Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

dy•nam•ic constant change, progress, activity

Meal Plan

31 Days of Dinner Ideas for December With Linked Recipes for Busy Homeschool Nights

| Leave a Comment
This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

December 31 Days of dinner ideas @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus
Can I hear a drum roll? We made it! You stuck with me for a year long project that will give us LOTS in return. This month is the last month for the year long series and I have the 31 days of dinner ideas for December with linked recipes for busy homeschool nights ready!

Back in January, I encouraged you to come along and menu plan with me by menu planning for 31 days instead of 7 or 14 days. Too, by focusing on your weak area, you’re using menu planning to help you, not overwhelm you. Think of which meal brings you the most stress and plan it only. Don’t over organize.

For example, I chose dinner ideas because it normally is the weak area for most of us. At the end of the homeschool day we’re tired and need dinner to practically make itself. Right?

Even though we still have to prepare dinner, it can be so much more engaging and enjoyable knowing ahead of time what we will make and also knowing that we have every ingredient on hand.

In addition, by menu planning longer than 7 or 14 days, it gives you time to focus on more important things like lesson planning and homeschooling.

Though it make take an extra few minutes to plan for 31 days, I reap so much more. A few tips I remembered as I planned is that I stopped looking ahead in the month to see when I had field trips planned, when the Mr. was going to be off work and if we had a co-op planned.

Simply listing 31 dinner ideas doesn’t mean I cook each one in order, it does mean that I can select which ones I want to cook for the week and which ones I want to skip or substitute.

The bottom line is that my brainstorming work for dinner ideas, which is the hardest part is already done for me.

Did I mention 12 months of dinner ideas and about 371 recipes for the year in my recipe book eases homeschool stress?

It’s so worth taking time each month to do this and instead of stressing out over this, we simply made a plan each month this year.

Now, we will reap the benefits all next year and the year after and so on because we have a plan in place. In the future, you can substitute recipes and that is easier to do than trying to think of 371 dinner ideas.

Did you benefit from this? Did you grab each month? I have a few months in the beginning of the year that I need to link, but you have all these ideas at your fingertips.

What other year long projects would you like us to do together?

Download here December 31 Days of Dinner Ideas.

Grab the other months here:

January dinner ideas along with an editable menu planner
February dinner ideas
March dinner ideas
April dinner ideas
May dinner ideas
June dinner ideas
July dinner ideas
August dinner ideas
September dinner ideas
October dinner ideas
November dinner ideas

Hugs and love ya,

Signature T

Don’t forget to follow BOTH of my Pinterest accounts for AWESOME pins.

Visit Tina Robertson’s profile on Pinterest.


Visit Tinas Dynamic Homeschool ‘s profile on Pinterest.

31 Days of Dinner Ideas for November With Linked Recipes for Busy Homeschool Nights

| Leave a Comment
This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

November 31 days of dinner ideas internet linked recipes. Grab these awesome and easy dinner ideas for those busy homeschool nights @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

You know that big sigh of relief you have when you know you’re coming to the end of a long-term goal? Well, you can just about exhale because we have almost made it to the end of the year in our year long menu planning.

My goal this year was to share with you one year’s worth of dinner ideas with recipes internet linked to  show you how 31 day menu planning is superior to any other planning and especially because we are homeschooling.

I use to stress about planning for the month but I stuck it out many years because I knew once I planned for that many dinner ideas for the month, I could concentrate on our school.

And well, it just took over and has been the BEST thing to do for my family because I didn’t want to give up good home made meals.

Besides that, I do love to cook, but not when I’m stressed all the time. So 31 day menu planning has been the solution many years for me.

By doing it this year with you, I hope to give you the boost you need to keep on going.

Look at my tips that  I follow now for 31 day menu planning.

  • Forget looking ahead to see what is all planned for the month. Things change, so don’t worry about trying to match the dinner idea to the day. It’s easy to find one dinner idea that will match up for the day when you have 31 ideas that your family likes.
  • This list is NOT about matching dinner ideas to  a date.  It’s about having 31 days of dinner ideas to choose from. Some months, I renumber my dinners to match dates and other months, I just follow my ideas straight through.
  • When menu planning, mix and match crockpot ideas, salads and easy dinners with dinners that take a bit more time. This way you can choose one of the crockpot dinner ideas if you do have a field trip or two planned for the month.

By the time we finish, we will have more than 365 recipes for the year. Boo-yah!

Then think about the return, next year we will have ALL of our menu planning DONE! And the BEST part is that hardly any recipe repeats. Yes, that’s what I’m talking about.

Oh for sure you can repeat your favorite, but variety keeps the family loving every precious moment you spend making them delicious food.

 Download here November 31 Days of Dinner Ideas

Grab the other months here:

January dinner ideas along with an editable menu planner
February dinner ideas
March dinner ideas
April dinner ideas
May dinner ideas
June dinner ideas
July dinner ideas
August dinner ideas
September dinner ideas
October dinner ideas

Hugs and love ya,

Signature T

Don’t forget to follow BOTH of my Pinterest accounts for more AWESOME pins.

Visit Tina Robertson’s profile on Pinterest.


Visit Tinas Dynamic Homeschool ‘s profile on Pinterest.

31 Days of Dinner Ideas for September With Linked Recipes. Rock Your Homeschooling!

| Leave a Comment
This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

September 31 Days of Dinner Ideas. Rock your homeschooling! Grab this super helpful linked recipe ideas @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

Today, I have the 31 Days of Dinner Ideas for September With Linked Recipes ready for you.

If you have been following along with me when I started this year long project in January, then by the end of the year, you will have a ‘recipe book’ that fits your unique family and you’ll rock your homeschool. Why? Because while homeschooling, our family’s health matters and we can have it all.

Academics, laid-back lifestyle and meals that are designed with our family’s likes and needs as priority makes the homeschooling lifestyle feel like we have it all.

Look at my rules for 31 day meal planning.

  • They need to be meals my family will eat foremost. Fancy meal planning is not our aim, but to use ingredients that are as healthy as we can get with the time we have on hand to prepare meals is my goal.
  • The dinner ideas are made with my family’s needs in mind. For example, my boys and husband are meat and potatoes kind of people. However, with my husband’s heart healthy needs, I have never cooked just those kinds of meals. I will, however, have them occasionally. For example, things like salisbury steak and onion gravy are spread throughout the year and served every once in a while, but chicken and seafood are main staples.
  • In addition, I use to take longer to meal plan because I thought I had to match up meals to days that we took field trips or days that we were out of the house for doctor’s appointments. Now, I just add in easy sandwiches and crockpot meals each month and choose from one of those recipes when planning for the week.
  • Too, having 31 meals at my fingertips doesn’t mean I have to follow that each day. I tend to be a rebel so I will change my meals around within the month or even within a week, but having 31 days of dinner is a sanity-saver because I have them ready in front of me.
  • Planning each month, I will have created a ‘recipe book’ of food for 365 days of food that my family will eat. Why waste my time with food that my family will not eat?
  • In addition, when my 31 day plan is done early each month, my focus then is on obtaining the healthiest and freshest ingredients possible and making some of my own like cream of mushroom soup instead of buying ones packed with sodium and other things we don’t need.

Download here September 31 Days of Dinner Ideas @ Tina’s Dynamic Homeschool Plus

Grab this month’s menu above and if you need some more ideas, grab some of the other 31 days of dinner ideas.

January dinner ideas along with an editable menu planner
February dinner ideas
March dinner ideas
April dinner ideas
May dinner ideas
June dinner ideas
July dinner ideas
August dinner ideas

Hugs and love ya,

Signature T

Don’t forget to follow BOTH of my Pinterest accounts for more AWESOME pins.

Visit Tina Robertson’s profile on Pinterest.


Visit Tinas Dynamic Homeschool ‘s profile on Pinterest.

Linking up @ these awesome places:

How to Rock Freezer Cooking While Homeschooling

| 6 Comments
This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

How to Rock Freezer Cooking While Homeschooling @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

This year, I have been sharing my 31 days of dinner ideas with linked recipes because I want you to see how you can have it all while homeschooling.

Don’t give up well-planned meals because you are busy homeschooling kids. Did I mention that I have a passion for cooking?

I have not always felt that way because in the beginning, my total focus was on homeschooling. I didn’t really plan on giving up cooking and though I didn’t, it was meager at times.

Besides menu planning for 31 days, I have always believed in freezer cooking.

So I was over the top excited, when a fellow homeschool mom put together a freezer cooking course that doesn’t take too long to go through.

What makes it so different than other things out there is that the homeschool mom lives my life. Okay, well you know not my life literally but because she homeschools, her priorities are my priorities.

I always value taking courses from persons who are living my homeschool lifestyle because I am always up for learning anything new or a trick or two that I didn’t know.

There is always room for learning more especially when I know the tips would be ones that I can realistically use while homeschooling.

The eCourse didn’t disappoint and I was excited to get started right away.

What I love about the course is that.

  • I like having tips for when I freezer plan a smaller number of meals like I did, or when I need meals for a longer period of time.
  • You know me, I love step by step directions like I give for my planner, so I love the fact that it’s explained step by step.
  • Too, I loved watching the videos for practical how-tos.
  • I love having everything that I need to get started; recipes, tips and even labels all ready to print.
  • The teaching tips are easily adaptable for a large family, a family with multiple wannabe cooks (like mine with my teens) or a family with fewer kids.
  • I could show you all my pretty new kitchen utensils I got since we moved back to the states. (okay, okay)
  • It didn’t take a whole lot of time to go through and the best part is that
  • I learned so many quick and fast tips for freezer cooking.

Freezer Cooking

I would have loved to have made more meals, but my freezer is so teeny tiny that I only cook and plan for one week.

I needed two more meals to complete my meals for the week, so I got them together quickly following the Freezer Meal 101 eCourse.

I just took from the program the help I needed this week.

Freezer Cooking 1

Too, since we moved back to the states I have been stocking my kitchen back up after I got rid of so many kitchen things. I really needed a do over and I’m glad moving game me permission to do so.

These measuring spoon which are round for liquids on one end and rectangular on the other hand for sticking into spice containers is fabulous for not only cooking but to use when freezing several meals at one time.

I used mine to make the Jamaican Jerk Chicken recipe in the eCourse. I made my own Jamaican Jerk spice following the recipe in the course and can’t wait to try it on my chicken.

Freezer Cooking 2

I followed the tips in the eCourse to make freezer cooking easy because I know in the past I have complicated it by not being prepared with everything I need.
I also have been loving using my new eco-friendly measuring cups. I love the colors.

Freezer Cooking 4

Like I mentioned before, I love the fact that all the labels are premade in the eCourse.

All I have to do is print off. Since I didn’t have the correct label size, I just used what I had and wrote the directions on it for the Jamaican Jerk Chicken and Chicken Hurry recipes in the course. I will be getting the labels soon so that I can just print them and stick on the meals.

Hands down the best part of freezer cooking is that you can quickly make a month’s worth meals and not cook, which I love.

Too, I will be getting a new freezer soon and can’t wait to fill it with more meals from the Freezer Meals 101 course.

What do you like best about freezer cooking? If you need tips on how to be organized with your meals, be sure to scoot over and sign up for the Freezer Meals 101 course.

Hugs and love ya,

Signature T

Don’t forget to follow BOTH of my Pinterest accounts for more AWESOME pins.

Visit Tina Robertson’s profile on Pinterest.


Visit Tinas Dynamic Homeschool ‘s profile on Pinterest.

Linking up @ these places:

Mommy Monday |The Homeschool Nook | Turn It Up Tuesday | Inspire Me Monday | Project Inspire{d}|Hip Homeschool Hop |Wonderful Wednesday |Coffee & Conversation |Mommy Solutions |A Little Bird Told Me |Hearts for Home |This Is How We Roll |Family Fun Friday|

31 Days of Dinner Ideas for August With Linked Recipes. Rock Your Cooking and Homeschooling

| Leave a Comment
This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

August 31 days of dinner ideas

Menu planning and homeschool organizing go hand in hand, which is why I have been  doing this 31 days of dinner ideas with you this year.

The area that I struggle with the most is dinner because my days are long this year. The Mr. has switched careers and with this new industry we get up at 4:30 a.m. to 5:00 a.m. for six days of the week.

Even when my schedule wasn’t as demanding, I learned early that by menu planning for longer period of times relieved the dinner time crunch.

Why 31 Day Menu Planning Rocks When You Homeschool

So my menus each month reflects my style, which is easy but they also reflect my family’s likes and dislikes.

Though  I tried menu planning for 7 days, it was just was never enough. The next week was upon me before I had a chance to menu plan.

By planning for longer periods of times, I have more time during the month to plan and I really like cooking a lot more when I have a plan.

August 31 Days of Dinner Ideas with Linked Recipes @ Tina’s Dynamic Homeschool Plus

Back when I started this series in January, I explained how stress reduces your energy to homeschool. Meal planning is important because it’s part of the solution to minimize the stress in your day.

Grab this month’s menu above and if you need some more ideas, grab some of the other 31 days of dinner ideas.

January dinner ideas along with an editable menu planner
February dinner ideas
March dinner ideas
April dinner ideas
May dinner ideas
June dinner ideas
July dinner ideas

Hugs and love ya,

Signature T

Don’t forget to follow BOTH of my Pinterest accounts for more AWESOME pins.

Visit Tina Robertson’s profile on Pinterest.

Visit Tinas Dynamic Homeschool ‘s profile on Pinterest.