organization

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

November 22, 2016 | Leave a Comment
This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

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,

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.

Homeschool Organization – Preschool/Kindergarten Free Morning Routine Flip Cards

June 6, 2015 | 14 Comments
This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

Homeschool Organization

Homeschool organization is something that should be fun. Even the sweetest littlest homeschooler deserves fun and cool organizing tools. Look at my other tips for how to homeschool kindergarten.

And this is one organizing tool that I wished I had when my boys were in the preschool and Kindergarten years.

It is only after training them that I can look back and see what would have worked and teaching homeschool organization starts from the very beginning.

Guess what? You get the benefit of what I know now and I am so excited to share these morning routine flip cards.

Mr. Senior 2013 following his rouinte @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus. Homeschool Organization - Preschool/Kindergarten Free Morning Routine Flip Cards

{I surprised Mr. Senior 2013 as I caught him following his routine and hanging up his shirt. He was 3 years old here.}

The printable is based off the chore or routine that my boys did or that I was training them to do.

Too, I moved away from calling them a chore chart because it was more of training my boys to follow a routine.

I wanted them to see what came next in the morning and learn to follow it.

Though I used many chore charts on the wall, a flip card on an “O” ring was a much better idea because they flipped the card as they were finished and were ready for the next day.

Hang the O ring cards on a hook in their room and not much wall space is required.

Homeschool Organization Preschool Morning Routine @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

23 Things that can be included in the Morning Routine for a Preschooler or Kindergartener

Look at these things that a preschooler or Kindergartener can do to help around the house and create a routine too.

It’s the best way to start teaching homeschool organization. This is the age that most kids love to learn new things and want to help you around the house.

Again, all of these are based off my chore charts I created through the years and I have added my list here for you.

make their bed
toilet paper call or refill the toilet paper roll or add more underneath the cabinet
get ready for the Bible read aloud
hang their clothes up
water the plants
computer time
feed the dog/pets
practice or listen to music
brush their teeth
empty trash baskets
fold their clothes and put away in the drawer
eat breakfast
put their books away in their bookshelf
put their toys away
sweep
set the table
take their dirty clothes to the laundry room on wash day
fold clothes
help wash dishes or work outside
change out the hand towel in the bathrooms
dusting
unload part of the dishwasher
wipe down counters, walls and/or baseboards

With all this being said, I did make the mistake of making my list too big each day.

I learned that 5 things to do each day was enough to help train my boys.

So I created these flip cards with only five spaces on each day.

Creating Routine Flip Cards for the Littlest Homeschooler

Here is how to use them:

I created 2 sets of flip cards so that the days can be mixed and matched for more than one child.
There are 7 days with the names of the days of the weeks.
At the top of the card for each day is a happy face for them to mark off if they completed the routine. There is a sad face too but hopefully you won’t need to use that picture.
There are two pages of pictures for you to cut out and glue on the correct day.

One reason I didn’t add the pictures to the flip cards is because the routine changes each day.

Also, when my boys were that young and ready to climb in my lap, we would read aloud first.

Bed making didn’t come until after they ate breakfast and brushed their teeth.

Each child is different and your routine is different from mine because you know your child.

So you choose which 5 things that you want your child to do each day. One day they may begin with watering the plants and the next day you may want them to take their laundry to the laundry room on wash day.

After you print out how many of each page that you need, glue them on each day of the week and laminate it.
Then punch a hole and put it on a O ring. The beauty of this is too that your child can hold it and walk around with it. Then flip it to the next day and they are ready for the routine of the next day.

This is what I have found ideal after I trained my boys and it is what I would have preferred.

I was only able to do this with my last son but then again, my printable skills were not so hot then, but I still created it.

I hope you can use the printable I have now made and will enjoy many years using them.

Download the free printable routine flip cards here.

Hugs and love ya,

Also, check out:

6 Ways to Organize Your Homeschooled High School Teen

April 17, 2015 | 7 Comments
This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

Organization is not something we should just learn our self, but it’s a blessing we need to pass on to our homeschooled high school teen.

6 Ways to Organize Your Homeschooled High School Teen @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

Look at these 6 ways to organize your homeschooled high school teen.

1. Dedicated space.

Source: PBteen

There is nothing more important to helping your teen stay organized than having a place for “it all”.

From the time they start learning to drive until the time they graduate, they have a mounting amount of things to take up their space.

Like you, they too need to know that when they put something away, somebody else will not move it.
Having both a dedicated space to store their items and to study at will help them to learn to manage their space.

2. Coloring is for High School.

If you have a teen that loves to organize, then something that makes a young organizer get giddy is a not only a new set of high lighters, but a color coordinating system.

I allow high lighting in books at any level if it will help my boys retain their information.
Yes, I know the book won’t have any resale value, but I am foremost concerned with teaching my boys a method to study.
They are all visual learners and so having an easy system for remembering new words and key points when studying is one I encourage.
Finding answers to questions happens when the answer is highlighted or underlined.
Too help them develop a code for each color.
For example, we used green for new words, then reviewing material becomes a snap.

3. Written or Digital Planner.

Though I love techie things, I found that having a paper planner or just even a daily checklist if a planner sounds cumbersome to a teen was a better fit for us than a digital device.

Student Planner 15 min increments editable 1

Student Planner 15 min increments editable 2

(2 Page View for the Student Planner – Tracking in 15 minute increments.)

I managed my boys’ time on line and because being on the internet was something they could not do in private, we found it easier to manage their time through easy paper checklists.

4. Subject Balance.

Taking their notebooks, planners or checklists with them in their bedrooms gave my kids time to look over what they actually did versus what we planned.
Like us, they can over plan.
Learning to balance the time they spend on each subject is critical to keeping the flow to their day balance.
High school is the time to learn to organize subjects differently.
For example, like a lot of college or upper level subjects, they may tackle one or two subjects intensely and then move on to others.
What matters is what is accomplished at the end of a semester or at the end of however your track a school term.
Let them try different approaches to organizing the approach they take to school subjects while they live with you.
That is the time to see whether a creative idea works or not.

5. Paper Management.

Mr. Senior 2013 came up with his own system of managing pages for assignments for the week.
Actually, it was a perfect example of how our children will model our behavior if we put forth a bit of effort.
He adopted a system I had used for years, which was pulling the pages out of a workbook or printing them off for the week from the internet and placing them in an organized bin.

Homeschool High School Student Organization @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

One of the reasons I fell in love with this system was that it showed my kids what was expected each week and they could get started quickly without waiting on me to present their work to them for the day.
Nowadays, they call it a workbox system, but I still love organized bins that hold weekly assignments.
They are super compact if you are short on space and everybody can access them and see what is expected each week.

6. Supplies Matter.

Get your teen excited about an organized lifestyle by providing them with cool supplies.

Whether you’re starting a new school year or want to get your teen excited about organizing, sleek and snazzy supplies can infuse a crush for organizing.
One or two snazzy pieces to organize their supplies will give them a kick start to organizing.
In a world that teaches that we constantly need more of everything to be happy, our teens will be faced with the same decisions about trying to keep their lives clutter free.
Organize your homeschooled high school student now because organizing chaos never worked.
Organization at the high school level is not only the beginning to successfully learning how to follow a workable schedule but to mastering the skills needed for savoring life.

What about you? How do you organize your teen for high school?

100 Best and Easy Ways to Organize Homeschooled Kids

December 8, 2014 | 12 Comments
This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

I’m excited today to share 100 Ways to Organize Kids. When we share learning and living spaces, it’s difficult to say the least to keep the clutter corralled.

Too, it’s easier to train our kids from the time they can toddle to learn to put away their things than it is to wait until they are teens to develop the love of organizing.

Also, we need to provide kids a place to put away all their things.

The dreaded words of go clean your room do not have to be followed by moans and sighs because we have taken time to teach them where all their things do belong.

So, I have divided this page out by the troubled areas in organizing kids’ spaces so that you can grab a few tips that will make our organization efforts count!

100 Best and Easy Ways to Organize Homeschooled Kids

General Tips for Organizing Kids

Frugal Tips for Organizing Kids Room
Organizing the Unorganized Learner
Organizing tips from homeschool Moms
50 Clever DIY Storage Ideas To Organize Kids’ Room
Helping Disorganized Kids Become Organized
5 Ways to Develop Your Child’s Organizational Skills

6 Simple Successful Strategies for Homeschool
49 Clever Storage Solutions For Living With Kids
10 Must Do Ways to Organize Kids Things

Chore Charts

Dry Erase Chore Charts
Task Cards.
Free Printable Chore Charts for Kids
Free Printable Chore Charts
Free printable kid’s morning routine chart

Kid’s Routine Chart and Printables
KIDS’ ROUTINE CHECKLISTS
Free Homeschool Time Management Printables for Kids
FREE PRINTABLE CHORE CHART

Look at these other tips you’ll love:

Hugs and love ya,

This blog hop is organized by iHomeschool Network, a collaboration of outstanding homeschool bloggers who connect with each other and with family-friendly companies in mutual beneficial projects.

The Sticking Power of a Solid Homeschool Schedule

June 6, 2014 | 7 Comments
This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

The staying power of a homeschool schedule cannot be underestimated for the organized homeschooler. It takes time and self-discipline though to stick to a schedule.

POWER OF A HOMESCHOOL SCHEDULE

Too, I have a bit of trepidation in sharing about this topic.

It has been my experience that homeschoolers obsess worry about this topic more so than some other homeschooling issues.

Deep down they truly care how to fit everything in a day, maintain their sanity and identity, and strive to make the homeschool journey a memorable one for the right reasons.

The staying power of a homeschool schedule cannot be underestimated for the organized homeschooler. It takes time and self-discipline though to stick to a schedule. Click here to grab these tried and true tips for planning a schedule!

Sometimes they feel isolated because they think other homeschoolers manage their schedules better.

Doing what I love to do and sharing with you just two points that help me to organize and what sometimes {not always} comes easier for me, I hope to give you a gentle sweet nudge in the right direction.

You are not alone in your struggle to make it all fit in a day.

Homeschool Schedule Equals A Plan of Action

Visible Schedule. Achieving success starts by creating a visible schedule. I know, you may think that is stating the obvious, but I promise there is a fundamental, but powerful point here.

Understanding that your schedule needs to be visible is the first step to a well-defined plan of action.

This is a very fine and let me emphasize that again—very fine point—that makes a huge difference between the organized homeschooler and the wanna be organized homeschooler.

Having good intentions by going through your schedule in your mind keeps it just that – a thought.

It is not a call to action or a plan.

Staying in your mind is sort of like keeping it at brainstorming level or at a mulling over stage.

Too, if you have a creative solution for a hiccup in your schedule, then you want to quickly commit that to a point of action.

When a schedule is committed to paper (or any other location in your house) it becomes a plan of action. It has gone from abstract to concrete. Does that make sense?

Paper method is just one way that a schedule is visible. It is my preferred way, but it does not have to be your way.

Shocking Invisible Homeschool Schedules

Avoid schedule type mayhem. In addition, what type of schedule you create depends on which family members you want to make aware of it.

Don’t just jump out there in your enthusiasm to organize and create something that hems you in.

Carefully scrutinize the needs and ages of your household. It will change and your need for different schedules will change.

For example, when the kids were little and though I hadn’t moved away from stepping in sync with a public school schedule.

I still presented what worked for them at a very young age which was simply something hanging on the wall to talk about each day.

At that time though I still had my schedule down on paper though it was not necessary to share it with my young kids.

Also, having more than one place or location for your plan of action is a recipe for success.

How? Because you have just doubled your efforts to help you accomplish each task day by day by sharing it with your children.

Many hands do make the work light or in this case, keep all on task.

Children have a natural bent toward routine. If you want to be more organized, use that natural bent toward helping you to flow through a day with a better plan of action.

Homeschool Organization Means Communication

As your children grow older, they become self-starters and built in motivators when they don’t even know it.

On more than one occasion when my sons were very young, they would prod me by asking if it was time to start our school or task.

Then last year, I shared my Woo-Worthy Big Calendar by NeuYear that I had visible in my house for a while.

Even though I had already started downsizing for our move, a temporary command center was a must.

The ages of my children have now changed dramatically, but the need of a visible place to communicate my plan of action has not.

Whether you put your schedule in a student planner, your homeschool planner, on a wall, on your refrigerator, or a central place in your home, it needs to be visible to accomplish your plan of action for that year.

A homeschool schedule is the backbone of homeschool success and a visible schedule has helped me over more than one homeschool hurdle through the years.

However, a common mistake in creating a homeschool schedule that has sticking power is to plan hour by hour, minute by minute and what seems second by second.

Next, I will share a few tips so that your plan of action keeps you organizing instead of agonizing.

How many places do you post your homeschool schedule?

Want some more tips about scheduling?

Hugs and love ya,

organization

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

Download here December 31 Days of Dinner Ideas.

Homeschool Organization – Preschool/Kindergarten Free Morning Routine Flip Cards

Homeschool Organization

23 Things that can be included in the Morning Routine for a Preschooler or Kindergartener

Creating Routine Flip Cards for the Littlest Homeschooler

Download the free printable routine flip cards here.

6 Ways to Organize Your Homeschooled High School Teen