Pre-school Supplies!!

I am teaching a pre-school for B in our home.  There will be 4-5 other kids from church attending.  It will be 2 days a week for a couple of hours.  I am so excited!!!  I already have the calendar and schedule of lessons ready.  I also have a good start on the lesson plans for the first couple of months.  I have to do some fine tuning and get to the library to check out all of the books we will be reading, but I am pretty close to being ready to go.

Yesterday I got a HUGE box of goodies from Oriental Trading Company.  I orderd some crafts and school supplies from them.  If you haven't ever been to their website, you should check it out.  You can get things in bulk (usually groups of 12) for very inexpensive.  I haven't had any issues with quality and I have been very pleased with the products.  I was able to order all of the craft/activity supplies for our group from the start of school through Christmas.  The best part?  The max I will have is 6 kids, so I will have enough to use again in 2 years when I teach 3 yr old preschool for C.  I'll post some pics of the finished projects throughout the school year.

What do you get when you mix a 3 year old and food coloring?

You get a daughter who looks like a 3 year old incredible hulk.  Sometimes I think B is going to do me in!  She is so sneeky and quiet it is unreal.  I could be gone for 2 minutes and come back to find my entire main floor destroyed...and I never heard a thing.  This particular time she got into my baking supplies and found the food coloring.  She smeared it all over herself.  It was shoulder to fingertips and hip to toes.  If she isn't wearing something pink and frilly, then she takes it off and runs around in her panties.  I guess it was lucky this time because she didn't ruin any clothes.

Now before you think I am a terrible mother, I do have to say that I keep anything that has the potential to make a mess in the pantry which is LOCKED because of her.  One of the older kids got into the pantry and left the lock undone.  She checks it multiple times a day just to see if it is open and this time it was.  All I did upstairs was make 3 beds.  I came back down and she was covered!

We scrubbed her little body until her skin was pink.  Then I let her soak in the kitchen sink (which is huge) for a while.  We got most of the color out, except on her hands.  They were tinted green for a couple of days.

What am I going to do with this girl?!  I don't want to crush her spirit.  I just want to learn how to help her use it in a good way.  Any suggestions?

Preschool Schedule

I have been sorting and organizing like a crazy woman for the last couple of weeks and I think I might actually go crazy if I don't take a break from it for a minute.

Here is my 3 year old Preschool daily schedule and I thought some of you may be interested.  Including B, we will have 5 children.  With my older kids I was a part of a couple of different preschool co-ops where the moms switch off teaching and it rotates between houses.  It is nice for the days that you don't have to teach, but I found it to be a little frustrating too.  This year some women from church started asking around to see who was interested in doing a co-op and I seriously considered it, but in the end I decided I would rather do it myself.  I invited all of the other families to join my group and most of them did.  I'm so excited!!

Daily Schedule

9:00 - 9:20 Welcome and circle time. After the basics of calendar, weather, etc. we will introduce the theme of the week and the letter and number (up to 20) of the week. We will also do a "show and tell" once a week and it will be done during this time.

9:20 - 10:00 Instruction. This will be where we cover the theme and letter and number of the week. It won't be 40 minutes of sitting and listening to me. It will be broken up into smaller sections where we work on different things, read stories, sing songs, etc. This is specifically where the structured play comes in. I think kids can learn their letters or to spell their names with play dough or finger-paint better than seeing it up on a white board. This is one of my favorite parts because I get to be creative.

10:00 - 10:15 Snack time. I plan on providing healthy snacks which will include fruits, veggies, homemade muffins, crackers, etc. Sometimes the kids will help make them as part of the lesson.

10:15 - 10:40 Craft/activity time. We will do some sort of craft or activity each day. It may revolve around the theme, the letter and/or number of the week, or be a fun activity that I think the kids will enjoy. Count on them bringing at least one thing that they have created home each week.

10:40 - 11:00 Free-play. This may include play dough, coloring, puzzles, books, blocks, etc. This time is very flexible depending on how long it takes us to do our craft. When the weather is warm, we will most likely be outside. We have a large, completely fenced backyard with a swing set, sand turtle, play house and lots of grass.

I also have the school year calendar with what we are doing each day, but I am having trouble getting it to load to blogger.  I'll see if my husband can help me and I will try and post it for anyone interested.

Organize Your Pantry

I know not everyone has a pantry, and not all of them are very big, but the ideas I am offering here can be tweaked a little bit to make these suggestions work for your situation.  I have been doing our food this way since we got married (8+ years) and it works in a closet, in your cabinets, under your bed, in the basement, or wherever else you can think of to put your food and we have thought of some pretty random places.

There are a couple of reasons why I do our pantry this way.  First is that I HATE grocery shopping and second is that I find great comfort in knowing that if my husband looses his job or something unexpected happens, we still have food to eat.  I am also really lucky because our pantry is pretty big so I can keep a lot of food actually in the kitchen without having to use any space in the cabinets.

I like to do grocery shopping only once a month.  If you are making a monthly menu or list of meals, it will be pretty easy to figure out what you need to buy to make those meals.  Of course you will still have to buy perishables more often, but everything else can be done all at once.  I get most of our canned goods at Aldi.  Almost everything we have tried from there tastes just like the name brand stuff, but it is WAY cheaper.  The only thing I don't buy from there are their canned/jarred fruits.  Aldi does not offer (at least not at my store) a sugar free version and I don't want my family eating the heavy syrup.  I get our fruit at Walmart.  I buy the Walmart brand and I get the kind that is unsweetened or packaged in pear juice.  My kids have never once complained and I feel like it is much healthier.

Once we get home, I take a permanent marker and write the month and year I bought them on top of the can or box.  I know there is an expiration date on most things, but I like to do it based on when I buy them.  Besides it is easier to see with the date right on top and it makes rotating your supply much easier.  Then next month when you go shopping you can pull all of the old stuff forward (there shouldn't be much there), and put the newer stuff behind it.  It works like a charm.

I am to the point now that I do all of my major shopping every 6 months and then I just have to do the perishables every week.  I can do that pretty quickly...even if I have all 4 kids with me.  This is what 6 months worth of canned goods from Aldi looks like.  This leads us to longer term food storage.  I will be doing a couple of posts on that a little later.

If you have questions or want more detail just email me at pumpkinpatchdesigns@hotmail.com.  I'm happy to share and to help you get your food organized too!

I am linking up to this site.  Go check out what everyone else has done.

Fantastic Bread Recipe!

I love to make my own bread.  Sure it takes time, but it is soooo good and it makes me feel like I am doing something good for my family.  There is just something about grinding my own wheat and turning it into something that my kids beg me for that is so fulfilling!

I thought I'd share the recipe.  If you scroll to the bottom, it tells you how much you need to store to be able to make this bread for an entire year.  So handy when trying to plan out your food storage!  Also, a friend of mine converted the recipe to make 2 5" x 9" loaves.  If you want the conversion email me and I'll send it to you.  pumpkinpatchdesigns at hotmail dot com.

I don't know where it came from.  A friend passed it along to me.  I have tried to find an author, but no luck.  So, if you know who created it tell me and I will give them full credit.  Until then, thank you person I don't know...

Easiest Whole Wheat Bread

2 (8"x4") loaves

3 1/2 cups Whole Wheat flour

1/3 cup gluten

1 1/4 Tbsp instant yeast
2 1/2 cups steaming hot tap water (120-130 F)
1 Tbsp salt
1/3 cup oil
1/3 cup honey or 1/2 cup sugar
1 1/4 Tbsp bottled lemon juice
2 1/2 cup whole wheat flour

Mix together first three ingredients with a dough hook.  Add water all at once and mix for 1 minute; cover and let rest for 10 minutes.  (this will not mix it completely...that's okay)  Add salt, oil, honey or sugar, and lemon juice and beat for one minute.  Add rest of flour, 1 cup at a time, beating between each cup.  Once the flour is mixed in, beat for about 6-10 more minutes.  Until dough pulls away from sides of the bowl and dough "bounces back" a little when you touch it.  This makes very soft dough.  Pre-heat oven to 350 for 1 minute and turn off.  Turn dough onto oiled counter top; divide, shape into loaves and place in oiled bread pans.  Let rise in warm oven for 10-15 minutes (I do it for 15) until dough reaches top of pan.  Do not remove bread from oven; turn oven to 350 F and bake for 30 minutes.  Remove from pans and cool on wire racks.  If you do not have a mixer with a dough hook and are kneading this by hand, gradually add last cup of flour to keep dough from sticking to counter.  You will add more flour when kneading by hand than when using a mixer simply to be able to handle this moist dough.  With wheat bread, always add the least amount of flour possible to keep bread moist.  Knead 10 minutes before shaping into loaves.

**lemon juice in this recipe acts as a dough enhancer which gives bread a fine, light texture.  Gluten, a natural protein derived from wheat, provides elasticity and strength and added texture, helps retain moisture, prevents crumbling, and extends the shelf life of the bread.  If you do not want to store gluten flour, you may substitute whole wheat flour in it's place.  I buy my gluten from here.

**1/4 Tbsp is = to 3/4 tsp.

** To make a 2 loaf recipe of this bread every other day for 1 year (1 loaf per day), you will need 275 lbs of wheat ground into flour, 4 gallons of oil, 46 lbs of honey or sugar, 8 (1 lb) pkgs yeast, 61 cups of gluten flour, 3 2/3 qts. of lemon juice and 7.3 lbs of salt.