Mom-It Monday: Dinner Time

Introduction

Hello there. Welcome back, NEO Homeschoolers! Today I want to start something new on this blog, Mom-It Monday. Every Monday, I'll share my top 5 favorite tools or hacks in various areas of homeschool mom life. These tools/hacks will be things I use to help make homeschool mom life a little bit easier.

This week, Mom-It Monday is going to focus on dinner time. As homeschool moms we carry quite few titles throughout the day. From teacher to chef to doctor, we do it all, and let's be honest, it can get overwhelming at times. Dinner time is one of the craziest times of day, especially if you have littles, like I do. Young children tend to start hitting their limit for the day right around the time we moms want to start working toward getting dinner on the table. And every mama knows what happens when tired kids aren't able to get mama's attention or the toy they want or... Well, you get the idea. Anyway, the last thing any mama wants is meltdowns, tantrums, and arguments with siblings while she's trying to make dinner.

Mom-It Monday Focus: Dinner Time

So, let's tackle the dinner time debacle together. Below are five of my favorite things to help make dinner time easier.

Tools for an Easier Dinner Time:

1. Passionate Penny Pincher - Menu Plan Boxes - Built for busy moms, these boxes make weekly menu planning and grocery shopping so much easier! No more flipping through endless cookbooks in an effort to add variety to your family's meal plan; Passionate Penny Pincher creates well-rounded meals and the grocery lists to go with them. The boxes have several variations including: the Slow Cooker series, Summer series, and 5 Ingredients or Less series among others. To check out all the menu plan boxes, click here. For Passionate Penny Pincher's other products, check out the link above.
2. Minno - Perfect for Christian families who want to ensure their children are watching safe, quality shows when the TV is on, Minno provides both kid-friendly and family friendly content, encouraging Christian families to grow in their faith together. The current favorite Minno series in my house is "Minno Laugh & Grow Bible." With short, 5-minute videos, this series shares the Bible stories we all want our kids to know in a relatable and fun way. Maureen loves to use these videos during our family Bible time... asks for at least 3 videos a night, haha.
3. Khan Academy Kids - Developed for kids ages 2-8, Khan Academy Kids is a completely free - Yes, you read that correctly... 100% free. - learning app. With new lessons and regularly updated content, this app focuses on a whole-child approach, and makes learning fun with cute characters who narrate and encourage your child every step of the way. The app incorporates songs from the popular YouTube channel, "Super Simple Songs," and even maintains a collection of unique books from the lessons under the "Library" tab to allow for independent exploration. With zero ads and no hidden subscription fees, this app is the perfect way to encourage some additional learning and allow yourself, as a mama, time to get dinner on the table. For a link to the website for this app, check out my Resources page.
4. Tonies - Looking to reduce screen-time in your household? I mean, who isn't these days, right? Lol. A Tonies box might be the solution. Available in a variety of colors, these huggable, portable boxes provide screen-free entertainment from all of your child's favorite characters... at least a good number of them, anyway. 😉I got Maureen a Tonies box for Christmas last year after watching her become obsessed with her little bestie's Tonies box whenever we had play-dates, and I can honestly say the pink box is playing something at least 2-3 times a day. From music to audiobooks to relaxing bedtime stories and lullabies, Tonies audio content comes in cute, little figurines of your child's favorite characters, and if your kiddo is anything like Maureen, those little figurines will double as action figures during playtime. Each figurine is magnetic and sticks to the top of the Tonie box while playing up to an hour's worth of audio content. There are hundreds of Tonies to choose from, and endless hours of screen-free entertainment to be enjoyed. Maureen is in love with hers, and I am too. Definitely recommend checking Tonies out!
5. Character Matters Character Cards - From the company, September & Co., these cards bring a biblical reference to character traits such as compassion, cheerfulness, honesty, and generosity. The character cards come in a set of 3, each with a separate focus for its list of character traits: the Bible, the home, and the world. Perfect conversation starters for around the dinner table, these cards will encourage the young believers in your life to grow, not only in their faith, but also in their overall character. Each character trait card presents a definition of that particular word, the opposite of that trait, 4 ways to demonstrate that character trait, and a Bible verse that references that trait. These are one of my personal favorite random finds for my homeschool! Maureen is too young to get much out of these cards just yet, but I am ready to go as soon as she's old enough! 😀

Conclusion

As homeschool moms, we run the gamut of jobs performed throughout the day, and by dinner time, we're often worn out and ready to be done. The last thing any homeschool mom wants is to deal with complaints and arguments from tired, bored kids while attempting to get dinner on the table. The above tools are not guaranteed to rid your home of dinner time drama, but hopefully, they'll at least help to reduce it. Thanks for checking out this brand new series!! 😃If you liked it, will you let me know down in the comments? I love hearing from my readers, and am always open to constructive feedback. Also, don't hesitate to share your dinner time tools and hacks. Let's support each other as homeschool moms! Finally, be sure to check back for our regular, weekly post. These posts will be going live on a different day now... I'm thinking Wednesday at 9 AM. Thoughts? You know where to leave them! Thanks again for checking out the first Mom-It Monday post, and see you back here, on NEO Homeschool Connections, real soon.