Balancing School and Home Linky -Tips for Teaching Moms!

I had already posted when April at Idea Backpack pointed out that this was perfect for her Balancing School and Home Linky - and she was right!  So I changed my post a bit.  Please forgive the breach of blog etiquette :-)

I realized that since I started this blog I haven't addressed the "mom" side of things! 

Being Mom always comes first with me.  However, creating that balance between being a teacher and a mom is difficult (to say the least) at times!!! I'm already starting to feel it and the school year hasn't even started yet! 

My lovely children are bouncing off the walls of my classroom because they are so tired of being there!  Little does my daughter know, that this is only the beginning of being subjected to my classroom.  She starts kindergarten this year and will being going to my school - poor thing :-)

I enrolled her in daycare today and lunch is included... what does she say?  "Good Mommy, because lunches always make us late!"  Ugghhh, sooo true... but it smacks a bit coming from a 5 year old!

The thought of the mad rush to get out the door in the mornings, homework, thinking ahead about dinner, on top of preparing for, spending the day with, and recovering from a room full of 7 year olds...  Yikes, I may not be ready for this year yet!!!

Here are a few tips that help me (ok, for part of the year before I'm really tired and the people at Papa Murphy's know me by name!)

1. Lunch at school/daycare - new this year! Ha ha ha (I crack myself up!)
 Ok, really... Making lunches the night before worked well when I actually did it.  This year will be much easier for me!!!

2. Freeze leftovers for lunch,  then you have something easy to pull out of the freezer for your lunch.  Leave it out until lunch time and it's ready for the micro!  I often make lots of zuccchini recipies before school starts and freeze them for lunches.

3. Homework at school. Last year my step-son came to school with me.  By the time we got home, we were both starving and the last thing either of us wanted to do was homework!  So, we started doing homework in the mornings before school started.  He had to be there early with me anyway, we were both refreshed and ready for the day, and the thought of helping another kiddo through an assignment didn't completely overwhelm me!

4. Crockpot!!!  The crockpot is, by far, the greatest invention ever!!!  Ok, it takes planning ahead, which I'm not always great about. However, you can get it ready the night before, pull it out in the morning, plug it in, and you have dinner ready when you walk in the door.

So, these are all pretty obvious tricks of the trade!  But, they're simple time savers that open up time for family and the extremely rare few minutes of relaxation :-)

What I really want to know is what all you other mothers out there do to keep things running smoothly during the school year???  Hop on over to Idea Backpack to link up and share some of those "WonderMom" tips :-)