The Easy Diabetes Diet Plan Cookbook - Tomato and Basil Omelette with Whole Wheat Toast

Tomato and Basil Omelette with Whole Wheat Toast

Ingredients:

Tomatoes, fresh

2 large eggs

Basil, fresh

Whole wheat bread

Olive oil

Preparation:

Wash the tomatoes, eggs, and basil. Core the tomatoes and dice them. Remove the basil leaves from the stem and tear them into smaller pieces. Crack the eggs into a bowl and give them a rough whisk with a whisk or fork.

Place a medium-sized pan on medium heat and drizzle with a tablespoon of olive oil. When the oil is hot enough, add the eggs. With a silicon spatula, mix the egg a little so that it doesn’t cook unevenly. 

Agitate the egg until it is starting to form up. When the eggs are almost cooked through and through, add the tomatoes and basil on the egg. You can serve the omelette open-faced or you can fold it before serving. Season with white pepper or cayenne pepper for that added kick.

Toast the slices of whole wheat bread and serve with the omelette.

This is an excerpt from the book: The Easy Diabetes Diet Plan Cookbook

The Easy Diabetes Diet Plan Cookbook - Oatmeal with Milk and Almonds

Oatmeal with Milk and Almonds

Ingredients:

Milk, low fat and unsweetened, about half a cup or 120 grams

Oats, old-fashioned or quick, 120 to 150 grams

Cinnamon

Almonds, whole or sliced

Seasonal fruit for toppings e.g. bananas or strawberries (optional)

Preparation:

If using whole almonds, chop them roughly or run them quickly through a food processor making sure not to crush them too much.

In a medium pan, bring the milk to a simmer. Stir in the oats and a pinch or two of cinnamon. It usually takes 2 to 3 minutes for quick oats to be done cooking and 5 to 7 minutes for regular oats. If you want your oatmeal to be runnier, add water. Mix in the almonds about a minute before the oats are completely done. Serve on a bowl and top with some sliced bananas or strawberries or blueberries.

Fruits can go into the vegetable portion while almonds go into the protein portion.

This is an excerpt from the book: The Easy Diabetes Diet Plan Cookbook

The Easy Diabetes Diet Plan Cookbook - Breakfast Burrito

Breakfast Burrito

Ingredients:

Spinach (or other preferred leafy greens)

2 large eggs (The rule of thumb is a large egg is about 50 grams)

Tomatoes (for the salsa)

Pineapple (for the salsa)

Cilantro (for the salsa)

Cumin (for the salsa)

Cayenne pepper (for the salsa, optional)

Chicken broth

Whole-wheat tortilla

Preparation:

The great thing about this recipe is that everything can be prepared beforehand and you can just put the burrito together in the morning.

First, prepare the salsa. Core the tomatoes and cut into quarters. Remove the seeds until you’re only left with the outer fleshy part of the tomato. Dice the tomatoes until they’re about half a centimetre large (though you don’t have to be exact). Peel the pineapple, carefully removing the ‘eyes’. Slice a part of the fruit thinly then dice them or roughly chop. Chop up the cilantro, stem and leaves. Combine all of the ingredients together, adding the cumin and cayenne in small amounts until you get the salsa flavour that you like. Only add the spices in pinches, never in large amounts, so that you can control the heat and flavour. If you don’t like hot salsa, don’t add cayenne; use small amounts of white pepper instead. You can place the salsa in a jar and store it in the fridge.

You can add the spinach raw but for wraps and sandwiches, I prefer spinach blanched. To blanch the spinach, just drop them into salted boiling water until they wilt then scoop them out and squeeze the excess water out. You can blanch the spinach the night before and just place it in the chiller.

The scrambled egg is something you’ll have to do a la minute or last minute but it shouldn’t take too long. Add a few drops of olive oil in your non-stick pan and place on medium heat. Wash the egg, crack into a bowl, and scramble with a fork. Regular scrambled eggs will have milk but you’ll have to skip that part in this recipe. When the pan is hot, add the egg, and jostle with a silicon spatula until it is cooked and set aside.

To assemble your breakfast burrito, toast your tortilla inside a toaster or above a flame on your stove. Heat up a portioned amount of the spinach and the salsa (both should add up to complete the vegetable portion of the meal). You can place the ingredients on the tortilla in layers or you can mix them up in a bowl and place on the tortilla before wrapping it up into a burrito.

You can replace the egg with other kinds of protein like chicken breast or lean beef cuts which you can actually prepare the night before. You could even boil the chicken and use the leftover liquid as your chicken broth. Just remember to keep the protein portion at around 60 to 90 grams. 

This is an excerpt from the book: The Easy Diabetes Diet Plan Cookbook

The Easy Diabetes Diet Plan Cookbook - Breakfast Recipes

Breakfast Recipes

Finally, we’ve come to the best part – delicious, diabetes-friendly recipes. Any diet plan for anyone starts with breakfast and it’s no secret why. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day and it sets the tone for the rest of your meals. As a diabetic, skipping breakfast will skew your blood sugar levels right from the start which will take a toll on your body.

A lot of people end up skipping this important meal because they’re in a hurry. To make things easier, a lot of our recipes have been made for fast preparation or can be prepared beforehand. 

And if you do find a recipe that’s more elaborate than the rest, you can trust that it was worth slipping it in with the rest of the recipes. Who knows, you might want to cook for that special someone one of these days.


This is an excerpt from the book: The Easy Diabetes Diet Plan Cookbook

The Easy Diabetes Diet Plan Cookbook - Diabetes and Alcohol

The one thing you can’t have though is alcohol, even if you’re hanging out with your best friends. Alcohol is a big no-no for those who have diabetes because it can actually lead to both hyperglycaemia and hypoglycaemia.

 In the initial stages of drinking alcohol, the glucose levels in your blood will rise. But once you’ve taken in an excessive amount – which, for diabetics, is a mere one to two cans of beer – your blood sugar will actually drop, causing a hypoglycaemic attack. 

Alcohol also poses an added danger because it interferes with both injectable insulin and oral medication for diabetes.

This is an excerpt from the book: The Easy Diabetes Diet Plan Cookbook

The Easy Diabetes Diet Plan Cookbook - Portioning Properly

Now that you know the good from the bad, it’s time to start learning just how much of each kind of food you’re expected to eat per meal. Just like any other plate, your meals should have starch (but the good, complex carb type), protein, and greens or vegetables. To properly portion these three components, a lot of diabetics turn to the ‘create a plate’ method.

To create a plate, imagine a line right down the middle of your plate then imagine another horizontal line that goes through the left side of the plate. This leaves you with one large portion of a plate and two small portions. The largest section of the plate should be filled with non-starchy vegetables like broccoli, cabbage, mushrooms, bok choy, or peppers. One of the small sections is for the grains and starchy food like brown rice, whole wheat bread, whole grain cereal, green peas or sweet potatoes. The other small section is for your proteins such as chicken (without the skin), salmon, shrimp, lean cuts of beef or pork, or even tofu or low fat cheese.

The ‘create a plate’ method is a pretty effective way to help you visualize just how much of each kind of food you should be eating for every meal (as long as you remember to keep the food off of the rim). But the problem with ‘create a plate’ is that it’s not very accurate. To get a more exact idea of how big your portions should be, use a digital scale or even a regular, kitchen weighing scale.

A digital scale would be ideal to use because it is more precise and it can measure small amounts that would be tough to read on a manual weighing scale. Keep these measurements in mind while preparing the recipes below. Some are made for bulk preparation and can be kept in the chiller so the recipes aren’t scaled per plate but portions should reflect the scaled portions above.

The real challenge to portioning your meals is when you eat out with your friends and family. You can’t exactly tell the restaurant to measure out your portions and to change them accordingly. But don’t start refusing to go out with friends; I say grab every change you get to hang out with great company.

In these situations, just ask for a doggy bag beforehand so that you can portion your plate yourself and save the rest for another meal. If you’re having dinner at a restaurant, you can also ask if the chef can prepare a lunch-portioned plate for you which is usually a lot less than what a dinner plate would have.

This is an excerpt from the book: The Easy Diabetes Diet Plan Cookbook 

The Easy Diabetes Diet Plan Cookbook - Best and Worst Food Choices

Admittedly, packaged food is more convenient. You open a can of spaghetti sauce, toss it in with pasta and you have a meal; what could be easier? But easy and convenient usually don’t mean healthy and good

 for your body. Have you noticed how affordable packaged food is? Packaged food companies cut corners where they can to give you cheap and easy to prepare food that also tastes good and that usually means loading it up with saturated and trans fat, salt, sugar, preservatives, and simple carbohydrates. That’s what you have to keep in mind the next time you find yourself reaching for that bag of frozen chicken nuggets.

If you’re not quite sure which kinds of food are the best choices for you right now and which food are the worst, we’re going to give you a list of both so that you always know exactly what you’re getting into.

That’s quite a list of food that you have to avoid at all costs. But don’t despair; there’s also a list of food that are ideal for your diabetic diet plan. They might not be what you’re used to but they’re just as good and, with a few tips and tricks, just as satisfying to your appetite.

Here are some of the best food for people who have diabetes:

This is an excerpt from the book: The Easy Diabetes Diet Plan Cookbook

The Easy Diabetes Diet Plan Cookbook - Food to Stock Up On

As a diabetic, you want a constant rotation of food in your daily diet. Aside from portion size, variety is the most important thing that you need to consider when you’re planning out what to eat and when. But there are still certain go-to food that are usually present in any diabetic’s kitchen, good and healthy food that are easy to prepare and make for a great meal.

Some of them are:

You shouldn’t limit yourself to the food that are listed above but they make a good guideline for what should be in your kitchen. Think fresh food and produce, possibly purchased at a nearby farmer’s market so that they’re cheaper but still of good quality. If you must have pre-packaged food, always opt for the frozen variety and not canned food which you have to avoid because of their high sodium content.

While sodium (found in salt) isn’t completely banned from a diabetic diet, a high sodium diet is not something that you can indulge in. That’s why you also need to stock up on herbs and spices to compensate for the reduced amount of salt you can have in your food.

You can pretty much have your choice of proteins whether it’s pork or seafood but remember to avoid eating too much fat. A high fat diet doesn’t help with insulin production and can slow your digestion, making it even harder for what little insulin you have to kick in. Because fat, or to be more precise, trans fat, can add complications to your diabetes, it is also best to not overindulge in red meat. As a diabetic, there is no room for trans fat or hydrogenated fat in your diet so be sure to check the labels of food that you buy in the grocery store. 

This is an excerpt from the book: The Easy Diabetes Diet Plan Cookbook

The Easy Diabetes Diet Plan Cookbook - Eating Healthy and Well as a Diabetic

Eating Healthy and Well as a Diabetic

If we haven’t said it enough, eating healthy and well is the key to living a normal life with diabetes. That means saying goodbye to fast food favorites like burgers and fries loaded with ketchup and that large coke to go with it. You and that ice cream sundae with chocolate fudge? Never gonna happen. Your days of eating breakfast at a McDonald’s or a Taco Bell are behind you and belong in another life. But how exactly should you get started on eating better quality food? What makes for a good diet plan for a diabetic?

The first thing you need to do is to walk over to your pantry and fridge and look at what you’ve got. If it’s bare, then it’ll be easier on you because the first step towards a diabetic diet is to throw out any food with refined sugars and carbs. That includes the frozen hash browns, the ice cream, the fruit juice in a box or bottle, and the leftover candy from Halloween. And while you’re at it, throw out your high-sodium canned food too.

Better yet, place all of the food that you can’t eat anymore in a box and give it to the nicest, friendliest neighbour you can think of. Let’s not throw food in the trash just because it can’t be part of your life anymore

What you need in your kitchen and in your diet are unprocessed food that contain complex sugars and carbohydrates that aren’t as easily broken down by your body and offers a heck of a lot more nutritional value. When you eat a marshmallow for example, you’re basically eating sugar in its most basic form which calls for a lot of insulin that your body can’t provide. You have to start replacing junk food with real food that you buy in the market and cook for yourself.

You may be asking, if you can’t have those instant, pre-packaged food in your pantry anymore, what should you be replacing them with?

This is an excerpt from the book: The Easy Diabetes Diet Plan Cookbook 

The Easy Diabetes Diet Plan Cookbook - Digital Scale

Digital Scale

There is no better way to properly portion your meals than with a digital scale. It gives you unmatched accuracy and you’ll have no trouble navigating recipes that are based on the metric system. 

Because of the importance of portioning, a digital scale is a must for every diabetic cook.


This is an excerpt from the book: The Easy Diabetes Diet Plan Cookbook 

The Easy Diabetes Diet Plan Cookbook - Measuring Cups and Spoons

A lot of people take their kitchen measuring tools for granted but they are particularly essential for a diabetic’s kitchen. 

A good and healthy meal hinges on proper portioning and you need to measure out practically everything to make sure you’re not overeating. 


The cups are for measuring juice and other beverages and you can even use them to measure food as well (though I would recommend the digital scale). You will need the measuring spoons for seasoning and for spices.

This is an excerpt from the book: The Easy Diabetes Diet Plan Cookbook 

The Easy Diabetes Diet Plan Cookbook - Salad Spinner

Salad Spinner

Is it entirely necessary? Not really. But salads are about to become a staple in most of your meals so it’s time that you embrace your greens.

Salad dressings don’t cling to wet leaves at all so wet greens will leave you with tasteless salads. You can easily solve that problem with an affordable salad spinner. 

It’s fun and it will help make your meals even more delicious.

This is an excerpt from the book: The Easy Diabetes Diet Plan Cookbook

The Easy Diabetes Diet Plan Cookbook - Rice Cooker

Rice Cooker

One of the best forms of starch that you can eat as a diabetic is brown rice so a rice cooker can come in pretty handy. 

It also makes for a great slow cooker thanks to its low temperature designed for gentle cooking.

 You can just as easily cook rice in a pot but a rice cooker can be a fun and convenient addition to your kitchen.


This is an excerpt from the book: The Easy Diabetes Diet Plan Cookbook

The Easy Diabetes Diet Plan Cookbook - Steamer

Steamer

Despite the fact that it’s pretty affordable (especially the bamboo ones that you can find at the nearest Chinatown), a lot of homes don’t have a steamer. Steaming is one of the healthiest cooking methods in the book. 

Having your own steamer means you can do a lot more with the ingredients you have and add variety to your meals.

This is an excerpt from the book: The Easy Diabetes Diet Plan Cookbook

The Easy Diabetes Diet Plan Cookbook - Vegetable Peeler

Vegetable Peeler

A proper diet plan for diabetics will have a lot of fruits and vegetables in it which means that a vegetable peeler will probably be your most used kitchen tool second to the chef’s knife. 

Choose a vegetable peeler that you’re comfortable using and one that’s sturdy and can take a lot of use. The last thing you want is a vegetable peeler that will break on the first day.


This is an excerpt from the book: The Easy Diabetes Diet Plan Cookbook

The Easy Diabetes Diet Plan Cookbook - Chef’s Knife

Chef’s Knife

If you can have one knife in your kitchen, it should be a chef’s knife or a cook’s knife. It is versatile enough that you can use it for most tasks and sturdy enough that it can take a lot of abuse. A good chef’s knife doesn’t have to be expensive either, only strong and reliable.

When using your chef’s knife, be sure to follow a few basic safety rules. Never place your knife in the sink; someone may not know that it is there and accidentally cut himself. 

Instead, wash the knife immediately after use and put it away. Also, never catch a falling knife.

With proper care, your knife should last you for a long time.


This is an excerpt from the book: The Easy Diabetes Diet Plan Cookbook

The Easy Diabetes Diet Plan Cookbook - Kitchen Inventory

Kitchen Inventory

Having the right tools in the kitchen is important for any cook but it’s particularly important when you’re cooking diabetes-friendly meals. 

Some of the tools and equipment that we’ll be talking about in this chapter are pretty basic and you probably already have them in the pantry. 

There are others, like some portion control tools, which may not be as common in the average kitchen but can prove very useful especially in the long term.

This is an excerpt from the book: The Easy Diabetes Diet Plan Cookbook

The Easy Diabetes Diet Plan Cookbook - Preventing Diabetes

Preventing Diabetes

When you have type 1 diabetes, it is mostly due to genetics which is why people who have it are usually diagnosed as children, but it’s different with type 2 diabetes. Genetics and heredity also play a role in getting type 2 diabetes but the bulk of what causes type 2 diabetes is in your lifestyle and habit. Usually, people get type 2 when they have put such a strain on their body that it can no longer produce enough insulin to keep up with the amount of glucose in the blood.

It takes years to develop a real problem with producing enough insulin to keep up with the amount of food that you’re eating which is why most type 2 diabetics are diagnosed in their 40s. That point is usually reached when you’ve made a habit out of eating more food than what you’re burning as energy or when you’ve gotten used to eating processed food and fast food that are usually high on simple sugars and carbohydrates but offer very little in terms of nutrients. The best way to prevent diabetes is also the best way to manage it – by eating right and by exercising regularly.

If you know what to look out for, you will actually be able to tell that you are having problems that are related to diabetes. There is a stage in diabetes where you may experience high blood glucose level and could even experience related symptoms; it’s called prediabetes. You may experience the same tell-tale signs like excessive thirst and urination, constant hunger, and weight loss but you do not have diabetes yet which means that the problem is still reversible. This stage can be a huge wake-up call but it is also unfortunately difficult to spot especially to the untrained eye.

It’s important to start living the right lifestyle to prevent diabetes right away. By developing good eating and fitness habits now, you can avoid diabetes and its numerous related complications. The best part is you can actually eat better and more delicious food everyday while being healthier. You can eat your way to good health!

This is an excerpt from the book: The Easy Diabetes Diet Plan Cookbook

The Easy Diabetes Diet Plan Cookbook - Why Start Cooking for Yourself?

Why Start Cooking for Yourself?

Medically speaking, there isn’t much that you can do with getting rid of diabetes or dealing with its problems. Instead, what doctors recommend is a lifestyle change – switching from an unhealthy life of processed food and take-out pizza to a life of buying fresh produce, cooking your own meals, and spending more time in the kitchen.

Believe me when I say that there is no better time to take up cooking and to take an interest in the food that you eat because your life can literally depend on it, and this applies to the prediabetics as well as the diabetics. By cooking your own meals, you will have firm control over what goes into your body which is essential for managing your blood glucose level. 

You won’t have to deal with those ‘hidden ingredients’ that are always lurking in processed food and fast food that are in no way good for your health. When you buy food, even if it’s from a health food store, you don’t really know what kind of oil they used, what ingredients go into pre-cooking like in the marinade, how much salt or sugar they’re using, or whether they’re using ingredients that have been treated with preservatives. The best way to have a good diet plan where you’re in control of the food you eat is to learn how to prepare meals that are healthy, balanced, and delicious!

This is an excerpt from the book: The Easy Diabetes Diet Plan Cookbook

The Easy Diabetes Diet Plan Cookbook - Exercise

Whether you have type 1 or type 2 diabetes, exercise and fitness is important for your overall wellness and health. It’s also important to balance your physical activities with the food that you eat – exercising too much or not exercising enough can also cause your glucose levels to either drop or soar which is not good for you as a diabetic. That’s why it is also important to frequently check your blood sugar levels before and after a workout and to have food with simple carbohydrates nearby so that you can deal with hypoglycaemia when it strikes.

Like food, exercise and other physical activities affect the glucose level in your blood and the amount of insulin your body needs just like food does. While food supplies our body with glucose that insulin converts into energy, exercise uses up the energy that food and insulin provide. You might think that it would be easier to just manage your blood sugar level by restricting your diet and by exercising less so that you would need less insulin but you would be wrong. Your body needs glucose and it will eventually need to expend the energy that you get from it. The more regularly this cycle runs, the healthier you’ll be. That’s why as a diabetic you need to keep an eye on these two Fs – food and fitness. But how exactly does exercise affect the glucose level in your bloodstream?

Your blood glucose level during and after exercise is affected by a number of factors such as the original glucose level before you got started, the intensity of the workout, the length of time for the workout, and any changes you might have made to your insulin doses if you’re a type 1. If your blood glucose is less than 100mg/lb or milligrams per pound, try having a small snack (about 15 grams), something that’s rich in simple carbs, to boost your blood glucose level a little and to avoid hypoglycaemia.

Glucose levels aside, there are also certain exercises that are more suited for diabetes while there are others that are not and would put you at risk.  For example, studies have shown that diabetes have caused problems with feet and legs. That’s because diabetes reduces blood flow to certain areas, especially the outer limbs, and your feet and legs are just about as far as you can get from the heart while still being part of the body. The damage to these areas can also include nerve damage which means that you could already be hurt and not feel it or know it. You can plan out a more complete fitness plan with your physician.  

This is an excerpt from the book: The Easy Diabetes Diet Plan Cookbook

The Easy Diabetes Diet Plan Cookbook - Diet

Diet

What does healthy eating really mean when you have diabetes?

When you have diabetes, it’s important to eat a variety of food that includes whole grains, vegetables, fruits, and lean meats while avoiding food with a lot of fat content (avoid unhealthy fatty food but be open to ‘healthy fat’ food). The key to eating healthy as a diabetic is all about variety and moderation. You need to avoid eating too much of one kind of food while also keeping yourself from overeating. But it is also very important for you to not skip meals and to properly space your meals throughout the day. Eating as a diabetic is like having a huge balancing act where you can’t have too much but you can’t have too little. Instead, you need to stick to the ‘Goldilocks zone’ where everything is just right – just the right amount of food, eaten at the right time, with enough variety to keep you healthy.

It’s important to keep that balance in your diet so that you can avoid two things – hyperglycaemia and hypoglycaemia. Hyperglycaemia means that your blood has more glucose that it can handle. While this could mean that you haven’t given yourself enough insulin if you’re a type 1 diabetic, it could also mean that you ate more than you had planned, making it difficult for your body to deal with the excess glucose, a state that applies to both types of diabetes.

Hypoglycaemia on the other hand means the opposite; you aren’t getting enough glucose in your blood. Also known as insulin shock or an insulin reaction, some of its signs and symptoms include headaches, weakness or sudden fatigue, lack of coordination, confusion, and unconsciousness. Keep in mind that as a diabetic, you should be regularly seeing a physician so that you know exactly what a healthy glucose level is for you so that you know when it is too low. When these symptoms do occur, it can usually be treated with simple carbohydrates. Most diabetics have glucose tablets on hand (follow package instructions or consult with your doctor) but food that are high in simple carbs can help like two tablespoons of raisins, half a cup of soda (regular, not diet), or a spoonful of white sugar or honey.

Because you’re constantly trying to avoid either reaction, you need to avoid both overeating and not eating enough. You also need to know the right amount of exercise that you need because you don’t want to overdo it but you also don’t want to lack for exercise – either case could also be dangerous. As mentioned earlier, balance is the key. In fact, balance is crucial and it is particularly important when you’re deciding what to eat, when to eat, and how much. But that doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy delicious and filling food!

This is an excerpt from the book: The Easy Diabetes Diet Plan Cookbook

The Easy Diabetes Diet Plan Cookbook - Learning the Basics

Learning the Basics

There are three types of diabetes – type 1, type 2, and gestational diabetes. Type 1 diabetes is usually diagnosed in children in young adults. It’s the type of diabetes where you need daily injections of insulin because the body simply can’t synthesize any for itself. Type 2 diabetes on the other hand is when your body isn’t making enough insulin to deal with the sugars or the glucose in your blood. It is the most common type of diabetes and usually happens when you are much older.

 At first, your pancreas may produce more insulin to deal with the deficiency but with type 2 diabetes, the body develops insulin resistance. Over time, your body cannot make enough insulin to deal with the glucose levels in your blood. The last kind of diabetes is gestational diabetes and is the only kind of diabetes that can be temporary. It only happens to pregnant women and usually happens around the 24^th week of pregnancy. Because of the lack of symptoms in gestational diabetes, it is important for women who are pregnant to be tested by a doctor so that both the mother and the baby remain healthy. 

In this book, the tips on both fitness and cooking are limited to type 1 and type 2 diabetes. While gestational diabetes is just as serious or even more so because it affects both the mother and unborn child, the treatment is always started very quickly and is always handled by a doctor or another member of the mother’s health care team.

This is an excerpt from the book: The Easy Diabetes Diet Plan Cookbook

How to Home School Your Child - Planning Your School Day

Planning your school day is important. You want to give yourself a basic idea of how you want to run each day from the start. This way you have a general plan and you can feel more organized. While flexibility is a great benefit of homeschooling, it is important that your child have some structure.

Determining Daily Schedule

Before you can plan your day, you have to generally plan your calendar for the year. Get a wall calendar that you can use for just homeschooling. Start by marking the first day of your homeschooling year then decide the last day you of school for the year and mark that too. Go through the calendar and mark through any days you know you will not be schooling. You may want to factor in additional days as “maybe” days, to make up for time missed from sickness or other unforeseen complications with the schedule. 

Once you have your basic year planned, you can determine how many hours per day you need to home school. Count up how many days you will be homeschooling for the year. Divide the number of hours you need for school according to state guidelines by the number of days you will be schooling. This will tell you how many hours per day you must spend in school activities.

The calendar will also come in handy when you begin to schedule school field trips. It can also be part of your record keeping for what days and hours you home school for the year and help you stay on track so that you get enough hours in. 

Once you know how many hours you will be schooling per day, you can create a basic schedule. Homeschooling’s biggest advantage is flexibility. Do not feel that you have to stick to a strict schedule. This is a general guideline as to how you will spend each day. Every day will be different, and that’s perfectly okay but having a general idea of how you want to break up the day will help.

For example, if you are going to school for four hours per day, you may want to break up your schedule into half hour increments, one half hour for each subject. If a subject takes longer than the allotted time, simply make up the work the next day for the subject missed. The great thing about breaking up the day into eight segments is that you will have an allotted time for every subject being taught, including “electives.” This way if you have to take extra time on a core subject, you can simply put off the elective lessons as they are usually less essential.

This is an excerpt from the book How to Home School Your Child: Developing a Well Trained Mind: Proven Strategies for Unlocking Your Child’s Genius with Homeschooling by Karina Bartlett

 

You can get the book on this link:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00NAX3506/