Frugal Accomplishments 9/21-9/27

This week has been a whirlwind of activity in our house. We are in our second week of school and all the parents out there know what that means. The newness of it all has worn off and suddenly the kids have realized there is WORK to be done. We have had lots of tears and "drama llamas" in our house this week. I have went out of my way to think of new fun things to do for math, reading, and science to combat some of the drama. It is really amazing what you can accomplish with an 8 yr old when you had them a white board and a dry erase marker. Suddenly that "impossible" math problem is actually FUN to solve! I love how kids minds work! 

On the frugal front this week we have been doing well. I printed out a free A unit for the twins and then laminated one copy to use with our younger children down the road. Something is still not clicking for the twins (4yrs old) with learning the ABC's. I am going to need a new approach with them soon. I have invested in some ABC sticker books and am going to look into streaming the leapfrog ABC videos.

On Saturday my oldest daughter and I kept ourselves busy (and out of the stores) by participating in a street feed. For those unaware of what a street feed is....you feed people on the street! We loaded up several cars with food (chili), clothing items, Bibles, toiletries, etc and drove up to a homeless shelter in a very bad section of a large city. Seeing how little these people had and how grateful they were for something as simple as a toothbrush or a bar of soap was really touching for both my daughter and I. It really put our "struggles" into perspective! As soon as we got home our daughter drew up plans for the homeless shelter she plans to build when she grows up. We plan to participate again next month.

 Also this week we have kept the air conditioner off for all but 2 hours one afternoon. It got stuffy in the house again and we still have not invested in any box fans for the windows.

We did a great deal of cooking at home this week. I found that if I put potatoes in my crockpot on high in the morning they are perfectly cooked by lunch time. I don't know why but I am terrible at making baked potatoes so I was thrilled with this discovery!

This week we studied the tundra in our science class. Instead of buying a boxed curriculum this year I am designing the curriculum myself. I found this adorable and very informational tundra pack on the teachers pay teachers website for $4.

We used some shortening I had in the pantry to do a science experiment concerning the insulating properties of blubber. The kids LOVED this experiment....I wasn't too fond of getting the "blubber" off our hands afterwards but it was really neat.

Over all it was a really good week and I am very happy to have the second week of school behind us!