If you are a homeschooling Mom, you already know how hard it can be to prepare a good lunch every day of the school week for a groups of hungry children and still be able to get your housework done and assist the children in their own work….and get supper ready!

This is our 16th year of homeschooling and just as with curriculum choices, what to prepare and serve for lunch can sometimes be a matter of trial and error. My goal is to help you along with some of the poor and good choices I have made over the years and give you ideas for lunches so you won’t have quite as many errors as I have had!

Hot Lunch vs. Cold Lunch

While some people always insist on a hot lunch, I think we can find a balance here. There are some days when a cold lunch is just as nice and just as filling. The weather has a lot to do with what we eat. Cold days call for soups and stews, warm breads and muffins. Days when we are rushed for time and have errands to run may be good days for a quick, cold lunch or a lunch that can be packed and taken along.
You can also introduce Tea Time into your afternoon. As a homeschooler, you have that luxury of teaching your children how to slow down and read aloud while enjoying good food, tea and the company of others. Tea Time is a good time to offer snacks.

Here are some quick ideas for making lunch time more managable for your homeschool:
Plan Ahead - Make up your menu at least a week ahead of time. Factor in leftovers and meals for which you can cook once, eat twice. Plan on cooking for lunch and supper at the same time, often.

Set aside Lunch Food - Don’t let your family or yourself pilfer the lunch food during the week. That way you will have what you need come lunch time.

Choose Food that Helps Children Concentrate - Avoid foods that are high in fats and sugars. Choose whole grains, lean meats, fish and vegetables. Even a pizza can be a healthy choice if you make it with a whole grain crust and lean meat!

Schedule lunch for the same time every day. This helps children get into some good habits. Washing hands, cleaning up their work area and helping prepare lunch are all great ways to teach your children how to do things for themselves. Having lunch at the same time every day also teaches your children to wait and to have patience.

Practical Help
I usually plan on three hot meals per school week and two cold meals. Here are some lunch ideas for you to start with:
Hot Meal Ideas:

Whole wheat tortillas with cheese and/or refried beans

Chicken and Corn chowder with crackers

Potato soup

Canned chili beans and brown rice, shredded cheese

Crusty bread with vegetable soup

Whole wheat toast with peanut butter

Whole wheat toast with baked beans spread on top

Homemade chicken nuggets with honey mustard or ranch dressing

Cold Meal Ideas:

Apple slices and nut butter for dipping

Fruit and cheese, crackers

Raw vegetables and dip

Hummus and dippers

Homemade vegetable chips and sandwiches

© 2006 Sylvia Britton

The Children’s Bedrooms

We will begin with the children’s bedrooms so they can be all organized and clean.

Here are the basic instructions Mark three boxes or bags:
1) Give Away
2) Throw Away
3) Put Away or Store

Make decisions:
1) How much to keep
2) How to store things
Make some cleaning solution, use the cleaner of your choice. I use Mean Green and homemade Windex in the Kid’s rooms.

Strip the bed if needed, wash linens.
Take down curtains, put in the wash if you can. If not, hang them outside to air.
Declutter the closet.
Go through clothing and separate into the boxes you labeled.
Go through the toys and separate into the boxes.
Declutter and throw out trash, broken un-useable toys and junk.
Dust ceiling and walls, wash down walls if needed
Wash down the window frames, door frames and clean the windows.
Organize bookshelves, wipe them down.
Clean off dressers, wipe them down, replace items, but have your children decide what to keep and what to throw away. Talk to your child about personal space and how to keep it clean.
Dust and vacuum, sweep and mop… inside closet too.
Consider a closet organizer system.
Get some storage bins. We get one semi-large container for each child and tell them that when it is full, there can be no more stuff.
Check windows for air-leaks, caulk or weather strip

Check back tomorrow for the next room in our Fall Cleaning Session!

© 2006 Sylvia Britton

Time For Fall Cleaning!

More and more through the years that I have spent homekeeping I’ve realized the need for good seasonal cleaning twice a year. Everyone is aware of Spring Cleaning, but I started having a Fall Cleaning about 20 years ago. It helps me tremendously. Not only does Fall Cleaning get my house ready for a change of seasons, it prepares my home for homeschool, helps me prepare my home for the winter months ahead by winterizing and by my getting out the winter clothing and freshening it up.

In the fall, we all start spending more time indoors, and organizing is essential for homeschoolers and other-schoolers alike. We begin to have more people over to our home, home school groups and others all start to visit in the fall, I want to be ready for their visits with a clean organized home and goodies in the freezer. When we start to get back into a routine of school its so handy to be able to get back into the routine of knowing where everything is. The best way to prepare for a year of homeschooling is Fall Cleaning. If we clean now, we will have more time to devote to other activities around Thanksgiving and we can have a head start on Christmas if we choose wisely the type of cleaning we do now.

This year at T2CHK, I will give you a choice of rooms and areas to clean and a choice of how deep your cleaning will be. Your job is to read the instructions, choose what you will do, do it, and then report back here to encourage others and to add ideas about cleaning and organizing. Do as much or as little as you like, you know what your home needs. And keep in mind: “Winterize as you go.” We will take 3 1/2 weeks to clean. Commit to cleaning a little every week and you will have a cleaned, organized house before the month has ended!

We will begin with a list of areas to Fall Clean:

House Interior – All rooms including laundry room

House Exterior – siding, windows, sidewalks, decks, etc

Entrance ( inside and out) porches, steps, foyers

Basement – organizing, decluttering

Yard – picking up, trimming, planting mums, etc.

Now the days on which we will clean these areas:
September 5-6 Tuesday and Wednesday Children’s Rooms
September 7-10 Bathrooms
September 12-13 Master Bedroom
September 14-16 Living Room
September 18-19Dining Room or Spare Room
September 20-23 Kitchen
September 25-26 Laundry Room/Closet

Check back here at the T2CHK site for help in each of these areas. Clean along with us for a cozy, organized home this Fall!

© 2006 Sylvia Britton

One of the never ending tasks of housecleaning that I particularly hate is dusting! We have black furniture and as anyone who also has black furniture would know, it never really looks clean and dust-free for long. To me, dusting is a thankless job.

Because I hate dusting, does that mean that I don’t ever dust? Certainly not! I have learnt years ago that it is more important to first do the chores you don’t particularly like before going on to the ones you don’t mind as much. Why? In the natural world- because like anything neglected for any great period of time, it escalates. What should have taken at most 10 minutes, takes 20. Certainly, it is a matter of personal discipline to do that chore first- and to do it well. And in my walk with God, refusing to do chores I don’t like doing is symptomatic of heart issues.

By procrastinating, we are allowing it to ruin our enjoyment of life by causing unnecessary guilt. Far better to grab the duster, bite the bullet and just DO IT than let it play in the back of your mind and ruin a good day! Get it done as fast and as well as you can- then rejoicingly go onto the next task. The sense of accomplishment will buoy your spirits and not weigh them down like guilt caused through procrastination.

I also learnt years ago that putting off things I didn’t particularly like doing was not good for me. All day I would dwell on the chore I should be doing but was putting off. The whole day was spent with a nagging niggling thought- “I should be doing the dusting.” playing like a recording in my head. Yet I didn’t do it.

The turn around came when I realized that even dusting is a part of the plan God has for my life- being faithful in the little things is of great concern to God. The Lord called me to be a wife, mother and homemaker. It is an honourable calling. To be really happy in my calling, it was necessary for me to change my attitude and stop seeing myself as just a housewife. I am far more than that.

I have been entrusted with a calling that will last for eternity- being a good wife and mother. Everything I do or don’t do, is being noticed by my husband and my children- and God! My actions speak volumes about my acceptance of my calling as a godly wife and mother. My caring of not only them, but our home reflects my heart more than we can imagine. By not caring about them or my home, the lack of acceptance of my role as a godly wife, mother and homemaker, is shown up as if under a spotlight.

It took a lot of heart searching to realize that not doing the dusting was symptomatic of my not accepting the homemaking role as God’s calling on my life. I had to repent and ask the LORD for help in changing my attitude. And as always, He was faithful.

Do I enjoy dusting today? No! But I do it without grumbling now because I see that it is part of the calling into which God called me- and I have accepted it with gladness! By dusting and doing other chores that I don’t particularly enjoy, I am in effect surrendering to God’s plan for my life. Jesus says that if I am faithful in a little, I will be faithful in much.

Dusting is a small matter that leads to bigger heart issues. If I refuse to do that which I dislike and I am therefore found as untrustworthy, it is almost certain that God will not entrust me with more responsibility. What is seen as an insignificant act is of high significance in obedience and surrender- things highly significant to God. Do you do your dusting?

© Glenys Robyn Hicks

“He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much: and he that is unjust in the least is unjust also in much.” Luke 16:10