organized home. The organized mom has an organized home. She creates a place for everything so that school mornings are not spent hastily trying to find shoes, backpacks, pens that work, etc. Instead, everything has a place, and the kids know where things go, and contribute by being sure to put their backpack on the hook, in the cubby, or whatever the case may be, the night before.

6. Back-up plans. Organized moms always plan ahead, and prepare for the worst. They carry a spare outfit, some cash, and phone numbers of friends and family, just in case. They take things in stride. So, for example, if your tire goes flat while driving, and it is your day to do carpool, the organized mom has the numbers of the other carpool moms on hand, and knows which ones can typically swap days. So, have a back up plan.

Beverly Frank is a stay-at-home mom and writer. For more parenting tips, visit http://www.surfnetparents.com.


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