Filling the freezer day 1 -

Inspired by OAMC (once a month cooking) and baking day blogs, I decided to spend a day cooking and see how many meals I could ready for the next couple weeks. Wednesday I did the bulk of my cooking,
I started by putting beans in the crock pot to make refried beans,
next I put a whole chicken in my soup pot and added seasoning,
then 3 lbs (out of a 5 lb roll) of ground beef was browned and divided in half.
While things are cooking I mixed up dough for a loaf of bread and an extra large roll of Cinnamon rolls ( I plan on making for breakfast this weekend when Z's friends are here for a sleep over).
Half the burger I mixed with taco seasoning and bagged for the freezer for quick tacos
the other half I used to make a lasagna for the freezer.
The remaining 2 lbs of ground beef I made into 2 meatloaves and froze.
When the bread came out of the oven Caden and I made monster cookies, 1 dz we made to eat now and another 3 dz we flash froze before cooking and put in the freezer.
I mixed up the dry ingredients for pizza dough and put in a Ziploc in the pantry.
Then I cooled and shredded the chicken, bagged and froze for a quick chicken meal. I was able to freeze 2 lg containers of broth to use in soups and dumplings (homemade broth is so much better than canned).
Finally I finished the beans bagging some for the freezer and keeping some out for bean and cheese burritos.

Filling the freezer day 2 -

Yesterday I made pancakes for breakfast, I made a triple batch of batter and ended up with a dz pancakes to flash freeze and bag for quick breakfasts.
Then I cooked rice and when cool bagged to lg bags to freeze ( frozen rice works great added to casseroles or dishes ) I also use it to make rice pudding.
I made 3 banana breads (one is gone already, we love this banana bread).
Cut up a roast I had bought on sale, half Harry used for beef and noodles, the rest we froze to use for stew.

Today I will finish up by cooking chicken breast in the crock pot to chunk up, mix with mushroom soup and freeze for chicken and rice
I will also be cooking a deer roast in the dutch oven to shred, BBQ sauce and freeze for future BBQ sandwiches.
Finally today I will make tortillas and put together the bean and cheese burritos and freeze.

All said It went well, I spent about 5 hrs on day one and 2-3 hrs the other days, I think in the future I could do it all in just 2 days. It really helps having things fixed and ready for meals on the days that I am so busy and needing to study... Here is what I have for the next 2 weeks

1. taco meat, shredded cheese, refried beans (ready to go) just add shells and toppings
2. Chicken and rice (ready to dump in crock pot and go)
3. lasagna with garlic bread( ready to bake)
4. stew meat and veggies (ready to dump in pot and season) will need to add tomato sauce.
5. meatloaf x2
6. bean and cheese burritos
7. BBQ sandwich x2 (ready to heat and eat)
8. chicken and broth for chicken and dumplings
9. shells and cheese with garlic bread (ready to bake)
10. pizza

plus breakfast items of pancakes, banana bread, rice for rice pudding and Cinnamon rolls.
Done!

Home school report for January 30th -



The weeks are definitely going better without mom having to attend college classes 2 days a week. The online RN program is difficult, but worth it for us. This week we attended the home school co-op on Monday afternoon. Caden's class is studying honey bees, he is also participating in choir, Zach is in guitar classes and hand bells. Autumn is not involved in the co-op this year but she using the time to work on her independent work. The boys will be making valentines for a class party next week. This week at home we covered...



Autumn :

Math - a review of ch. 1-3 in geometry this week, she is having trouble remembering some of the concepts & we continue to go at her pace in this area.

Science - properties of water in chemistry

Literature - read Ilyas by Tolstoy, The Mansion by Henry Von Dyke, The Brothers by Bjornson. Ilyas was her favorite.

Vocab/ spelling review of roots; ven,vent,ali,alter,log,logy,omni and the prefixes; peri,ante,un,hypo,sur,ante.

Writing - continues with dictation exercises and free writing

geography - southern states, we plan to go out for Cajun food next week to wrap up our study of Louisiana.



Zach:

math - fractions/decimals

Science - plant kingdom studied molds, moss and mushrooms. We have a mold experiment in progress...

grammar - word usage ( lay/lie, set/sit ect..)

spelling - learning rules ( Z is such a poor speller, we are starting with the rules and phonic instruction to see if it helps)

writing - continues with dictation exercises and free writing

geography ( as above)

music - lesson each week and in home school group



Caden:

math - horizons finished lesson 20 ( doing great in math)

science - studying plants, attempted to a bean seed ( it never sprouted will try again this week, read aloud the trellis and the seed, & cactus hotel. We studied how water travels up a stem.

story time - we are reading a pioneer sampler (both boys love this book , so do I)

copy work - least favorite subject, we copy selections from poems, history, science, and spelling words.

history - continue with early life for the Pilgrims, made ice cream ( use HOD)

reading - phonics using Noah Webster's reading handbook



yesterday we added a small unit study on snowflakes to take advantage of the 6 inches + that fell here over the last 24hrs. We made snow cream, looked at snowflakes, learned why snowflakes form the way they do (hexagon shaped) and read the poem To a snow flake.


Blessings Lisa

The week has had it's ups and downs in the homeschooling area, even after almost 2 yr of algebra Autumn is still having some problems with the concepts..today's lessons were

math - review of midpoint formula, finding slope and intercept and solving equations.
In literature - this week she has read The Bells by Edgar Allen Poe, Lochinvar by Sir Walter Scott with discussion on rhythm and pattern in poetry. Also she read What men live by by Leo Tolstay.
in vocab - today's study was the latin root van/ vant, the prefixes peri & hydro, the suffix ment.
chemistry - the discovery of inert gases & Daltons atomic theory
geography - New York city & upstate.



Z - spelling - lesson on adding suffixes to words ending in ce, de, dge
grammar - subject verb agreement
math - radius, diameter, circumference of a circle
science - Hidden Treasure moody science video
geography - New York city and upstate.
reading - historical fiction, a pioneer sampler



Caden - copy work spelling rule on c/k sound
played the exclamation game
math - place value tens and ones plus review of number line, counting by 10's
science - Hidden treasure moody science video plus activity on building a bay (see below)
history - reading about the first winter at Plymouth
reading - historical fiction a pioneer sampler



This is a pic I snapped of Caden playing with his boat, we made a bay out of play dough after reading how the pilgrims sailed into the bay at Plymouth.





The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the holy is understanding. Proverbs 9:10
blessings,
Lisa