Preparing, Purchasing, Planning.

So it's the time of year where most homeschool families start making lists and checking them twice. I'm not talking about Christmas (although for some of us, it almost seems like it)!! It's the time of year when homeschoolers get geared up for purchasing new materials for their upcoming school year. I know it. I've made the lists. I'm starting to get that planning itch. This year I'll be teaching a 4th grader, 2nd grader, K/1st grader, and a preschooler. On top of that I'll have a toddler and a newborn. No pressure. Nothing to worry about. I'm just keeping it cool.

6 KIDS!!! Really, people. I'm starting to get worried. Am I losing my mind? How can all of this possibly get done?? Ok....I'm keeping my cool again.

So for the past couple of weeks, I've worked on creating book lists for each of the kids. We are using Angelicum Academy, so it's nice to not have to make too many decisions on what curriculum to use. For the most part, we are using their recommendations and switching a few things with what's been working for us (mainly language arts and science). It's nice to be able to reuse so much of our curriculum and only have to purchase the worksheets or tests.

But I am starting a new wish list that doesn't include books or curricula. It's a schoolroom/supply wish list. And having it has meant keeping my eyes open for great deals and snatching them up when I can. As homeschoolers, I'm sure that you all realize how much it can take to get stocked up for school and how nice it is to have a fully functional and well supplied school room. Here are some of my wish list items.

PrismaColor Pencils Set of 120

My kids (mainly Isabella) are drawing and coloring fanatics. They go through crayons like there is no tomorrow. And colored pencils? Well, that's their favorite. I'm a big fan of PrismaColor and have used them since we began on this homeschool journey. I've been through quite a few sets and my kids have become quite snobbish because of them. "But these aren't the good pencils, Mami." Drives me nuts. But then I saw this set...so pretty! I figure we need them since they tend to last us a while. Just don't look at the price tag!!!! Lucky for me, I bought them for 50% off the retail price. Still a little steep, but well worth it!

Binding Machine

The amount I've spent at Kinko's getting books bound would have already paid for 2 of these machines. This year, I decided that my binding needs aren't going to decrease any time soon so purchasing a binding machine would probably be a smart choice! I'm actually super-excited about getting it (should arrive tomorrow!)!! I already have a bunch of stuff ready and lined up to be bound! The particular one I ordered will actually bind up to 500 pages!! Awesome!

Ikea Trofast System

Ok...so this one is a big more difficult to convince my hubby of letting me get. The system is actually not that expensive, but I think that sometimes I tend to go a little overboard in buying furniture to "outfit" our schoolroom. Regardless....it's on my wish list and I foresee me making a trip to Ikea by the end of the summer! Why do I need this awesome little organizing system? Because I've been inspired to use it for the kids' school and possibly start implementing a workbox system. I've been loosely doing it for a little bit and it's awesome! Here is a picture on how I would like to use them. I would love to tell you from whose blog this is, but I can't find it! If you know, please post a comment so I can credit them.

Apple MacPro Computer

Ok...so this one is really pushing the limits. But you must understand that I have computer envy due to my hubby's awesome MacBook Pro. I don't need a laptop, but I do need a new desktop. My computer is older than most of my kids!!! It still works, although pretty slow, so I can't complain completely. But eventually I will need to get it replaced. I'm just holding out until my computer blows up...which it is on the verge of doing. I'm surprised I can even post all these pictures. I have a caveman computer (although I got the screen replaced, so at first glance it looks newer).

I'll stop there for my wish list. It seems like every item keeps getting more and more expensive. Next thing I'll post for my wish list is a Porsche....what mom doesn't need an awesome little car from keeping her from feeling like she's turning into one of those homeschoolers. Wait....isn't being in your early 30's too soon for a mid-life crisis?

Elementary Planner.

How has your organization been going this year so far? I know many homeschoolers are coming to the end of their year. In our home, we homeschool year-round with our new school year beginning usually in early August. We've been doing this since the beginning and I love it. It just works for us. Taking weeks off as we need them and having a longer break in July. I find that it keeps the kids sharper and my house less chaotic. Does that make sense?

Anyways. I am a big believer is having a daily schedule. We use Managers of Their Homes to help us manage our day to day activity. It works wonderfully! I tend to be flexible with it, however, as I find that you kind of have to be when you have a lot of little ones running around. But things usually get done in the same order every day, whether we start at 8:30am or 9am. If you want to check out my post on my schedule, click here! It's been tweaked a bit since we have added and taken activities away, but the basics are the same.

Now this year, I had decided to give my kids their own planners to help build responsibility and good habits. I ordered some cute student planners from Pflaum especially for the primary grades. We used them quite a bit, but stopped about half year. Although great planners, they were too busy. A place for notes, spelling words, and all sorts of extra activities were causing havoc in my mind as I would write down their assignments for the day. And since they was little space for all their subjects (the planner is in a weekly format), I was getting frustrated.

So I began using my own lesson/assignment planner and the kids had been checking off everything in that. But it got old with the kids fighting over who my planner and I was ready to let them each have their own planner again. After searching high and low for a daily assignment planner that met our needs and always coming up short, I decided to make our own.

So if you need an elementary planner for your kids, feel free to use mine! Or easily create your own using mine as a template. I don't mind!

Elementary Planner

The subjects on our planners reflect our use of Angelicum Academy. If you want me to email you an editable copy, just leave a comment and I can send a Word document. I had our student planner bound, so the kids each have their own books.

That's my homeschool help for today! Enjoy!!

Looking for a New School? Check us Out!!

Is your school year coming to an end? Well, we here at Holy Family Classical Academy pride ourselves in providing continual education to all our students! A year full of rigorous academics, extra curricular activities, and character formation are the basis for our success. Class sizes ranging from 1-5 kids guarantees one on one instruction. We focus on developing the best curricula for every child depending on their learning style and approach. We offer classical montessori based activities, art and nature based learning, and a traditional classical education approach. We offer a wide range of cultural experiences for every child including (but not limited to) foreign language study in Latin and Spanish. All this intertwined with a constant formation in the beautiful Catholic faith!

Seriously.....

I love our homeschool. I don't think I could ever find any school, public or private, that offers what we do at home!!! Being able to homeschool is a blessing and I'm forever grateful for it!!!!

Lunch and Dinner Dilemma.

Seems like I've finally reached my breaking point in the lunch and dinner menu department. Frequent trips to the grocery store (like 4 per week!!), too many meals at the restaurant, and scrambling to make something quick before the whole family melts down...this has been my life for the past couple of months. It's driving me to insanity!!!

So after a meal of leftovers and cheese pizza, I decided to get my life back on track in the cooking department. I've always done menus and it has been a wonderful help to me. I'm a BIG buyer and believer of organic and natural foods, so planning my shopping trip is important if I want to buy the kinds of foods we eat and save money. Believe me, buying prepared meals at Whole Foods is not cheap!

I began by taking a look at some of our favorite family meals for both lunch and dinner. I love allrecipes.com and I have most of our favorite dinner recipes stored through their Recipe Box feature. My next step was to download an empty dinner menu planner from Donna Young's website. Finally, I just filled it in for the whole month. (I did the same for a lunch menu.)

I started with our Friday meals, since we don't eat meat on those days. After that, I planned our Wednesday meals since we have faith formation on those days and having slow cooker meals is most convenient. The rest just fell into place. Leaving the weekends open for leftovers or family trips to the restaurant works well for us too.

I opted for doing a whole month of planning in advance. I think this will prevent my weekend rushing around of trying to come up with something. And once the month is over, I can just start at the beginning again...maybe switching some recipes for others. But at least I don't have to think about what's for dinner (or lunch!) for a whole month!!

My grocery shopping trips are now being planned for every two weeks, with perhaps a small trip in-between for fresh produce. This will give me so much more time for when I have our babysitter watching the kids...and I'm sure she'll appreciate knowing what to make for lunch whenever she is here!

I have included a link to both my dinner and lunch menus. All my lunch meals don't require a recipe, I just make them off the top of my head. If you want the recipes for my dinner menus, a quick search at Allrecipes.com will help you find what you need! If not, just drop me a comment and I'll send it over!!

Monthly Lunch Menu

Monthly Dinner Menu

It feels good to go back to having a plan, especially now that I have a new baby on the way in less than 2 months! Now to start organizing other parts of my life...... :)

Thinking About Easter Already?

I know Easter is still some time away as we are barely a couple of weeks into the Lenten season. I wanted to post this, however, because sometimes getting ready for Easter (much like getting ready for Advent or other liturgical seasons) can take some prep time.

For many, Easter Sunday is a day for gathering with family and friends...egg hunts, chocolate bunnies, pretty baskets filled with brightly colored eggs, toys for the kids, etc. It's almost like Christmas day! All these things are wonderful memory-makers for not just the kids, but parents too.

For me, Easter always reminds me of traditions that I grew up with. My favorite being Cascarones!! (Or Confetti Eggs). This has been a family tradition since before I was born. Many of my fondest childhood memories involve getting together for Easter with my entire family...cousins, aunts, uncles, friends...and having the funnest time cracking cascarones over each others heads. It was the funnest time because it was fair game for everyone to take part in the celebration, not just the kids.

Of course, having such a big extended family meant that we needed LOTS of cascarones. I remember my mom carefully cracking eggs for weeks before Easter to collect the eggshells. She would crack the tip of the egg, slowly peel away the tip of the eggshell, and then empty the egg into a bowl that she would use to make us scrambled eggs, pancakes, etc. She would then rinse out all the empty eggshells and place them to dry in an empty egg carton.

Some time before Easter, we would take out all the now-full egg cartons in order to color and dye all the eggshells. When that was done, we'd fill them up with confetti and glue colored tissue paper over the openings. (Of course, I had sneaky cousins who would fill some of their eggs with flour...not something I'm recommending).

Now that I have a "big" family of my own, however, I find that collecting the eggshells for Easter is not as hard as it used to be!

Want to learn more about this Mexican tradition? You can read this article from Highlights with your kids and get them excited about it! Need some detailed, step-by-step instructions? Check this article from eHow.com.

Commentary?

So lately I'm scurrying around, looking for my NFP (Natural Family Planning) book and reviewing what I can. I have a class I'm scheduled to take at church for a brush up soon and I'm wondering how on earth I am going to get back into the swing of using NFP.

Which brings me to the use of actual birth control (AKA, the "pill") and how the number of Catholics who use it seems pretty staggering. I've read anywhere from 60% to 75%!!!! Now I can go on and on about why it's wrong (besides being an abortifacient). But the fact of the matter is that it is AGAINST CATHOLIC TEACHING! And for excellent reasons!!!

I guess making up our religion is the easy way to do things. Being one of those "cafeteria Catholics" might seem OK to many. Let me see...I'll take Mass on Sundays and some Holy Days, the Holy Trinity, and even some of the Sacraments. That was easy! Picking and choosing is fun!!!

But seriously...do most Catholics realize what they are putting in jeopardy when they do this? By choosing to take contraception (AKA the "pill), they are committing a mortal sin!! The only way to remove that mortal sin is by going to confession. And how many of those people who are committing this mortal sin go to Mass on Sunday and receive the Holy Eucharist??

Hello out there! You are not supposed to receive communion if you are in a state of mortal sin!!!

Ok....call this a rant or commentary. But perhaps this stems from all the crazy comments I get for choosing life. Maybe it's my raging pregnancy hormones. Perhaps it's personally knowing people who choose to use birth control every day and still go up for communion. Should I even care? Am I being judgmental? I don't know and I don't let it stop me from praying about it.

But at least I know I'm not wrong.

Today marks the beginning of Lent! I've actually been really excited to start this season, which has been the case more and more each year. The reason for this is that every year my kids get older, their understanding increases, and they are more fully able to participate! It's really wonderful to be able to celebrate Lent as a family with mostly understanding persons (as opposed to celebrating Lent as a family of mom & dad with a couple of toddlers who don't know the difference between wearing diapers and wearing underwear!).

We started the day with our usual morning prayers/offerings. But we added a few more things into our religion. We started our Lenten learning with "The Reading of the Strips"...or at least that's what one of the kids yelled out when I told them to gather around the table so that I can read all the Lenten Deed tickets to them. "Guys!!!! Mom's gonna do the reading of the strips!!!"

Now our Lenten Deed jar is full and the kids are all itching to see what deed they get to work on for the week. "Can we switch tickets if we don't like what we get?" NO!!!

Another fun addition to our day today was the beginning of our Lent Lapbook from Lapbooks for Catholics. We worked on the cover and the kids were coloring and cutting while I read to them the history of Lent and asked them questions. We'll be working on the lapbook for another week or so and then I'm planning on taking it out during our religion time to review from it.




Of course, Isabella will be working on 2 different faith lapbooks. This past Sunday, she had her Sacramental Prep class and they went over the things we see in church. This was perfect since she is currently working on "The Things We See in Church" lapbook from Lapbooks for Catholics. It's so much fun to be able to do all these fun and educational things with the kids!




But what about the littlest members of our Catholic crew? Well, lets just say that they have plenty on their minds to keep them busy. Ummm....yea. That's little Jimmy with a box on his head. He was pretty adamant about putting it on and walking around. The kids and I got a good laugh from it!



And let's not forget about our little school room altar. Our Father Nick just got a change of vestments to go with the season! And you'll notice that we have yet to change the color of our tablecloth. I know I put that purple "altar cloth" somewhere!!