How Meal Planning Breakfast Saves My Homeschool Day

If you read homemaking/parenting/mama blogs at all, you know that meal planning is a hot topic!

Freezer cooking, crock pot cooking, and once-a-month shopping trips are discussed in great detail.  Don’t you just love the resources available for a mama on the internet?

It really is a vast sea of knowledge and experience.  I adore it!

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My husband and I have been eating the Trim Healthy Mama way since January 16th with great success.  (I won’t mention the fact that the book sat on my shelf for over a year without me touching it!  Thankfully, I came to my senses and actually read it.)

Because it’s not easy to fly by the seat of your pants when you eat the Trim Healthy Mama way, you have to plan each meal and snack.

Even though it’s time consuming, I’m honestly okay with that.

Since first reading about meal planning w-a-y back before my 1st child was born, I’ve been a pretty faithful planner.  I would plan our dinner-hour meals and have a pretty good idea of what we would eat for lunch.

But breakfast?

It was totally a come-to-the-kitchen-and-what’s-for-breakfast kind of day.  Every day.

And then it dawned on me to have breakfasts for my children planned too.

Just this one easy tip – planning for breakfast – totally changed our mornings!

So how did planning breakfast make such a difference in our homeschool morning?

I’ve pondered the shift in our mornings and how things have improved.  Here are the top ways our family has benefited from planned breakfasts.

♥ 2 of my 4 kiddos wake up ravenously hungry.  By immediately knowing what we’re having for breakfast, the grouchiness period is cut short.

♥ I don’t have to drum something up each day.  I just look at the list, and off I go to prepare it.  (This is my favorite reason.  I hate having to think it up!)

♥ If it’s something easy and already prepared, my older kiddos see what’s scheduled for the day and start getting it ready.

♥ When my children eat a hearty, filling breakfast, their attitudes are better, there is less complaining, and we all just get along better.  Our homeschool day almost always gets off to a great start if everyone (including – and maybe especially – mama) has a full belly.

Planning for Breakfast

I know that many plan meals based on the day of the week, so Mondays are oatmeal, Tuesdays are cereal, and so on.

Because most of our breakfasts are home-cooked, I can’t be quite that rigid, nor do I want to be.  If I was able to get the Breakfast Cookies baked on Tuesday as I planned, we’ll have them on Wednesday and Thursday.  If I didn’t get them baked, we’ll go to Plan B.

I have to be flexible since I can’t just run out to the store and buy cereal (we’re mostly gluten-free).

Each week before my husband does a big grocery store run (love that man!), I do an inventory of the pantry and fridge and determine what we’ll eat for breakfast.

I alternate the baked goods so my children don’t get sick of them.  They have a few favorites that I rotate through every 2-4 weeks.

I write down our list in a cheap spiral notebook that’s left in the same place in the kitchen.  So the kids know they can flip to our current week and find the right day to see what the menu will be.

So easy!

What We Eat for Breakfast

As I mentioned, we’re mostly gluten-free (I have one daughter that doesn’t grow if she eats gluten), so you won’t see any wheat-heavy breakfasts at the Hill House.

If you’re stuck in a breakfast rut, you might find some fresh ideas for tomorrow morning. 🙂

In a typical month, we eat a variety of these breakfast foods:

→ Breakfast Energy Balls – the kids’ favorite, by far!

→ Breakfast Cookies – packed with protein and they’re grain-free.  (I adore these, but sadly, they are not THM friendly.)

→ Homemade Bread with Butter or Cinnamon-Toast style – my new favorite recipe is in The How Can it Be Gluten Free Cookbook.  It is the best gluten-free bread I’ve ever eaten, and I’ve tried them all!  No more styrofoam bread – woo hoo!)

→ Sausage and Eggs

→ Cheesy Eggs

→ Homemade Oatmeal

→ Rice Cakes, sliced cheese, and fruit – my daughter’s favorite, as she’s a light breakfast eater

→ Homemade Oatmeal Bars

→ Quick Bread, yogurt, and fruit – gluten-free pumpkin or banana bread; I always add flax seed for extra protein

So what is breakfast like at your house?  Do you find that your homeschool day flows tremendously better when everyone has a hearty breakfast?

Lauren Hill

Lauren Hill is a Christian mom to 5, ages 19 to 7. She homeschools her children in the classical education tradition and is currently in her 15th year of homeschool. She creates engaging worksheets and hands-on printable activities for Preschool and Elementary age children to supplement their daily studies.

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