As we enjoy our last week of the holiday break, I am focusing on planning our second term of school and building some basic routine not based on clock time but on order.
Term 2 School Planning
In Term 2, my high schooler will be adding some new courses to his schedule. Among those are Latin and American History. He will have new memorizations as well. His new literature selections are:
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court
Robinson Crusoe
For Shakespeare this term he will be reading Romeo and Juliet.
My 11yo will begin some vocabulary/phonics workbooks. I plan to also have her begin Simply Grammar. She will continue her two current literature selections which are:
The Little House on the Prairie Series
The Chronicles of Narnia Series
Both children will continue their other course as outlined in their syllabi.
Routine
As I have mentioned before, in this season of life, routine has been hard to find. I have concluded that during this season, a timed schedule may not be our best fit and flexibility is key. Yet to develop routine, one has to have a determination to stick with it (in my opinion). What I'm working on this week is simply some very basic steps. When Sugarplum wakes up (usually pretty early in the morning), she has her morning feeding. After that, I try to switch out the laundry (I'll explain that in a minute). Then it's floor time with Sugarplum. This is when I get on the floor with her and read books to her and play. I also do my floor exercises during this time while she's right there with me.
Sugarplum usually lays back down about an hour after her morning feeding. At that point, that's when I have my prayer time and do my in-depth Bible study. If I'm hungry, I may get something small to nibble on to hold me over until breakfast. When Sugarplum wakes back up, it's breakfast time.
My other goal for this week is for me to get to bed between 10:00p.m. and 10:30p.m. That's the bedtime I'd like to stick with unless of course I'm tired enough to go to bed earlier. I just don't want to go to bed later than that.
That's it for now. Very simple, very basic. Once we get that going well then maybe I can add something else.
Laundry
I am trying to help us save money where and when I can. I'm trying to get us all turning off lights that don't need to be on - we have to work on that one. And I've started hanging dry most of our laundry. Our laundry room has regular doors that open outwards. I went to the local dollar store and bought a pack of door hangers that you put on the top of doors to hang towels and such on. I bought some clothesline rope and a pack of clothespins. My hubby rigged the laundry room doors so that I have a clothesline to hang our laundry on. I try to do a load of laundry each night. I hang as much laundry on the line as I can and let them dry all night. I leave the remaining wet laundry in the washer at night with the washer lid down. The next morning when I get up, I take down the dried laundry and hang up the remaining wet laundry. If I don't have any laundry remaining to hang up the next morning, I try to throw a small load of laundry in that morning and then hang them to dry during the day. It's working pretty well and I hope to see the fruits of my labor on our electric bill!
On average, we also only use our dishwasher once a week. We wash dishes throughout the week and then Friday night or Saturday we run the dishwasher. Saturday is our rest and relax day so we utilize that dishwasher to give us a break from handwashing dishes. The dishes are one of my older daughter's chores so this gives her a nice break. I do some dish washing during the week as well but it is primarily her chore.
So there's a few ways we try to save some money. Do you have any money-saving tips? Please share them with us! Hope everyone has a wonderful day!
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