Morning Board Time

This tip will only apply to a portion of BeenThereLearnedThat readers. The idea has so greatly benefited our family, I really wanted to share it.

Thanks to some of the ideas on the blog 1+1+1=1, we are starting a Morning Board time in our home. We are pinning several things on an old cork board in our school room.

My 2-year old chooses the Color of the Day and then uses a dry-erase marker to draw on the window in that color.

My 5-year old writes the date onto a Wipe-Off Calendar then my 7-year old writes in the full date on the Today Is template. This also has a place to tally our Days of School and I've created a Lesson Number template, too.

We choose our "What's the Weather today?" card and discuss the current temperature and the High/Low for the day. (I really need to get a thermometer for outside.)

We recite the Pledge of Allegiance (with a YAY! from my 2-year old at the end). A small flag and the words are posted on our Morning Board. (The printout I'm using is from the Adventures in My Father's World curriculum.)

We also have our Bible Memory Verse for the week up there. I'm hoping my 2-year old will learn those with us, too!

Morning Board time is now one our favorite times of the day! If you have any other ideas for Morning Board time, please do share!

Mix Ins

My kids really enjoy sugared cereals. We used to buy them for special occasions and they somehow made their way into our normal routine. But the Mama-voice-of-reason says that we need more fiber and less sugar. So I came up with a new way our family eats cereal.

First, we use our base cereal. Plain cheerios. Not much sugar and some soluble fiber. Next we get to choose a sugared cereal as a topping. My favorite is Reese's Puffs. Yum! The cheerios seem to take on the flavor of the sugared cereal, yet everybody's bowl is about three-fourths toasted oats and one-fourth "bad" stuff. (SHHH! don't tell my kids!) I hope you enjoy this tip!

(Photo courtesy of Colin Purrington via Flickr.com)

Email Subscription for a Blog

I just found out how to create an email subscription service for your blog! These instructions are courtesy of ThemeLib:

First, use Feed Burner to share your blog:
http://themelib.com/2008/06/manage-your-feed-with-feedburner-rss-feed/

Then, create an email subscription widget and add it to the design of your blog:
http://themelib.com/2008/07/manage-your-feed-with-feedburner-email-subscription/

Lastly, please look to the right and sign up for emails on THIS blog, if you're interested. :)

Corn, No Cob

This tip is from Rachael Ray. To effortly de-cob corn, place a small bowl upside down inside a large bowl. Stabilize the corn cob vertically on top of the small bowl. Using a sharp knife and with a downward motion, cut the kernels off the cob. The large bowl will catch all of the corn kernels. No more corn mess all over your kitchen counter! (You could also use a bundt pan for this, if you have one)

(Photo courtesy of WhitneyInChicago on Flickr.com)

Ginger Root

Ever have a recipe that calls for fresh ginger but you have no idea how to tackle the knob? Leave-out no longer! Bring home a smaller knob of ginger (broken off from a large one in the grocery store). Peel it using a cereal spoon from your flatware drawer. Place the peeled-knob-a-ginger in a freezer bag and store in the freezer until you're ready to use it. Using a microplane or zester, grate the ginger into your dish. I promise it will be a cinch!

P.S. This tip was given by Rachael Ray on several of her television programs.