There are few sanity savers with more impact than having homemade meals in the freezer. The problem is getting them there! This week we’ll take on that challenge so you can have more stress-free nights this fall. Let’s get cooking!
#1 Decide on an approach
When we think of freezer cooking, we tend to think of it as an exhausting marathon. And it absolutely can be one! I have spent hours shopping one day and another day on my feet cooking. I have had the problem of not liking the recipes (be sure to see the meal planning challenge or my free meal planning ebook for how to fix this!) or of being downright phobic of ever repeating the process again!
Fortunately, there is another way. Just as you don’t have to go from the couch to marathon running, you can start off slowly when it comes to freezer cooking. The simplest approach? Make a double batch of a favorite, freezable meal and pop it right into the freezer. I love it! Unless you do this a lot, you don’t even need a lot of freezer space.
As you get comfortable, you can freeze more of the same meal (at one point I was making eight batches of one dish a week–something I could never do now that I have teenage boys!) or you could freeze a smaller number of meals, often made for the same cooking approach (like the crock-pot) or using the same kind of meat.
Yet another alternative is to work with a friend either to assemble the meals together or to make different options and exchange. I’ve talked about doing this many times, but haven’t. If you have, I’d love to hear what you think!
If you’re not sure where to start, I encourage you to start with doubling once a week and work up from there.
#2 Choose recipes and create a shopping list
If you’re going to use a pre-made plan with recipes and a shopping list, this part will be easy. But remember how much time and money could be wasted if you don’t like the recipes! Even if you double a new recipe, it will be disappointing if you hate it. I will say that I have been very happy with the freezer cooking plans from Saving Dinner. But we’re all different!
If you’re going to make your own favorites for the freezer, consider meals you like having regularly or meals that require more preparation. I always freeze homemade lasagna, because it does take more time. Then I can either enjoy it another night, or I have a perfect meal to bless someone else with.
If you’re not sure if something you like would freeze well, consult this link.
Once you have your recipe(s), you’ll need to create a shopping list. Be sure to include freezer bags or freezer containers for your meals! There are a number of options for creating that list (including good old-fashioned paper), but I am in awe of the new option available at Plan to Eat [affiliate link]. Plan to Eat will not only generate a shopping list for you based on the recipe you’re making, but will keep track of how many of the same freezer meal you’ve planned on the calendar. Check it out!
#3 Shop and prep
If you’re going to do a marathon freezer cooking session, you’ll need extra time to shop and possibly some help, depending on the size of your family. If you’re just going to double up on a meal, you’ll be able to do your regular weekly shopping with no problem. On Plan to Eat, if you just want to make two batches of a recipe, just double the servings and your list will be updated in turn.
Even if you aren’t freezer cooking, it’s a great idea to prep for the week’s meals when you get home from the store. Get fruits and veggies in ready-to-eat shape. Brown hamburger and put chicken in the oven. If you will be doing a big freezer cooking session, prepping items today will make it less likely that you’ll collapse tomorrow!
#4 Assemble your recipes
If you’re doubling up on one recipe, this will be easy peasy. If you’re doing a marathon session, you’ll be thankful you set up everything you need in advance. Put out the measuring cups, markers, freezer bags, etc. I put on an apron and line plastic pitchers with freezer bags for assembly. It makes it so easy!
If you have kids who are old enough to help, let them! If not, and you’re prepping a lot of meals, see if you can get child care help. I’ve asked my husband to take the kids out for fun with him when they were younger. It worked great!
One more thing: if you’re going to do an all-day cooking session, make sure to wear good, supportive shoes. If you’ve ever done it, you know why!
Have you ever done a big freezer cooking day? What did you think?
Homeschoolers tend to spend a lot of time organizing their school spaces and that makes sense. But it also makes sense to organize the most-used room in your home. This week we will focus on making our kitchen kid-friendly, so kids can help themselves, and you can save time.
#1 Organize dishes and cups
The younger your children, the more important it is to put children’s dishes where they can access them. Even though my youngest is now eight, I still keep all of the plastic cups in a big bottom drawer next to the refrigerator. It’s really fast to throw them all in there when the dishwasher is unloaded. Where is the most time-saving, accessible place for you to store kids’ plates and cups?
At the same time, it’s important to store dishes you don’t want your kids to use out of reach. I bought over-sized bowls (I ADORE Corel dishes) and while I love them for certain things, they take up way too much room in the dishwasher. I also don’t want the kids using them for cereal. I’m spending a fortune on cereal already. So I put these bowls up high.
#2 Set up snack centers
I think my kids are more interested in what they will have as a snack than just about anything else. I can’t really blame them! I love a good snack, too.
This week, you will set up an organized, fix-it-and-forget it system for kids to (hopefully) get their own snacks depending on their ages. First, you may need some ideas for healthy snacks. Here is a list of 50 ideas. Then you may wish to portion them in individual servings and store them in the refrigerator or in a plastic bin. That may be all you need to do today!
But if you have a child who turns his nose up at fruits and veggies, you may want to set up a snack shack for the kids. A fellow homeschooling mom shared the idea with me years ago and it’s ingenious. Here is how it works:
Make up a menu list of snacks that you will have on hand, including the less healthy options your child likes
Set prices for snacks, making fruit and veggies free and less healthy foods more expensive
Give kids paper money for the week (I gave my kids $5 a week)
Turn any leftover money at the end of the week into real cash
If you’d rather not take the time to operate the snack shack yourself, you could put an older child in charge. To make this an educational activity, shop with your child for snacks and use an app like Fooducate to determine what the prices should be for various snacks they like. If you have a child who doesn’t eat enough, I don’t recommend the snack shack! I had boys who would go without snacks just so they could collect the money. Go figure.
If you’d like to give the snack shack a try, I’ve created a free printable for you. You may want to laminate it and post it on the fridge with dry-erase items and prices. Or you may want to use permanent marker in case your child “accidentally” changes the prices!
#3 Move seldom-used items
My goal is for the kids to be able to help me as much as possible. If I have all kinds of pans and gadgets I never use cluttering up my kitchen, the kids will struggle to find what they need to make their own lunches and help make dinners. If you haven’t used something in the last year, either declutter it or get it out of the kitchen today. I store seldom-used items in my basement storage area. It’s better to have to purchase something you end up needing again than to waste time in the kitchen.
#4 Organize for kid cooking
Today, ask one of your younger children to help you cook. Pay attention to how you can put things at lower levels and label them, or put items where your child looks for them first. Take advantage of the space behind cabinet doors for listing what can be found there and use descriptive names kids understand like “spaghetti pot” rather than Dutch oven.
#1 Get the lay-out lists for the grocery stores you shop in
Near the front entrance of most stores is an aisle list for the most common ingredients. You’ll want this so you can put your shopping list in the order the items appear in your store. If a store doesn’t have one, take time to go through the aisles noting the numbers (if any) and what can generally be found there. You can also do this with a grocery shopping app.
#2 Create a master shopping list
If you did your meal plan on paper, you’ll now combine totals for all ingredients needed to make the meals on your plan. In other words, you’ll know you need 8 pounds of chicken breast total for the month. You may wish to create a paper grocery list that is organized according to the aisle layout you obtained.
If you’re using a digital meal planner like Plan to Eat, the shopping list will be automatically generated for you. However, depending on how you entered the recipes, you may find that some of the ingredients aren’t listed for the correct aisle. This is where your aisle list can come in handy! Make sure all items are categorized properly so you don’t have them listed in different sections.
#3 Finish creating shopping list
To save the most time possible, you’ll want to have a master list of non-food items to purchase as well. If you don’t know how many items like paper towels and laundry detergent you purchase in a month, make note of the date you purchase them next and the date you run out for future planning. When you know how much of something you need each month, you are better able to take advantage of coupons and sales for bulk shopping.
If you don’t feel like being that organized, you can continue to organize the shopping list for your meals and just add these extra items to your weekly shopping list as needed. Your weekly shopping list will be much smaller with the advance shopping you’ll be doing.
#4 Shop and put items away
When I do monthly shopping, I go to two stores and have multiple carts. I need a clean vehicle and a helper or two. I definitely need space cleared for storage and lots of help to put items away. I recommend shopping when you have the most energy! If you’re using coupons or shopping sales, make sure you have everything you need organized. Oh, and don’t forget your purse! Yes, I have done this.
When you’re done, you will have saved lots of time in the upcoming month and probably money, too!
Last week we cleaned out the pantry by making some recipes to use up those orphaned ingredients. This week we’ll decide what to eat for the next week or even next month, so we have time to do what we love best!
If you don’t have a copy of The Once-and-for-All Meal Plan, I invite you to get it when you subscribe. If you don’t like blog posts in your inbox, you can choose the weekly or freebies only option. When you read it, you’ll understand how to create one meal plan that will work for you and your family, no matter your taste or needs. Now on to this week’s challenge!
#1 List favorite dinners plus one new recipe
To create a workable meal plan, you need a list of meals your family loves that you know you’ll actually make. It’s no use for me to write down my husband’s family lasagna recipe. We love it, but it takes a long time to make, so I save it for special occasions. For this challenge, just write down regular weeknight meals that you like. You can definitely get the whole family involved in this week’s challenge!
After you have a list of regular favorites, write down (or pin) one new recipe that you want to try. I’ve created a form, called the What We’re Eating Form, to make this an easy process.
But what I love is how easy it is to add recipes to Plan to Eat (affiliate link because I’m crazy about it). If you’re like me and don’t have a recipe for some of your meals, search for a similar recipe on AllRecipes. When you find it, you can automatically add the recipe to your Plan to Eat recipes, modifying it if necessary before you save it. It’s easy with the Plan to Eat browser extension.
But here’s the really exciting part. You can also add new recipes you find on Pinterest to your list of recipes on Plan to Eat. Just click the pin to pull up the original recipe and use your browser extension to add it to Plan to Eat. I would love for you to follow my Dinner Recipes to Try Board on Pinterest. You might find a recipe you’d like to try, too.
If you have to manually enter a recipe to Plan to Eat, it’s so easy! But you can absolutely do the same with paper.
Repeat the first process for breakfasts, remembering not to add time-consuming recipes to your list, unless you will really take the time to make them. Of course I have a Breakfast Recipes to Try board, but what do you think of this Pumpkin Pie French Toast recipe? Yummy.
#4 List favorite snacks or desserts plus one new recipe
By now, I bet you’re getting the idea! If you have snacks or desserts, list your favorites and find a new recipe to try. If you follow me on Pinterest, you’ll see the snack and dessert recipes I pin and I find some great ones! When you’re done with this last step, you will have made great strides toward avoiding the indecision that can keep all of us from getting and staying organized.
My passion is for language arts. I especially love to teach writing to my own and friends’ children. I started thinking about how I could combine my passion for writing with Classical Conversations and stayed up late creating a list of 96 creative writing prompts to go with Cycle 3.
You can use these writing prompts even if you don’t use CC
If you don’t use Classical Conversations, I think you will enjoy these creative writing prompts that you can use with your studies of American history and geography and human anatomy.
These writing prompts are flexible
You could assign one a day during the week. You could choose one or two per week or let your child choose. You can also adapt these writing prompts to your child’s ability. If your student isn’t proficient in handwriting or typing yet, have him dictate his writing to you. Or, allow her to use the dictation feature on your phone. If you want to include older students in your Foundations memory work, you can ask them to do some background research for some writing prompts.
These writing prompts will help your children memorize
Kids who don’t like to write usually respond to fun assignments like these. Writing creatively about the material is very helpful in memorization. The added benefit, of course, is your children will continue to improve their writing skills.
All 96 writing prompts are available to subscribers
I’m sharing the first three weeks of writing prompts with you and all 24 weeks’ worth with my subscribers for free. I hope you enjoy them!
Week 1
History: Write a letter to Columbus warning him not to make the mistakes he made.
English: Write a funny sentence beginning with an infinitive in this format: To __________ or not to ____________; that is the question.
Science: Write an argument from one type of tissue why it’s the most important.
Geography: Write which of the capitals this week is hardest to remember and why.
Week 2
History: Write where you would like to have landed (instead of Plymouth) on the Mayflower and why.
English: Write a funny sentence that begins with a present participle.
Science: Write a story about waking up and realizing you have no axial skeleton.
Geography: Describe Trenton from New Jersey.
Week 3
History: Write a story about a colonist who showed up in a different costume for the Boston Tea Party.
English: Write a two-word sentence that includes a past participle.
Science: Write what would happen to you if one of your muscle kinds became huge.
Geography: Pretend that you are Columbia, South Carolina. Write about how you hate being confused with the country of Colombia, South America and what makes you a great place to live.
I started using Life of Fred when my oldest (now beginning his first year of college) was a fifth grader. I had read a review of Life of Fred and thought it sounded perfect for my son who was a voracious reader. Rather than present basic formulas with lots of mathematical equations to solve, Life of Fred read like a story about a kid named Fred. Fred encountered many funny situations that required math. The author would speak directly to the student and would offer not pages of problems, but a “turn to play.”
Life of Fred with Advanced Learners
My oldest, an advanced learner, loved it! I often found him chuckling while doing math. I found him motivated to get at least 9 of 10 problems correct so he could pass the “bridge” and not have to do a different set of ten problems. As a psychologist, I thought this approach was genius. Why should a homeschooled student want to complete a page of problems when he would just be faced with another?
My son sailed through the books until Algebra. I should say that he used Beginning Algebra before the curriculum was revised. Then it sat there untouched. I explained to him that he could be doing college-level math while in high school if he would complete the books quickly. That motivated him as did the fact that his private-schooled friends had completed algebra ahead of him (he’s a little competitive). He then flew through beginning and advanced algebra, geometry, and trigonometry and was so enamored with it that he wanted to major in math in college. Then he took Calculus BC AP through Pennsylvania Homeschoolers. He did well, but told me that college math wasn’t nearly as enjoyable as Life of Fred. My oldest didn’t use any other math curriculum in conjunction with Life of Fred and scored very well in math on the ACT.
Life of Fred with Different Learning Styles
After my oldest son’s success with Life of Fred, I assumed that all my children would use it. Then I presented it to my second oldest son (two years younger). He hated it. I was stunned! He also liked to read. What was the difference? My second oldest is a detail-oriented young man of few words, so he couldn’t really explain why he didn’t like it. I had him using traditional curriculum instead until last year. Because he is meticulous, it was taking him a very long time to get through traditional math texts with oh-so-many problems. And he wasn’t happy about not doing them all. You know the type, right? I finally convinced him to give Life of Fred another try and he is happy as a high school junior, for nothing else than he doesn’t have too many problems to solve.
I also have a freshman in high school, a third grader, and a fifth grader using Life of Fred without any difficulty this year. They don’t complain about math and that makes me happy! But I have a son who has had some challenges you should know about. My 7th grader just wants to get the work done. I bet you know that type, too! He is using Pre-Algebra with Biology and will tell me that he hasn’t been given the information he needs to solve the problems. It’s nowhere in the book, he says. To be fair, he does this with other subjects, too. But I have since realized that this is a concern for kids who want to see a mathematical example of what to do at the top of the page. If you have a child who has trouble maintaining focus or comprehending what he is reading, this may not be the best curriculum for you. However, I will say that I am so glad this curriculum has pointed out the problem with skimming material to my son. He can’t rely on the little cheat for how to do the problem that he is used to from using Mastering Essential Math Skills last year. He has to remember what he is learning. The bridges are super motivating for him, too.
Other Issues
My children haven’t started with the elementary books because they weren’t available when I invested in Life of Fred. I sought out other options. I have read critiques that there is not enough focus on memorizing math facts in elementary math. I haven’t verified that, but I do recommend doing everything possible to ingrain math facts in your children’s heads. I have talked about using Learn Math Fast for this purpose. I love its 30-second and one-minute tests that have to be passed before students can continue. I am also enjoying using the free online flashcards from Fact Monster. Nothing motivates my kids to commit facts to memory more than a treat of some kind. Hint, hint.
Conclusion
Life of Fred math is a superb curriculum for advanced learners, for students who prefer to learn math by reading, and students who are motivated to mastery by getting out of work. Students who prefer to focus on numbers or who struggle with reading comprehension, may not like it. Check out the sample pages on Life of Fred.com and these additional reviews:
I’m a Christian psychologist turned homeschooling mother of six. My life can be a little crazy, so I look for sanity-saving ideas to use and share. I hope you’ll read my About page to learn more.
