October Closet Cleanout

“I’ll probably wear that this Fall…” but it’s been in my closet for 4 years and I haven’t worn it since before baby #3.

“I might wear that next Summer…” even though I didn’t wear it ONCE this summer.

“What if I need that if I go somewhere fancy?” …when do I ever go somewhere fancy?

This is what goes through my mind every time I think about getting rid of a piece of clothing.  I’ve tried the backwards hanger trick. I’ve pulled things out of the closet for garage sales, but had second thoughts as I was putting it out for the sale. I’ve moved twice and while I got rid of a few items, I have SEVERAL of the same clothes I had from when I lived in an apartment in 2007.

So I’m taking a stand against hoarding clothes! I loved my September decluttering calendar so much that I made one for October – this time, targeting my unnecessary amount of clothes.

Grab the freebie below (or screenshot it on your phone!) and join me. We start tomorrow!

October Closet Cleanout

Dollar Tree Finds For Learning

The Dollar Tree is one of our favorite spots to find cheap items. They have so many fun things you can use for learning, too!  This was a quick trip – we mostly looked at Halloween items – so there are many more than what is shown here.

Dry Erase Board – Practicing letters, numbers, writing answers, spelling their name or family members’ names, drawing shapes.

Inflatable Globe – All of my kids enjoyed this purchase! Use for identifying countries, continents, and oceans. And for throwing at your sisters.

Bingo Markers – These are great for making patterns if you can find multiple colors.  There are also some printables I have used where you put a dot over the answer. My kids also like to use them for art projects.

Workbooks – We hit the jackpot with this visit! My kids love workbooks!

What are some items you have found at Dollar Tree to use for learning?

Why My Children Use Workbooks

Play based learning, hands on learning, learning through discovery…they’ve taken over Pinterest, leading us to believe that worksheets and workbooks are a big no-no. But I believe they have a place in learning, if used correctly. It’s not the worksheet that is the problem (at home or in the classroom), it’s how they are used.

You can search the internet for “should I use workbooks with my child” and there are a plethora of mixed views about this.  As moms, we have to be careful not to take other people’s advice as law, and just be a mom who does what she thinks is best for her kids.  That is mostly how I make decisions as a parent, and this is just one of them.

Read on to see why and how I use them with my girls.

Handwriting

I have seen some atrocious handwriting in 1st/2nd grades. Habits form at a young age and I want to help them develop good, legible handwriting.

Enjoyment

All of my girls LOVE workbooks. I did as a child, too, so I’m not surprised! They take them on road trips, use them to play school, and if they’re bored. They have even asked for workbooks as gifts and beg me if they can have old workbooks I am getting rid of at school! My Kindergartener was even a tiny bit jealous when she saw my preschooler’s ABC book on the table today.

Less Screen Time

Sure, there are a million apps my kids could use to learn, but I’d rather have them not using an iPad and instead, be using their fine motor skills to write, draw lines, make shapes, and color.

Repeat Learned Skills

We only remember what we think about and practice.

Stamina

It would be crazy to assume our children’s teachers will never have them do a worksheet. I want my child to be able to sit and complete a task. It may surprise you how many children struggle with this.

How I Use Them

My preschooler picked out a few workbooks from The Dollar Tree. She picks one a day and we do as much as she wants. It totally depends on her. Today, she wanted to do 2 letters in her handwriting workbook then said she was tired, so we quit.  The majority of her at-home learning is done through watching us, playing with, and talking to me, my husband, and her sisters. (Older siblings are the best teachers!)

My Kindergartener and 3rd grader did one page a day during the summer weekdays. It was their choice. All I wanted was for them to do something educational and use a pencil to practice. During the school year, they only do them by choice for enjoyment.

My oldest was at school with me when I was going to throw this old one away. She dug it out of the trash!

Mid-Month Meal & Grocery Planning

My goal going into part-time work was to cut our grocery bill in half. On You Need A Budget, I noticed it was the 3rd highest spending category so I changed the way I shopped for groceries.  At the beginning of September, I detailed how I only spent $151 for two weeks.  Here, I will lay out my mid-month planning and shopping.

The first thing I did before planning meals for the remainder of the month was take inventory of the ingredients we already have.  I list all the things in the freezer, pantry/cupboards, and fridge – items that can be part of a meal.   You may already do this in your head, but it’s much easier to see the meals you can make once it’s all written out.

I studied the list and checked to see what I could use together to make a meal – frozen taco meat, tortillas, taco shells, garden tomatoes – all I needed was some lettuce and sour cream for tacos.   Same thing with hamburgers – I had frozen buns, ground beef, and french fries. Hot dog pizzas – I had pizza sauce, frozen hot dog buns, and mozzarella. All I needed was the pepperonis.  Chili – I have every single ingredient and hadn’t even planned on it!

Next, make a list of ingredients needed to complete each meal, as well as items for snacks or refills (dish soap, syrup, etc.).

I had already done my price sheet so I checked that to see where the cheapest price was for each item. If it wasn’t on sale, I quickly searched online Walmart and Hyvee. I was ordering online anyway, so I just added it to my cart at whichever store was cheaper.

Last, I hit up Fresh Thyme for cheap produce and picked up my orders at Hyvee and Walmart! Grand total was $182.89.  I wanted to be around $150, but purchased meat this time. A few convenience items also brought the price up.

Meat: chicken legs, chicken breasts, turkey sausage, deli turkey, deli ham

Produce: 2 baby carrots, lettuce, avocado, canteloupe, 2 salad bags, grapes, oranges, apples, 2 prepared salads, pears, 3 bags frozen vegetables, bananas

Convenience: PBJ Uncrustables, frozen pancakes, taquitos, juice boxes, Larabars, 20-pack of snack crackers, 8 fruit cups, frozen veggie noodles

Diary, etc.: Eggs, 2 packages sliced cheese, string cheese, cheese singles, stick butter, soft butter, sour cream, 5 yogurt Flips, Go-gurt

Refills: syrup, gum, dish soap

Other: 2 loaves of bread, pita crackers, nacho cheese, 3 bags chips, raisins, chocolate chips, canned fruit, chocolate pretzels, oatmeal, almonds, cinnamon

Low Prep Math Activities: Dice

I use dice a ton in my 1st/2nd grade classrooms, but they could easily be used at home for math practice!

With my preschooler, we rolled and did an action. For example, here she rolled a 2 and did 2 big jumps.

This is a great way to get your kiddo moving and learning at the same time! Here she rolled a 4 and did giant steps.

5 push-ups!

Next, we tried to find each number of objects. She rolled a 5 and was counting the flowers to check if there were 5 flowers. After counting, she figured out there were way more than 5.

Counting the bars on the deck to find the number 6.

Your older child can practice adding 2 or 3 (or more!) numbers together.

I always have the kids write an equation to match. Use dice with dots for more support.

Dice can also be used to practice subtraction.

This 2nd grader added the 2 dice together, and then subtracted the dice, knowing the biggest number comes first!

More ways to use dice

Compare – which one is bigger?

Compare using symbols < > =

What number comes before?

What number comes after?

Rolling two and saying the 2-digit number

Roll the dotted dice and write the number

Cauliflower Rice + Chicken & Veggies

A few weeks ago, I found a fun section at Walmart next to the frozen vegetables. There was riced cauliflower, zucchini spirals, carrot spirals, and more! I grabbed a few packs, having no clue what I would do with them.

This week, I used the riced cauliflower with some things I had on hand.

Ingredients:

(Get the Everything seasoning at Trader Joe’s or Amazon!)

Directions:

1. Heat oil in skillet Season chicken(I used 3 strips) with Everything seasoning and pepper before cooking.

2. Sauté sweet potatoes in skillet with oil.

3. Microwave cauliflower in bag. Season with salt/pepper.

4. Microwave green beans.

5. After I put it on my plate, I realized I wanted it all mixed together so you could just dump it all in a bowl together!

I love that it makes enough for 2 meals! Great for supper and lunch the next day, or meal prep for 2 lunches.

Low Prep Math Activities: Lego Counting

This is a simple activity you can do with big or small legos.  I used the same number sheets we used in the Domino Counting activity so this was really a “no prep” activity for us.

Math Skills

Counting (one-to-one correspondence)

Number recognition

More/Less

Taller/Shorter

Missing Addend (Some kids may be able to say “I have 5 legos, I need 2 more to make a stack of 7.”

My daughter loved being able to see that 7 was taller than 4! This was an easy way to talk about more and less.

She also loved making different types of towers for each stack….long towers, chunky towers, and skinny towers like this one:

2 Weeks of Produce

When I tell people I shop for 2 weeks, there is almost always a question about the products. Do I have enough for a 2nd week? Do I have to go back to get fresh? How do I make it last 2 weeks?

Here are the fruits and vegetables I have left from my September 1st grocery trip. (The white basket has items from our garden.) Still plenty to make it through the week!

Here are my tips on how to make produce last 2 weeks:

Buy Frozen

Frozen vegetables and fruit have just as many nutrients as fresh because they’re picked at peak ripeness and frozen within a few hours.  I always have both frozen fruit and veggies in our freezer for week 2 or as a backup incase a vegetable goes bad or the kids eat more fruit than I had anticipated.

Know What To Use First

Eat and cook with the produce that will get rotten quicker, and save the others for week 2. For example, asparagus first, carrots the 2nd week. Grapes and peaches for snack first, apples and oranges for snack the 2nd week.

Buy Only What You Know You Will Use

This is something I had to get better at. I would walk by the vegetables and grab broccoli, asparagus, and brussels sprouts and think “We might need these for a meal some night.” and then they would get bad because I didn’t actually need them.  Always plan your meals ahead and make your grocery list from that. Stick to the list!!

You Don’t Need A Huge Variety

I used to buy strawberries, blueberries, grapes, apples….aaaalll the fruit – because my kids LOVE fruit. It makes up about 75% of their snacks. But having so much variety meant that it couldn’t all get eaten before it went bad. Now what I do is buy a small variety of fruit the first 2 weeks, and buy different fruits for the last 2 weeks of the month.

Mission: Organization

When I started part-time I knew I needed to do something “extra” each day instead of the usual cleaning. Over the last 4 years of living here, so much has gotten shoved to the bottom of a very long to-do list. Just keeping up with laundry, dishes, wiping counters, cleaning sinks and mirrors, the floors, and so on and so on and so on…..was enough to keep me from doing anything beyond that.

Every time I open a closet, there is the clutter staring at me saying “Remember when you shoved me in here in 2015 and said you’d do it next weekend/next month/next Thanksgiving Break?”

So I’m taking a stand against that clutter and getting it organized!

I started with a list and every weekday in August, I tackled one of them.

I know you don’t care how neat my Tupperware cupboard is or how organized it looks under my bathroom sinks . BUT I do hope it inspires you to make your own list and cross some projects off. My house is starting to feel cleaner, bigger! I feel less stressed without having to struggle in the Tupperware cupboard or dig through all those cans and bottles to find my mousse!

Having a calendar with a plan is definitely going to hold me accountable! I’ve made a Mission: Organization Calendar for you, too. One version has my plan for the rest of September to give you some ideas. The other version is a blank calendar for you to print and fill in.  I also have a second calendar that’s exactly the same, but it is editable.  Enjoy your organized house! And let me know if you are using it by tagging me!

PDF:

EDITABLE:

Ham & Cheese Pinwheels

Here is a quick, easy recipe with 4 ingredients that you can enjoy as an appetizer or main meal with sides.

Ingredients

Ham

Swiss Cheese

Pillsbury Crescent Dough

Trader Joe’s Everything But the Bagel seasoning (Purchase here!)

Directions

Roll out the dough. Sprinkle with seasoning.

Place a layer of meat on the dough.

Place a layer of cheese on the meat.

Roll up the dough. Slice into smaller pieces (depending on how thick you want them). Place on the tray face up, as shown below.

Sprinkle more seasoning on.

Bake 10-12 minutes on 350 degrees.

The second time I made these, I used a Pillsbury Pizza Dough Sheet instead, and we liked these much better! They were less bread-y.

I served these with salad, chips, and frozen peas.