Sunday, August 19, 2012

Organizing for 1st grade

As a learning coach to a virtual school student, my responsibilities include helping my first grader with everything he does for SIX hours!! I have to read the instructions, give him his assignments, do projects with him, oversee him in his class connects (virtual classrooms), grade his tests, make sure that he meets all of his assessments, go to the mandatory learning coach courses, makes sure he completes all of his assignments, have work samples ready to be sent in for the school, make sure he takes his DIBELS when he is required to...etc. You get the idea. On top of that, my son has an IEP so I have IEP meetings to attend and therapists my son and I must meet with. I am also a full time college student so I must do my own assignments and take my own tests. I am also a mother to a preschooler so I need to take care of her and make sure she feels loved and not neglected while I'm working with Collin. I am also a homemaker so I must clean our home and keep it a home.

I have tried to figure out how in the world I am supposed to accomplish all of these things. Everything that I read says that I must figure out my priorities first and then fill in the gaps with everything else. Well, all of these are priorities so... what to do? Here is something I am giving a try. We'll see if it works and if I can keep it up. In the mornings I will spend an hour before school starts at 8am doing my morning chores. Then we aren't finished with school until about 4:30. So, I need to get some chores done during school -- snack and lunch!! So, here is how I'm trying to save time.

On Saturdays I get the lunches and snacks ready for the rest of the week. Here is what I did yesterday in preparation for this coming week.

First, I filled a box with individual servings of snacks... trail mix, granola bars, fruit leather (the real kind with only dehydrated fruit and no sugar), popcorn...etc. During snack break I will send the kids to pick one baggie from the box for their snacks. Then I will have 30 minutes to get some chores done and they can get their own snacks. Notice in the back of the box is a little box -- that is the dessert box.

This is a close up of the dessert box mentioned above. There are a couple of chocolate chip cookies and fig newtons in each little snack baggie. At the end of their lunch they may each pick one baggie for dessert.
I found these awesome little Glad containers. See, there is a little cup inside that you are able to store dressings and dips in that attaches to the underside of the lid. Isn't that awesome? So, here is the veggie container for snacking with Ranch dressing.

Peanut Butter!!!!

Fruit container with peanut butter for the apples. Yummy!! See, fresh produce snacks too. Who doesn't need that?
Oh!! We also need lunch. We've already seen snacks and dessert. hehe! :)

I made our own little lunchables! :) Yay!! If I can find one of those little decrusting (is that a word?) things that seal the sides of the sandwich then I'll make those and freeze them so they're like Decrustables only cheaper. ;)
Finally, for a side I made these...
Vanilla yogurt with fruit (blueberries and strawberries pictured above) and applesauce. I could also do my own jellos or pudding if I want.
I think these will work well. I'm just worried that I won't be able to keep it up every weekend. We'll see though. Hopefully it'll go so well that I'll never go back to preparing lunches at lunch time again. LOL!

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