New Chore Charts

I can't believe it's been almost two years since I posted here.  So much has happened, good and bad, but God is faithful.  He brings us through the battles and struggles and we emerge on the other side stronger!

As I plan for the coming school year, which we plan to start Monday (yikes!) I know that I need to get a better chore system in place.  We just can't do school work well around here if there is a lack of order.  This year I am trying something a bit different and "pegging" daily chores to each meal.  My chart is below.  Check it out and let me know what you think. 

God bless you as you plan for the coming school year!

Becky

Chores  2015-2016

Breakfast

	Breakfast Prep and dishes	Put away clean dishes	Laundry Load	Tables/counter – clear / wipe	Living room pick up
Sunday
Monday	Sarah	Matthew	Isaac	Daniel	Patrick
Tuesday	Daniel	Isaac	Matthew	Sarah	Isaac
Wednesday	Matthew	Isaac	Sarah	Patrick	Daniel
Thursday	Daniel	Sarah	Patrick	Matthew	Isaac
Friday	Sarah	Daniel	Matthew	Isaac	Patrick
Saturday

 Lunch

	Lunch Prep and dishes	Put away clean dishes	Laundry Load	Tables/counter – clear / wipe	Living room pick up
Sunday
Monday	Daniel	Sarah	Matthew	Isaac	Patrick
Tuesday	Sarah	Daniel	Patrick	Matthew	Isaac
Wednesday	Daniel	Matthew	Isaac	Patrick	Sarah
Thursday	Sarah	Daniel	Patrick	Isaac	Matthew
Friday	Matthew	Sarah	Patrick	Daniel	Isaac
Saturday

 

Tea Time

	Vac Living	Vac Utility	Sweep baths	Sinks and toilets	Entry, shoes, mail
Monday	Sarah	Daniel	Matthew	Isaac	Patrick
Tuesday	Patrick	Sarah	Daniel	Matthew	Isaac
Wednesday	Isaac	Patrick	Sarah	Daniel	Matthew
Thursday	Matthew	Isaac	Patrick	Sarah	Daniel
Friday	Daniel	Matthew	Isaac	Patrick	Sarah

 Dinner

	Dinner Dishes	Floors	Tables/counter – clear/wipe	Dinner Prep	Patrick
Sunday	Sarah	Daniel	Isaac	Sarah (I)	Matthew
Monday	Isaac	Sarah	Daniel	Matthew	Matthew
Tuesday	Matthew	Daniel	Sarah	Isaac	Isaac
Wednesday	Sarah	Matthew	Isaac	Daniel	Daniel
Thursday	Daniel	Matthew	Sarah	Isaac	Isaac
Friday	Daniel	Isaac	Matthew	Daniel (I)	Sarah
Saturday	Matthew	Sarah	Isaac	Matthew (I)	Daniel

 Saturday Chores –

Clean bedroom - all

Clean basement - all

Catch up on laundry - all

Help put away groceries - all

Mop kitchen and bathroom floors - rotating

Scrub tub and shower – rotating

Windows / mirrors – front door, fire place, sunroom doors and window, bathroom mirrors, dining room

AAR / AAS

My poor neglected blog!  I'm in the process of discerning whether or not to keep this blog open.  I have so many thoughts to post each and every day, but I find it more and more difficult to set aside the time to do that.

However, I did want to write a quick post about a couple of my favorite curriculum choices ~ All About Reading and All About Spelling. 

All About Spelling was such a blessing to find several years ago.  It's been a huge help here with my hands on learners!  And now All About Reading is my new favorite reading program.  My struggling readers are getting on the right track with this program.

Marie Rippel is currently doing a giveaway of one of these programs.  If you would like to enter, find out more here!

Big Family Camping

(This post is actually part 2 in a mini series.  Go here for part 1.)
I love reading blog posts about family camping.  I usually come away with a great organization tip, a neat campfire recipe or an idea for a fun activity.  Because of that I decided to write my own blog post about how we organize, pack up the gear, and enjoy our camping trips in case I might have some ideas that help a reader or two on their next camping trip.

My husband and I have made many changes to the whole camping experience as our family has grown in size.  Having six children makes camping more fun than ever, but it also adds a few challenges.  Below I will share some ideas about how to deal with those challenges and capitalize on the fun.

For me it all starts with the planning, and the planning takes place in this well used binder!    It's starting to look a bit sad, I'll admit.  I've used it for 5 years now and it's very worn. My kids have decorated and redecorated it for me, and while I would like to start over with a nice clean binder, the stickers and finger smudges hold memories, so I'll refrain for now and show you a very real picture.  This poor notebook has been tossed onto car seats, left in the rain on picnic tables, taken to sandy beaches and even stepped on.

What is in this binder?  Everything that has to do with any of our camping trips or vacations, except pictures.  It's not a scrapbook of memories about our trips, it's a planner.  That being said, each time I pull it out I do a quick review of past trips and it brings back great memories.

I use a dividing page for each trip.  Behind that I put the itinerary, menus, shopping lists, phone number of the camp ground, reservation confirmations and, once a arrive, I include one of the pamplets that the state parks usually have a available to visitors.  On this pamphlet, which often contains a map, I mark where our site is, and I note which sites look really good incase we return for another trip.  This has really come in handy!


Elsewhere in the binder I have sections for our camping gear check lists, notes regarding fun menu ideas, and notes about great gear or packing ideas that I see other campers using.

Finally, I have a page with important phone numbers and addresses: the kennel where the dog might be staying (although she usually comes with us), trusted neighbors in case we suddenly remember we left the iron on (lol), and the addresses of people we might want to send post cards to.

Once I get everything organized on paper it's time to get it physically organized.  I have four systems that help with this.  When we camp the first time each season, I go through everything with my checklist and make sure it's all ready to go.  Then, I just replenish used up food or items that need to be replaced for any additional trips we want to take.  I can pack this group of 8 campers and dog up pretty quick because it's all organized and ready.

My four systems are:
1 - Sterilite stacking drawers. 
2 - The giant, bear proof cooler.
3 - Food pantry bin.
4 - Duffle bags.

Starting from the bottom of the list and working up, the duffle bags are used for clothing (obviously).  Below is  a picture of some of them that are waiting to be packed into the van.  We have two colors - army green and black.  No one has their own.  When it's time to pack up, everyone gets a bag with a different colored bandana tied to the end.  That person simply remembers his or her bandana color for the trip.  These bags were big enough for our two week trip out west, but since they can be folded up they also work for weekends.
This past fall when we camped every weekend for 6 weeks in a row, I literally washed the clothes and put them directly back into the bags for each person.  Easy peasy.

We have one extra bag that stays packed all the time.  This is our emergency weather bag.  In this very important bag we have for each person:
Long underwear
A hat
Gloves
Hand warmers
Rain gear - pants and jackets with hoods.  No ponchos.  Little kids can't play in ponchos and if they fall in the mud their pants are soaked.  Rain pants keep them dry and are easily hosed off when muddy.  (Believe me, I know! :)
For little people I also include ultra warm footed sleepers.

 The food pantry bin is another item that I restock at the end of a trip and it is all ready to go for the next.  In this bin are canned or dry items that we use every trip.  Things like salt, pepper, cooking oil,
protein powder for my son with Celiac, pancake mix, etc.   I have a list of items to keep in this bin that I've taped to the lid.  That way I don't forget important things like coffee!

 

 Our giant, bear proof cooler is called a Yeti.  Most places don't require a bear proof cooler, but our trip out west did.  We bought a nice big one and it has worked well for all of our trips. I bought four plastic water jugs that I fill with drinking water and freeze.  When it's time to pack the cooler, these four jugs go down the middle.  They are frozen solid so they are all the ice we need.  As the ice melts we use it for drinking. They keep the cooler very cold.  For the two week trip we took, it was necessary to replenish the ice and the drinking water though.



And finally, there are the Sterilite drawers.  Here they are under our camp table.  I love these things.  They hold everything we need for camping and we keep them loaded, all the time.  When we get back from a trip, they go directly into the closet where they live until the next trip.  In these drawers are everything from clothes lines to cast iron pans.  The smaller, 3 drawer unit is on top of the table.  This is where we keep things that we use a lot, like flash lights, bug spray and one of them holds the silverware.  Once again, this stays packed all the time.  It goes directly to the camping closet at home and it's ready to go when we need to pull it out for the next trip.

So that's how I organize.  I will admit, the first time I got all this gear together it was a huge task.  But I can say it was worth it.  It is so easy now to get everything together to camp.  Going to the grocery store to buy the food is probably the biggest ordeal.  Everything else is ready to go, and we don't forget things like camp stoves and matches.  It's all right there.   Next time I'll give you a tour of one of our camp set ups.

Happy camping!

Organizing For Vacations

Early this month, while I was finishing up the final touches of our homeschool plan and jumping into a new school year, I was also planning for our month of craziness!  September was such a blessing but sooooooo busy.  Now that it's over we are exhausted!  What did our September involve that kept us running, running, running?  Well, the first weekend in September we went camping.  We got to visit with Night Owl since we camped about 30 minutes from Hillsdale.  The main purpose of this trip was to see the HIllsdale football game on Saturday night (and they won!  Woo Hoo!), but camping always involves tons of fun so there was lots of other things going on too.

The very next weekend we left for a wonderful trip to Williamsburg VA and then to Oak Island NC.  We've been to Williamsburg before, but this was the first time we were there for the Homeschool Days.  It was fabulous!  Oak Island is always wonderful.  Mom Mom and Pop Pop live near there and we get to visit with them and spend time on the beach as well.

We returned home the weekend after that, completely exhausted from the 20 hour drive that we did non stop (except for potty breaks and picnic meals).  Unloaded our work horse of a mini van and started right in on reloading it for the next trip!

The final weekend in September was spent, once again, at the state park near Hillsdale so we could cheer the team on to another victory, spend time with Night Owl and enjoy camping.  The fall weather was absolutely gorgeous and the trees were in full color.  But we're still  not done! As I type this I have one more trip I am planning for!

So, how do I keep from going insane with all these trips?  My one tool that has saved me is this binder which I put together several years ago!  Let me tell you, it has gotten a workout this past month!  I thought I should clean it up a bit for the picture, but then I decided to keep it real.  This poor binder gets left on picnic tables, rides in tote bags, gets tossed into the back seat of the van...  It's a trooper!

Since most of our vacations involve camping or staying in a condo, and since we aren't big restaurant eaters, there is usually quite a bit of planning to do ahead of time.  We need menus and shopping lists, lists of gear to pack, lists of what clothing is necessary, maps and directions, copies of reservation confirmations.....
It all fits quite nicely in this binder and, while I don't keep pictures in here, I do write notes ... lots of notes!

It's fun to go back and read what I've written.  A perfect example is this comment from about eight years ago - "Camping idea! - Use plastic drawers to store gear in, then just pack them when it's time to camp." Those plastic drawers are looking a little worn, but still in use!  I also write notes about which camp sites at state parks are better than others, which condominiums are nice (and which ones were disappointing!), fun new recipes to try while on vacation, great game discoveries, etc.  When we go back to certain locations  I review my notes and it makes the planning that much easier.

In part 2 of this series I'll give a little more detail about how we get and keep everything organized to make packing easy.

(Go here for part 2 of this series.)

Until then remember...


"An organized camper is a happy camper!"  :)