Monday: Project Day Prep, Four-Year-Old Banana Bread & Taco Night

Got up this morning and did bacon and bagels for breakfast, and then we got to work.

This week is Project Day at our homeschool co-op, so our school day looks a little different than usual.

Project Day is sort of our version of a science fair, except the kids can present on basically anything they’re interested in. It can be a traditional experiment, an explanation of how something works, a history topic, something they’ve designed or created—really anything they want to teach everyone else about.

And we have quite the assortment happening in our house this year.

One kid is explaining why soda is fizzy.

One is presenting the history of American Girl.

And another is presenting his LEGO MOCs—which stands for My Own Creation. Basically, instead of following the instructions for an existing LEGO set, you design and build your own creation from scratch.

You can probably guess which kid picked which topic.

So today there were tri-fold boards and project supplies all over the place.

When the Four-Year-Old Needs Her Own Project

Meanwhile, Daphne was very interested in everything everyone else was doing.

A little too interested.

We were trying to work on posters, and she desperately needed a job of her own.

So I gave her one:

Make banana bread.

This is one of my favorite tricks when I actually need to accomplish something with the older kids.

I put a towel down and set up a big tray with a bowl and all the ingredients. Then I stretch the process out.

Mash the bananas.

Dump this ingredient.

Stir.

Add another ingredient.

Stir some more.

We are in absolutely no hurry here.

The goal is banana bread, yes.

But the secondary goal is that the four-year-old has something productive to do while everybody else works.

And when the batter went into the pan, she wanted sprinkles.

Of course.

Put sprinkles on it.

Later, she had a piece for a snack with some butter.

Although I’m pretty sure she was primarily interested in eating the butter.

Still counts.

Lunch From the Refrigerator

For lunch, I pulled out some cilantro-lime chicken I’d made yesterday and turned mine into a salad.

Some of the kids had leftover hot dogs from last night’s bonfire, and we filled everything out with whatever else we had around.

Nothing exciting.

Make-Ahead Eggs for Chris

This afternoon I also prepped some eggs for Chris’s breakfasts.

I’ve shown this before, but the trick is to barely cook them the first time.

I get a pan searing hot with a little butter and crack in the eggs.

As soon as they’re set enough that I can possibly flip them, I flip.

And then almost immediately, I take them out.

They look incredibly underdone at this point.

That’s intentional.

I put them into a glass container and refrigerate them. The next morning, Chris microwaves them, which finishes cooking the eggs while reheating them.

That way he can still have an egg with a softer, somewhat runny center instead of a rubbery, completely overcooked reheated egg.

Four Pounds of Taco Meat Is My Kind of Monday

For dinner, I got into the ground beef I bought at Costco yesterday.

First, I pulled off what I needed to make another batch of my Teriyaki Beef Summer Sausage.

I mixed that up and put it into the refrigerator to cure overnight. Tomorrow I’ll cook it.

Then I took the rest of the ground beef and made about four pounds of taco meat.

Because again: if I’m already standing there cooking ground beef, why would I make enough for one dinner?

Tonight, everybody could use it however they wanted.

The kids mostly made nacho-style platters with taco meat and all their favorite toppings.

Chris and I made taco salads.

Easy, adaptable, everybody’s happy.

And more importantly, there’s plenty of cooked taco meat left in the refrigerator.

So heading into Tuesday, we’ve got banana bread for breakfast or snacks, a big container of taco meat ready to become something else, Chris’s breakfast eggs prepped, and a fresh log of teriyaki beef summer sausage curing in the refrigerator.

Plus three Project Day boards that are hopefully getting closer to looking like actual projects.