Breakfast Ideas

I am a big breakfast person. I want my kids to have a healthy, filling (and typically hot) meal each and every morning. And cereal is rarely on the agenda. (Not that we never eat it; I just save it for Sunday dinner so I don't have to cook on my rest day ;) But the rub is I don't want to spend a lot of time each morning preparing breakfast. I like to get up early but I want to spend that time drinking a cup of coffee or hot tea and reading, not in long prep time for a meal.

I think breakfast is a dying animal though. As a sort of experiment, I asked 10 friends what they gave their kids for breakfast and of the 10 every single one said pop tarts, cereal, frozen waffles and/or oatmeal from a packet. Sorry, but ewwwww! Below are some things we cook at our home and how I prepare them to try and minimize cook time on busy mornings. If you have other great ideas please leave a comment or better yet link a post on your blog. I am always looking for new ideas so we don't get bored!

Breakfast burritos: whole wheat tortillas filled with scrambled eggs, cheese and sausage or bacon (we use the all natural sausage and bacon to avoid nitrates/nitrites). Potato would also be a yummy addition...or substitution for the meat if you want to go vegetarian.

How I make it work: Burritos are our standard Sunday breakfast because we are out of the house by 7:45 am. We can throw these in the microwave and eat 'em in the car! Once every six weeks I cook a big batch of crumbled sausage and freeze it in one cup servings. I also cook a package of bacon and freeze it as well. Then each Saturday night I make scrambled eggs and add the defrosted sausage or bacon. I make up the burritos and wrap each one individually in wax paper. The next morning we throw each one in the microwave for 30 seconds and breakfast is served. :) I usually make enough so that we have these on Monday morning as well. When we eat 'em at home we add salsa and a side of fresh fruit. Yum!

Golden Pancakes/Egg Crepes: these are officially called golden pancakes (see the recipe in an old post) but the first time I made these Thatcher declared that he would call them Egg Crepes. ;) Of everything on our breakfast rotation these are probably my boys all-time favorite - and I love that they are full of healthy protein! I roll them up and the boys eat them like crepes. Haddon loves his filled with almond butter and dips them in maple syrup. I like mine with jam. Thatcher prefers his plain, and Beckett is just a syrup guy!

How I make it work: I make the batter the night before. It just takes a few minutes to throw all the ingredients in the blender and then refrigerate. In the morning just heat the pan and make your pancakes.

Pumpkin Oat Pancakes: These are not just my favorite breakfast but one of my favorite foods. Period! They are the standard pancakes in our house and so much more tasty than plain ones. Your kids will never know that you found a great way to sneak in all that beta-carotene. ;) See the recipe here in an older post.

How I make it work: Every 4 to 6 weeks I make a double or even triple batch of these for a Saturday brunch or dinner. I freeze what is left in sets of four pancakes each with wax paper between each so they don't stick together. Then in the morning when I wake up I take a set out and let them defrost. I like to heat them up in a skillet on the stove rather than in the microwave because they crisp back up and taste like you just made them.

Yogurt Parfaits: We don't do too much dairy in our house. The boys drink almond milk but we do some cheese and a little yogurt. And these are a fun way to enjoy that yogurt. I just layer homemade granola (recipe below), organic greek yogurt and frozen blueberries in a fun clear glass cup. My boys love it and it's our standard "breakfast in a hurry" around here.

Granola

***This is a good basic recipe and I love it as is. But you can make lots of additions or substitutions to make it your own. Add a cup of dried fruit, change the amount/kind of nuts, add more/less sugar, delete cinnamon, etc....Also this will stay fresh kept on the counter in an airtight container for at least 2-3 weeks, although it rarely lasts that long around here!!!

4 cups old fashioned oats

1 1/2 - 2 cups chopped raw almonds

1/4 cup light brown sugar

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp cinnamon

1/4 cup oil (I use grapeseed but any mild oil would be fine)

1/4 cup honey (generous 1/4 cup ;)

1 tsp vanilla (good mexican vanilla is my favorite)

1. Preheat oven to 300 degrees. In a bowl mix oats, almonds, brown sugar, salt and cinnamon.

2. In a saucepan warm oil and honey. Remove from heat and add vanilla.

3. Pour liquid over oat mixture and stir gently with wooden spoon. Spread in a baking pan.

4. Bake 40 minutes, stirring carefully every 10 minutes.

5. When finished allow it to cool completely and store in airtight container.

* If you want to add fresh fruit add it after granola has cooled. Sometimes we add dried cranberries, especially in the fall!

Oatmeal: Simple, traditional, classic, healthy and yummy! I like steel cut oats better than rolled oats. Thatcher likes his with melted peanut butter drizzled all over the top. I like mine with tons of cinnamon and walnuts added. Dh likes his plain. Best of all, it just costs cents per serving.

How I make it work: Easy, I make it the night before and then stick the whole pan in the fridge. In the morning when I wake up I put the pan back on the stove to reheat (add a little more milk if needed) and we're ready to go. I make ours with almond milk and a little honey. Serve with a side of blueberries or other fresh fruit and breakfast heaven!!!

Egg Puffs: These are my mil's creation. One time she was staying with us and came up with these and the boys love them. You basically scramble up some eggs, pour the mixture into greased muffin tins, add some cheese and/or some breakfast meat (my boys love ham - I usually use Hormel Natural Choice ham to again avoid nitrates/nitrites) and bake at 350 until the centers of each puff no longer jiggles.

How I make it work: I make these at night once the kids go to bed. When dh and I are hanging out and visiting I'll make enough of these to last for 2 breakfasts. The boys like them best in mini muffin tins because they love to pop the whole thing into their little mouths at once!

We make lots of other things for breakfast as well: peanut butter toast with turkey bacon and fresh fruit, french toast, over easy eggs with toast and fresh fruit and yes an occasional bowl of cheerios. :) But I just wanted to give a few recipes and ideas of things that can most easily be made ahead.

I hope someone gets inspired to revamp their breakfast menu. Leave me a comment if you have other ideas. We can always use some inspiration!

Twitter Here I Come!

Okay, with a little trepidation I'm finally launching myself into the Twitterverse. Only time will tell if this will be beneficial or simply one more thing that will drive me nuts! ;)

For you Twitter gals and guys, you can follow me at @JenneferatSSA

Excuse me as I tweet outta here...

Our Schoolroom 2010

I have not shown our schoolroom since this post back in 2007. This summer was the first time I made significant changes other than adding more and more books each year. ;) When it came time to organize our new materials, I realized there was just.no.room.left - at all. Plus we had stacks of books all over the floor in every available space...and that was before I unboxed this years' supply. We bought new shelves and since we had to move everything out anyway, we decided to paint, too. I was never crazy about the old color but this new color I adore! It's so warm and it looks great with the espresso colored shelves.

Our schoolroom is really a formal dining and is in the very front of the house. This is the first thing you see when you walk in our home.

Here is a full view (or as full as my camera would allow) of one wall.

Top shelf: poetry books and educational resource books for me; second shelf: discipleship resources and in the basket are handmade preschool games and activities; third shelf: science-related books; fourth shelf: math manipulatives; fifth shelf: misc. notebooks.

In the basket on the floor to the left of the shelf are current history supplemental books (I pull six weeks worth at a time). On top of center shelf are our school supplies. The two larger drawers on either side are mine and the center ones hold the boys' markers, twistables, glue sticks, scissors and crayons. On the floor to the right of the shelf are some big books for Beckett (mostly ABC and number books) for him to look at when he wants to be in there with us. On the actual bookcase's top shelf are Thatcher's materials we use daily (or close to it) and the bottom is for Haddon.

Top shelf: SOTW books and activity guides not currently in use as well as a few books from our study of the ancients; second shelf: books from the medieval and early modern periods; third shelf: modern history, Texas history and GeoPuzzles; fourth shelf: misc. chapter books; fifth shelf: more notebooks.

I love these maps! We have had them for three years now and they are one of the most utilized resources we own. Before each history lesson we circle in vis-a-vis where the area is we are studying. The boys are always coming over to look at something. Currently Haddon is really interested in the flags at the bottom of the world map. :)

This is our preschool board. I blogged about it in a previous post if you are interested. Beckett is loving it just like his brothers did before!

The full wall on the opposite side.

On top of this bookcase are our educational puzzles. The top shelf holds Spanish games and resources. The center shelf holds science books for Haddon's science basket - Let's Read and Find Out, Magic School Bus, Scholastic: Question and Answer and Usborne Beginners (science related titles only). The bottom shelf holds old scholastic leveled readers from my teaching days, Bob Books, Primary Phonics Readers and a few Nora Gaydos sets.

And just because he's only made my blog once, a photo of our sweet Wrigley! :)

School is Underway at Smooth Stones

We have now completed our first three weeks of school for the '10-'11 school year. We've had a great start, much better than I expected actually. This year Thatcher is in fourth grade, Haddon in Kinder and Beckett in pre-k. My days are so full but they are good.

For the first month of school I committed myself to going "off radar" meaning that I would cut out all but what was essential in order to establish good routines. I told myself I would do a few things each day: school with home phone off and Mommy offline (I keep my cell phone with me on mute for dh or in case of emergency), home-cooked healthy meals 3x a day, time in the Bible, enough of me at the end of each day to have something left for dh, exercise most days, a clean house and an early bedtime.

Those commitments have filled my day so much that I am not sure how I'll go back "on radar". Things like an occasional girls' night, time for blogging, nights to scrapbook every now and then and time on my favorite message board are all icing on the cake right now. I am really hoping to work these all in but it will be a gradual process. Today is a holiday and I am caught up on lesson plans and the house is clean so I am enjoying the luxury of blogging! :)

I have updated my sidebars to show what all we are doing this year. With Thatcher for the first time I am using an official science curriculum and we have really enjoyed Real Science for Kids (RS4K) Chemistry very much. Lessons One and Two of Writing Tales have also gone very well. This year we have really ramped up the amount of writing Thatcher does on a daily basis and he is doing wonderfully with the increase. It's a challenge for him but very much within his range of ability. We started the year with six weeks of review from Horizons 4 (using the worksheets provided in the TM) as well as introducing Daily Word Problems. We are also drilling math facts because they are still not at the point of automaticity. We are working through SOTW 4 at an accelerated pace (upcoming blog post) due to some of the emotionally challenging content included in this phase of history but Thatcher is loving it. He begs for history every day.

Haddon is loving Horizons K for math. He wants to do it first each day and does at least two lessons daily, sometimes more. Now that we have the colorful pages of Horizons, ETC has been dethroned as his favorite. :) Still it is proving to be a solid phonics program for now two children at Smooth Stones Academy. Haddon is becoming a solid reader on its merits, along with tons of practice with Mommy. He is enjoying his science book basket as well.

Starting school with Beckett has been one of my greatest joys this year. He is a strong-willed child and I expected the transition to mommy as teacher would be a tough one for him. I was wrong; he loves it! So far he is only doing Get Ready for the Code with me as well as our calendar board. He also watches Plazo Sesamo daily in preparation to start Elementary Spanish in first grade. Each thing he does with complete excitement. I know the newness will most likely wear off soon, but I'll enjoy it while it lasts! He also goes to our church pre-school two days a week and that is a fun break for all of us. :)

We still have quite a bit to tweak. A smoother start to our mornings (attitude being a struggle), more efficient use of our time so we are sure to get most subjects done every day, my getting in bed early enough so that I am prepared for anything the day brings my way among others are still areas that need improvement. But we'll get there.

I hope your new year has gotten off to an amazing start. This has been our best start so far and for that I am very grateful. Be encouraged if your beginnings have been a little more rocky. You can read about my very first day here. It was not pretty. ;)

Don Quixote Done!

I finally finished Don Quixote! It is the first book listed in The Well Educated Mind for the fact it is considered the first novel ever written. It was written in 1605 yet I was amazed at how common mankind's struggles are even after 400 years!

It felt like a huge accomplishment for me to finish all nine hundred and some odd pages because Quixote's insanity truly began to numb my brain after about the first four hundred! I keep a reading journal and summarized each.and.every.single chapter in the entire book. I was rewarded for this by the fact that I could orally summarize pretty much the entire book including all the major characters when I was done. The fact that there are over 600 characters in the novel makes this a triumph in itself! And still a month after finishing it I can still remember the majority of those details. I have always been a very fast reader but a week after finishing a book I can typically not recall anything but major themes and maybe a main character or two. A month after reading pretty much all the details are lost. After a year I can read the dust jacket and think, "Now did I ever read this book or not?" Sad but true.

Susan Wise-Bauer says in The Well Educated Mind, " Some books speak to us at one time of life and are silent at another. If a book remains voiceless to you, put it down and read the next book on the list." Even though I struggled with it, I persevered to the end of Quixote because I needed to prove to myself that I could do it. Actually I knew I could do it I just needed to know I would do it!

Francis Bacon says, "Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed and some few to be chewed and digested." I would say I took the middle road with this book. At the end I was so relieved to just be done, but after working through some of the elements of literary analysis that SWB lists in TWEM I found myself appreciating the book more and more. I still doubt that Don Quixote will rank as one of my top ten favorite books (actually I doubt it will make the top 50 when all is said and done ;) but it was a good start on my journey of self-education.

SSA Summer Conference 2010

Last summer I blogged about creating my own homeschool conference. This year we were out of town celebrating my in-laws 50th wedding anniversary the weekend of the local conference so I took the opportunity to again design my own! You can read about some of the nuts and bolts of what I did and how I did it in my old post to jump start your own planning if your interest is piqued.

What I love is that I can plan two days to meet my exact needs. I am a Classical homeschooler with strong Charlotte Mason leanings. I always say - and this is an oversimplication but still helpful so I share it - the Classical model is the head of our school and Charlotte Mason is the heart. You will see that reflected in the sessions I planned. I also have an Aspie so I devoted a session just to him. In addition, I have embarked on a journey of self-education to fill in the gaps of my own education and prepare myself for the high school years so I included a time dedicated to that as well. Like last year I used many different mediums; I read books, journaled, listened to MP3 downloads, researched websites, and checked out blogs and message boards.

Also you will see four sessions dedicated to time management. I am typically a productive person and a git-er-done kinda gal. Yet, I have known for some time that time management would be a huge issue and challenge for me going into this year. Thatcher is getting older and the increasing demands of his school mixed with the reality of his ADHD make for a busy day there alone. Haddon will be in Kindergarten and Beckett in pre-K as well. While Haddon's and Beckett's lessons are small compared Thatcher's work they still increase my responsibility load and I find I am ever juggling more balls. And with this, I am still committed to spending daily time with God, making my marriage a priority, cooking from scratch as much as possible, blogging, my own self-education, exercise, and spending time with friends among other things. Whew that makes me tired reading over what I just typed!

So here is my schedule from my two days with links to resources I used below.

Peace Hill Press MP3 - A Plan for Teaching Writing: Focus on the Elementary Grades

Tony Atwood's Complete Guide to Asperger's Syndrome

Simply Charlotte Mason MP3 - Reaching Your Child's Heart

Franklin Covey - Build a Personal Mission Statement (highly recommended!)

Peace Hill Press MP3 - A Plan for Teaching Writing: Focus on the Middle Grades

Richard Louv's Last Child in the Woods: Saving our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder

I hope someone might be encouraged to plan their own time away after reading this post. It was a highly motivating time for me and I felt refreshed and refocused at the end of the two days. No matter how you are planning to start the upcoming year, I hope you too feel the same way! :)

Why We Homeschool - Part Two

After six years on this journey, here are our reasons for homeschooling our boys:

1. Discipleship: One of the greatest privileges of motherhood is getting to pass the baton of faith to the next generation. Homeschooling allows me to oversee my boys’ spiritual formation every day, all the time. Deuteronomy 6:7 says, “You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.” We are to take every opportunity to talk to our children about the great love of our God and homeschooling allows those conversations to happen with greater frequency. And honestly it is not just about their growth; homeschooling has been a huge instrument of discipleship in my own spiritual journey.

2. Education is Life: I am borrowing from Charlotte Mason who said “Education is an atmosphere, a discipline, a life.” Our goal is to raise boys who value learning and have a desire to discover and grow all their lives. School isn't what we do from 8:00-3:00. It happens 24/7: in the car driving to a doctor’s appointment talking about how our bodies fight infection and when we are at the beach looking for crabs, clams and hermit crabs to observe. It happens on bike rides when we stop to rest and identify the birds flying by. It happens as we sit in our fort eating lunch and discussing what clouds are floating by and what weather they tell us might be coming. It happens when we are baking a half batch of chocolate chip cookies and the boys are working hard to figure out what is one-half of three-fourths. There is no (artificial) division between learning and fun. It is all learning and it is (mostly) all fun.

3. Tailoring my Children’s Education: Each child is unique with their own special gifts, talents, abilities and desires. I can design an education plan to meet each of their individual needs and incorporate their desires. If one is on grade level in math, ahead in reading and behind in spelling I can work with them exactly at their level. Rare (if ever) is a child exactly on grade-level in every single subject. My boys will never be frustrated because the teacher had to move on and they didn’t quite get it yet. Conversely, they won’t have to sit bored because others need more drill and review and they are ready to go forward. Also, if one’s interest is sparked by a subject, we have the ability to stop and dig deep; no one is forcing us to move on. About delight-driven studies I love what Gregg Harris has to say:

In a delight-directed study, a child’s interests are fanned to flame and supported in ways that increase his interest in his studies. The child’s delight is the spark that ignites everything. Once established, like a fire, it is self-sustaining. The student begins to study for his own personal satisfaction, and the fruits of his study begin to flow outward to others.

4. Efficiency: Dictionary.com defines efficient as, "performing or functioning in the best possible manner with the least waste of time and effort." There are so many ways that homeschooling fits this description. When you look at a typical seven hour school day in a traditional setting there is much that is necessary yet takes away from learning. One example is the time is takes to line up 20 wiggly students and walk across the school to get to art/music/PE/lunch/recess/library. I used to estimate that at least 30 minutes of every single school day was spent on these transitions x 5 days a week = 2 1/2 hours of just moving from place to place. Now add in roll call, morning and afternoon announcements, teacher’s time spent dealing with discipline, waiting in the lunch line, assemblies, packing up at the end of the day and much more and you realize there is a very sizeable chunk of time in school not spent learning.

Another way homeschooling is efficient is that we can be systematic in all we learn. We will not repeat a unit on Lincoln and Washington every February around Presidents’ Day. We will not study the life cycle of a frog or butterfly again and again and again. I can and have plotted a course of study that will provide a generous (in scope) and rigorous (in depth) education for my boys: we will study history chronologically from the beginning and work to modern times. We will study ancient history and biology in 1st, 5th and 9th grade each time digging deeper as they mature. Medieval history and earth science/astronomy will follow in 2nd, 6th and 10th. Early modern history (with a focus on American history) and chemistry come in 3rd, 7th and 11th. Finally we will conclude with modern history and physics in 4th, 8th and 12th.

5. Authentic Learning: It happens best when it is hands on and tied in with every day life rather than read from the pages of a text book. When we do study the life cycle of a butterfly or frog we actually order caterpillars and tadpoles and watch the amazing transformation happen before our eyes. In 4th grade when each boy will study Texas History we will pack up and head to San Antonio after reading The Boy in the Alamo to see the real thing. We will tour the state capital in Austin, the Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum and visit the Treaty Oak. We will travel to the San Jacinto Monument where the Texians defeated Santa Anna's Mexican army and then see Sam Houston’s gravesite in Huntsville.

Of course this can’t always happen (although I would love to take my children all over the globe to experience culture and watch history come alive for them) but it can be much more frequent in a homeschool environment.

5. Excellence and Rigor: I have mentioned some of the details of our planned course of academics above. In addition the boys will have solid foundations in math, reading, spelling and writing. They will all begin learning Spanish in 1st grade, add Latin in 5th and a third language of their choosing in 9th. They will have training in music theory and learn to play at least one musical instrument. They will read and be read to excellent and beautiful literature to grow their minds and prepare them for a study of the great books in high school. They will have classes in logic and rhetoric. As the boys grow older we will use whatever means necessary to maintain this standard of excellence and rigor for their education: online courses, dvd lectures, dual enrollment at a local junior college, tutors and whatever we feel necessary to maintain the course.

6. Family Unity: In a time where the family dinner has become a luxury for many, we enjoy time with our children - time to bond and unite. I know the mantra is "quality not quantity" and that may be true in some things but when it comes to children I am of the opinion that it is quality and quantity. Children need their parents and a lot of them. They need time to process and question and have someone there who can take all the time they need to address those questions. And by keeping them at home we allow that to be more of a reality for our family.

7. Socialization: This is typically seen as a negative of homeschooling but I consider it a huge positive. My friend, Heidi, at Mt. Hope Chronicles says, “ In my experience, children in recent times lose their innocence early and mature later, creating a 10-15 year (or longer) adolescence. My hope is to help my children retain their childhood innocence longer and encourage maturation. I want my kids to think for themselves without a herd mentality.” I could not agree more or say it any better. My boys are around people of all different ages, interests and abilities. They do not spend the majority of their time with same age peers day after day. Socialization is primarily the responsibility of the family and I do not want to give that over to a room full of children who by definition should be immature and somewhat foolish:

Folly is bound up in the heart of a child. - Proverbs 22:15

My children have plenty of time to pretend, build, draw, and run. They can finish their lessons with ample time for board games, nature walks and bike rides before soccer practice in the evening. My boys will be involved in community service, spend ample time with adults and family, and be involved in apprenticeships if they find a craft or trade they are interested in pursuing.

8. Flexibility: There is so much to be said for this aspect of homeschooling. In the beginning we schooled four days a week to spend extra time with dh on Friday, which is his day off. We have grown to need half days on Fridays but if we decide on a family outing we can make up lessons on Saturday or do a few extra evening lessons the following week. We have always done a typical 36 to 40 week school year but this year will try a six week on and one week off schedule to allow more time for rest and travel throughout the year - and less time to forget material over a long summer break necessitating needless review at the start of the next year (see #4 above). If someone is sick we can snuggle up and get ahead on our read-alouds, listen to audio books and play chess. If we come across a subject that is fascinating we stop and explore and if we come across an area that is just plain boring for that child we learn what we must and move on.

9. My own growth: One of the things I have absolutely loved most is learning alongside my boys. I have the opportunity to fill in the gaps of my own education! I never had a study in ancient history. Most of my high school teachers were near retirement and tired of the classics. I never read Shakespeare; I just had to memorize Mark Antony’s speech from Julius Caesar, nor did I ever have to read many of the books considered to be high school standards (although I was in honors courses all along the way). I was never taught literary analysis. My knowledge of geography is appalling -but rapidly getting better ;) and even though I took Spanish all the way through Spanish V we joked that the class was mostly about siestas and fiestas.

I have started my own study of the Great Books using The Well Educated Mind as my guide and am checking out Teaching Company DVD’s from the library. I am eager for all the future holds in this regard.