Home EC and Homeschool tricks

   Hello, from Denver! I'm so sorry I haven't written. I had such a great summer. The boys and I went to visit family that we hadn't seen in a while and that took us to North Carolina, Maryland and a few states in between! We came back refreshed and ready to take on the school year. I also did a lot of reading this summer. I have been totally sucked into the Voyager series by Diana Gabaldon and I'm still trying to extract myself. So that's where I've been in my free time. Last week we started kicking our butts in gear, getting ready for school . I was trying to organize myself for weeks in order to make our home schooling go as smooth as possible. So when I asked the boys to tidy up their room last week, they obliged me by throwing everything into the closet and then I exploded. In my haste, I grounded them from all electronics for the rest of the day. I don't know where you are but here in Denver it has been in the 90's and all of the public pools, mini golf's etc are closed down because Denver has already started school. So I had to think of something to keep them busy.
    This led to our day of cooking. We started off making meatballs. This was a big deal because I have a child who doesn't like to get his hands dirty. I made these boys chop garlic, measure oregano, cracking eggs, crumbling crackers (we ran out of breadcrumbs.) I admit, this day was much more hands on for me then I had anticipated, but we went with it. I had to make dinner anyways. After I made my children slave over the stove ...OK I fried them up, but they did roll the balls, we threw our meatballs into the crock pot and I let them choose a dessert to make. My oldest chose a chocolate pie out of our family's favorite Hershey cookbook. This was extremely exciting for them. Our toddler especially. One of the boys showed him how to pull up his chair to the counter. I am really regretting that they did this. He helps with dinner every night now, but the pie making was great fun. He took every task very seriously. I was trying to sneak him chocolate and he kept putting it  in the bowl. He was in a rare mood. Around 4 in the afternoon , we started the laborious task of making home made noodles. I tried this out with my mom this summer and we loved it. It took forever to make but fresh noodles are the best.

     If you didn't know, I am an extreme Master Chef fan. It is my favorite show. The boys watch it with me every week and they had an episode where they made noodles in the wilderness with nothing but egg , flour and a rock. Very impressive, so we were convinced we could manage. If you didn't know, Master Chef is coming out with a kid version of it's show in September and we are really excited for it. I'm grooming my children to become chefs. I feel confident that I can get at least one to cook professionally. My personal goal is to have them duel it out in the kitchen over the holidays and I can reap the rewards of their labors. Of course this is a long term plan....ANYWAYS!
    They were so impressed with themselves. I was equally impressed by how many dishes we dirtied and how exhausted I was afterwards. I think it took me a week to recover. I went back to reading, it was much less tiring, but I kept thinking of back in the day, when there was settlers in the colonies and parents taught their kids everything and every one was so self sufficient. Can you imagine teaching your child to survive in a world without so many conveniences? There's a pin on pinterest, that haunts me. It has ages that your child should have learned tasks by different ages. It overwhelms me, thinking of the things they still haven't mastered. Maybe not the best frame of mind to start home schooling but maybe it is. I don't know.

 
 I remember starting home school last year and after the first week, I drove by the public schools in the area to see what my other options were. I was so overwhelmed but I feel pretty strongly that having my kids switch schools several times during a school year is unfair to them. I have no way of telling when or how often we move. So homeschooling works for us. I am happy to say that this week has gone very smoothly. The programs with our online school are very familiar to us and I planned crock pot meals this week so I wouldn't have to juggle it all. My biggest concern was what Waylon was going to do, while my attention was on the older boys. Last year he was crawling on the ground attempting to get at the computer wires. Now a toddler, I didn't think he would care for all of us ignoring him all day. I received a brilliant idea from a friend. I do not take credit in any way for this but am so excited about it. She instructed me to come up with several different boxes of activities to occupy his time. I came up with three. These items are not to be brought out until it is school time. They are put away after school and I give him each item one at a time. So he doesn't get a box of new stuff in the morning, I dole out a new toy which is expected to keep him busy for about 15 minutes. So in essence I have my own little preschool boxes for him and it trains him to be in the mind set of school when we are. I have things like a puzzle, a special school snack, a new book, a tambourine, play food, an educational DVD, a hammer and foam board or Crayola's color wonder pages and markers and a cool superhero costume. On a side note I scored a slew of incredibly cool Halloween costumes at a second hand store! This approach has really helped keep him busy. Yes he still is coming up to me every 15 minutes or so when he is bored of whatever he's got, but I feel like he's staying active and at least I have something to give him instead of sitting him in front of PBS until nap time. Which, on occasion,  I've totally done, who hasn't? So day three of homeschooling has gone quite well, I'll keep you posted.