Simply amazing Beef Stew

 

 

 

We are a larger family than most nowadays and a little unconventional. There are 3 adults and 4 children under 8. Recipes online are not normally built for us which means either doubling or tripling the recipe to make it work for us.

This beef stew is the best I have ever made, it fed everyone plus lunch the next day.

The big buns come in a giant bag from the Superstore.

What you need:

Onion 1/2
Stewing beef (about 1lbs) cut the beef into smaller pieces
Celery 6 stalks
Carrots 6 full length
Potatoes 6 med to large
Beef Stew seasoning from clubhouse (No joke this is my secret ingredient)
Flour (1/4 cup)
Salt and Peper
1 cup of water

What to do:

Step 1) Cut your stewing beef into small pieces

Step 2) Put beef, flour, salt and pepper into a bowl and coat well

Step 3) move stewing beef to frying pan and brown

While the beef is browning and stirring occasionally

Step 4) Peel and cut the carrots into bite-size chunks

Step 5) Peel and cut potatoes into bite-size chunks

Step 6) Cut celery into bite-size chunks

Step 7) Dice onions you can do more or less here I do as little as possible to get it past the kids.

Step 8) Put beef, onions, carrots, celery and potatoes into your crockpot

Step 9) Mix the water and seasoning package.

Step 10) Pour over ingredients in the crockpot.

Step 11) Cover and cook on low 8 hours or high for 4 hours.

Enjoy!!!

Now I am not kidding when I say this is by far the best stew I have ever made. I am pretty sure it's because of the seasoning package.  I happened upon it when by package gravy one day and decided to give it a try.

1/4 kids liked it (1/4 kids will eat anything the other 3 don't "like" much)
3/3 adults loved it

Speeding into Week 5

 I love when I learn something new like the world's smallest car fits one person is only about 8ft long and assembled by hand.

Week 5 was picked by H and she picked cars. This unit was one that I learned things from as well.

Most of the videos we watched were by How It's Made. I love their videos and the kids seem to enjoy them as well. Also, they are short so for littles, one short attention spans they are perfect.

We build cars from paper plates which were great for scissor skills.

How our days went with the car unit.

8 am breakfast, get dressed, hair put the dirty laundry downstairs.

9 am either workbooks or worksheets. I alternate each day so the kids don't get bored with doing the same thing every day.

15-minute break. On this 15 min break, I get everything ready for the next activity, put laundry in, hand wash the dishes that need to be washed.

930am Journals and a letter book. (We started the letter books to help H learn her letters)

15-minute break outside. I empty the dishwasher and answer clients.

10:30 am Snack

10:45 am Car activity or video I fold and put away laundry while they are watching a video.

11:00 am They have free time to do whatever they would like (this amount of time depends on how long things took us.

In this "free time" I work on client orders and make lunch

12:00 pm LUNCH

12:30 pm reading. They each get to read their book with me and do the sight word cards as well as the sight word board. (The books and the sight word changes every three days)

1:00 pm "Online learning" They each get a turn in the learning app on my phone called Khan Kids. They each have a profile and play what I consider one round. One round is playing until they get a prize.

1:30 PM They have until snack to free play. I sweep, clean up and work on client orders.

2:00 pm snack. I start dinner at this point.

15minutes outside.

Then they have until dinner to free play.

4:30 pm Dinner

5:30 pm walk dogs

6:00 pm start baths. When I start baths I get out the painting I have been working on and work on it while each child gets to play in the tub for 10mins.

7:00 pm snack, stories, teeth and bed.

At about 8:30 pm everyone is asleep, which means I get to work on client orders, cleaning, folding laundry and getting everything ready for the next day's schooling.

Here are links to the videos and activities that we did.

Plate Car

We did ours slightly different as you will see in the photo below

Video 1

Video 2

Video 3

How do you building learning around your children's interests?

A magical week 4

 

 

 

 

Pretty sure all children LOVE unicorns, yes both boys and girls. Even though most little boys in the mainstream school system won't admit it for fear of bullying.

L picked unicorns as her theme for week 4. This unit was harder than I had thought it would. Especially finding content that is educational about unicorns. So much so that I gave up and we watched 2 unicorn videos about loving who we are for the way we are and being kind.

We did watch one video about the mythology of unicorns but I do have to say that even I was bored with it.

We built unicorns and made unicorn masks. I even found a boy unicorn mask so that Blaine didn't have flowers and was different from the girls.

How our days went with the unicorn unit.

8 am breakfast, get dressed, hair put the dirty laundry downstairs.

9 am either workbooks or worksheets. I alternate each day so the kids don't get bored with doing the same thing every day.

15-minute break. On this 15 min break, I get everything ready for the next activity, put laundry in, hand wash the dishes that need to be washed.

930am Journals and a letter book. (We started the letter books to help H learn her letters)

15-minute break outside. I empty the dishwasher and answer clients.

10:30 am Snack

10:45 am unicorn activity or video I fold and put away laundry while they are watching a video.

11:00 am They have free time to do whatever they would like (this amount of time depends on how long things took us.

In this "free time" I work on client orders and make lunch

12:00 pm LUNCH

12:30 pm reading. They each get to read their book with me and do the sight word cards as well as the sight word board. (The books and the sight word changes every three days)

1:15 PM They have until snack to free play. I sweep, clean up and work on client orders.

2:00 pm snack. I start dinner at this point.

15minutes outside.

Then they have until dinner to free play.

4:30 pm Dinner

5:30 pm walk dogs

6:00 pm start baths. When I start baths I get out the painting I have been working on and work on it while each child gets to play in the tub for 10mins.

7:00 pm snack, stories, teeth and bed.

At about 8:30 pm everyone is asleep, which means I get to work on client orders, cleaning, folding laundry and getting everything ready for the next day's schooling.

Here are links to the videos and activities that we did.

Video one

Video two

Video three

Girl unicorn mask

Boy unicorn mask

Build a unicorn

What interests have your children wanted to learn about?

#parentingquote

 Falling in LOVE with Alfie Kohn wasn't something I planned. From the moment I picked up one of his books 3 years ago, one of his books is something I am always reading and loving his quotes.

Long before I ever heard of Alfie or had children of my own, I believed that children should be treated the same way we want to be treated. They should be given choices, etc. I always believed in natural consequences as I will say not watching your footing will cause you to fall, or if you climb that and fall it will hurt for when they climb things they shouldn't.

Children have thoughts and feelings too and are entitled to them.

What Alfie has taught me over the years is that I might have had the right idea and known in my heart that parenting the old ways wasn't okay and wasn't something I wanted to. I went out on a path of my own without knowing exactly that I was doing that at all.

He has also taught me over the years ways I need to improve my thinking and how to help navigate a path that I or anyone I know had gone down.


This quote is one of my favourites. I have always said you can not hit a child to teach them not to hit. Children behave how we show them, so we teach by example. You can't tell a child to shut up, or call them names and then get mad when they do the same thing.

Yes even as a parent you can be a hypocrite and it is just as bad if you are one to a child as if you are being a hypocrite to an adult.

I scream, you scream Jan 2021

 

 Week 3 is B's week to pick what he wanted to learn about. He decided on ice cream. I figured for this one it would be fun at the end of the week to get a few small containers of cool flavoured ice cream and do a taste testing!

I remembered as soon as he came up with the idea that there are a few "How it's made" videos about ice cream and ice cream treats! I don't even know if it is still on the air. Anyone else remembers that show?

Our schedule for the week:

The kids get up really freaking early EVERY day. B knows to snuggle or quietly do something. The girls, on the other hand, I swear start bickering the moment they step out of bed at 5:30 am. If I am lucky they sleep until 6:00 am.

I am the world's meanest mom and will not make breakfast until 8 am. Pretty much you want to be up that freaking early find something quiet to do. Growing up, I would dare not wake anyone else up that early.

Breakfast at 8. Get dressed. I clean up from breakfast.

School starts after that. With either worksheets or workbooks. I alternate each day so they do not get bored with doing the same thing every day.

15-minute break.

Now is journals, art, or science which are alternated days as well.

15 minute outside break while I make the snack.

10:00 am (could be a few minutes later depending on how long the last activity took) Snack

Learning video, game or activity based on that week's theme ICE CREAM!!!

15-minute break.

Reading. Each child gets to read with me individually. This may or make not take place after lunch depending on how long the morning activities have taken.

Lunch

After lunch is me spent working, starting supper or finishing up our morning activities. If they have finished everything from the morning then they are free to play or do whatever they would like.

2:00 pm snack

15 minutes outside break.

Work, finish dinner, clean up.

Dinner

Walk the dogs

Baths, snacks, stories, teeth and bed

Then I work on anything I need to prep for school the following day, work on client orders and tidy.

When the kids are on their breaks I am either making food, answering clients, working on things I can in a short period of time or tidying. If it is a day they watch a video for part of their learning I fold a basket of laundry in the living room while they watch it.

Even with all that, my house is still never clean enough and the kids still complain they are bored in their "free time".

Our schedule stays the same 7 days a week 365 days a year. It helps C to emotionally regulate if we stay on a known schedule.

These are the video's we watched:
Video 1
Video 2
Video 3

These are some of the ice cream activities we did. 
Activity 1
Activity 2

On the last day, we did an ice cream tasting because who can have an ice cream week without that.


Goal: Make your dream ice cream snack