Getting Ready to Start up again

[Nealewill]

I don't know about all of you but I am getting so excited. We start back to school on August 3rd. We will have school for one full week and then go on vacation for the next week. Then we are back at school full time.

When are you all planning to start up?

[rumkimom]

I am planning on starting up on Aug 3 also. My older son has camp next week or we would be starting earlier. LOL We have done work all summer long though (2-3 days instead of all of them) because otherwise they forget too much.

[MomtoJGJE]

We don't normally take huge amounts of time off, but this summer between camps, vbs, and life we've taken about a month COMPLETELY off. Next week my oldest has a mission trip and the next week we are at the beach. So I decided this week that we were at least going to do math and English. And I'm reminded of why we never take large amounts of time off We will get back at it with regularity the 10th.

[Mumkins]

September 8th. My youngest DD finished the end of May, so it's been a BIG break. I have kids in school too, so trying to homeschool with them still home wouldn't work. Excited to be brining my oldest home for highschool. First time teaching highschool. So excited!

[Rice]

We farm, so summer is off. We'll start back in September. PS doesn't start till Sept 9 this year, though, but I'd like to start the 2nd. We'll see who wins (me, or the kids still wanting to have time with cousins!). I don't know how those of you in the US fit all 35 weeks in before the end of May!

[Nealewill]

We usually get our 35 weeks in because we start in August. I like having 10 months to do school over because we usually take a lot of time off during the year.

[momxnine]

We're starting up on Aug. 3rd also. I've been busy reading and getting ready! It looks like we've got a great year coming up (RevToRev). I've never started this early before, but I'm determined to get done by May 1st next year because that seems to be when "Spring Fever" hits the worst and I want to be done.

[rumkimom]

Our school year usually goes to the end of May. PS here ends mid-late June so we are still done before them. We do continue to do some stuff in the summer though.

[Mommamo]

We started Monday! We consider ourselves year 'round schoolers, but we took off longer than normal this summer for a variety of reasons, trips, camps and such. So we've been off 7 weeks. We'll school 6-8 weeks on, 1 off throughout the year, with a longer break at Christmas. This is also our first year back to *everyone* doing HOD after a 1-1.5 year break, and it's going WONDERFULLY! I'm so excited that we're back. Our days are every so much smoother.

[StillJulie]

August 17th here!

I've been inserting notebook pages into page protectors, copying map treks, locating books, etc. Big job for six different guides!

[rodandmegs]

We are starting back Monday, July 27! I had planned to start august 3, but my kids are so excited about their new books that they begged me to start Monday! I have to admit, I'm pretty pumped to begin myself.


Www.myfullhandsandheart.blogspot.com

[jjn3beans]

We've already started, the week after the 4th, though we had a week break for July 4th and the girls will be at grandma's for a week the first week of August. We'll go full on until October, when we can have a week break. I normally do 4 weeks on and 1 week off, but those 2 things will eat up some of those weeks. I'm happy to be getting into a routine again. I was really bored, and the girls were as well.

[Little Women]

I've been wanting to start already, but I think I'll do it August 3. My dd has one more week of dance intensive, so we'll get going when she's done.

[Nealewill]

I am excited to see so many are starting right about the same time as us

I finally hunkered down this morning and tackled my schedule. If I could post an excel document, I would post it. It is looking good to me. This year, when I did my scheduling, I scheduled quite a bit of slack! I also scheduled to have off 1.5-2 hours for lunch time every day. And one final change is I am planning to start school a bit earlier in the day this year. We usually start school around 9:00 but this year I am starting at 8:00. My husband works out in the morning from 6:00 - 7:00 3 days a week. I told him that when he gets home from his work out I would like for him to wake the kids and get breakfast ready before he leaves for work this year. I am trying to work from home from 5:00 AM to 8:00 AM most days. This way I can get the majority of my work out of the way for the day leaving me plenty of time to focus strictly on my kids. I am trying to cut back on how much I work this year too. I want to keep it under 20 hours a week if I can. That means limiting the volume of classes I teach. I usually work on my regular accounting stuff first thing in the AM and then teaching my accounting classes after dinner (I am lucky to be able to teach mostly online). This helps me focus more on the kids all day if I can.

I also told my hubby that I want to set up a better food schedule this year. I feel like we are such in the habit of make your own thing all the time but no one eats the same thing and the kids are getting pickier and have bad attitudes too much along with wasting too much time being indecisive. No more of that! This summer I implemented the kids helping with dinner each week and it has been a huge blessing. I am looking forward to more of that this coming school year. For breakfasts I told my hubby I want a once a week regimen type of thing. So Mondays we have pancakes and eggs, Tuesdays we have egg casserole, Wednesday we have something else or leftovers, Thursdays the kids are on their own - I like to buy premade breakfast sandwiches or they can have cereal - I buy cereal with added protein, and Fridays either muffins or banana bread. I am planning more crockpot meals or easy meals for dinner with my children each helping once per week. For lunch - I have no idea what to implement yet. I am thinking that once a week we have make your own pizza - I get the dough that you mix together and the kids can load the pizzas with whatever toppings they want, once or twice per week we will do freezer meat - like oven baked fish or chicken nuggets (I hate these because they aren't healthy but they can eat yogurt and fruit with it), we will have some left overs at some point and I may make extra for dinner on purpose for just this reason, and we can have skyline too - that is Cincinnati style chili, I make it with venison and it is really healthy and good. I think that is my big area for next year. I feel like my schedule is solid and my kids will work hard for the most part but I am zonked once it comes to making food. I am also thinking about doing once a month freezer cooking/preparing. It takes a good 2+ hours to warm things up but if I can get to the point that I remember to put something in the oven every day by 3:30, then I am good to go. Make sense? I just want life to get a little bit easier here.

My final area of improvement I am praying about implementing more physical activity. I am starting a list of things the kids can do, like running up and down the steps 10 times or jumping on the trampoline doing cartwheels and flips for 5 min., or climbing the rock wall on their playset for a certain number of times. We even purchased the game fitivities and my kids love that thing. I would like to get the kids running 1 mile a couple times a week too. I am looking for 15-20 minutes of targeted and planned exercise a day. It isn't much. But we will see how this goes. About 3 months ago I started exercising for 45-60 min 4 times a week. I have more energy and feel so much better! My husband's side of the family (both) has a strong history of type 2 diabetes. My family has a strong history of heart problems. We do play sports and encourage them as an easy way to get exercise. This summer we have gone swimming every day possible. But once all the neighborhood kids are back in school and we are doing school all day, I fear we get more sedentary and that is just not good. My mission is to get moving LOL. Unfortunately - it isn't necessarily my family's mission so we will see how it goes I am just praying about!

Anyone else have anything they are planning to work on to make their day run smoothly once the year starts?

[Jennymommy]

Good ideas, Daneale I remember a post from last year about easy meals for busy moms...I think I need to revisit it