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I needed to take some time off of doing school work with her to prep dinner and get it in the crock pot. So, instead of letting her leave the room and get engaged with her toys or the computer, making it difficult, if not impossible to pull her back to her school work later on, I just made my dinner prep part of her lessons for the day. She had to help me from start to finish, read the recipe, get the ingredients and tools out, measure, wash the bowls and cutting boards. Once it had cooled, I even taught her how to clean my skillet (without soup), dry it and rub it down with vegetable shortening!

As you can see from the photo, she even proved responsible enough to turn the pieces of beef as they browned in the skillet under my close supervision. She even protected Avril from the hot stove, shooing her little sister away as she toddled into the kitchen to see what big sister was up to.

These little lessons on dinner prep (and child care) are not part of her formal curriculum, as I said, but I think they may serve her just as well or even better than what she learns through her school work. If I have my way and if I train her like I want to, she will capable almost all that I am capable of when she leaves home to start a home of her own.

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