Dinner Schedule

For the record I am posting what we are setting out to do this year.  Sorry if this bores you to tears.

Dinners are a magical hour when everyone in the family is together.  I would like to make it more ceremonial, but by the time I get a nutritious meal on the table I'm ready to sit.  However, we are recommitting to have a little theme each night in an effort to take advantage of the learning opportunity.  Here is what the week looks like:

SUNDAY

Polite Cafe (We practice good table manners and read a section from A Smart Girl's Guide to Manners by American Girl - awesome books.)

MONDAY

Critical Thinking (using Critical Thinking Activities and Red Herring Mysteries)

TUESDAY

Moral Choices (using the weekly discussion at www.thefamilydinnerproject.org)

WEDNESDAY

Poetry (Lots of good poetry books out there, but a few we have are Dover Thrift Classics: 101 Great American Poems, Favorite Poems of Childhood and A Child's Garden of Verses.)

THURSDAY

Dinner Cards (Using Family Table Topics to encourage better conversational skills each person at the table asks the person who responded to the question a question or two about their answer.)

FRIDAY

Game Night (There are fun game ideas online, and several in the book The Family Dinner.)

SATURDAY

Doodles (The place-mats at the table are pages from Doodles at Dinner or Doodles at Lunch.  We draw and tell.  Kid's favorite night by far.)

It is easy to get knocked off track (we dropped the dinner schedule completely this last year) but I'm committing to try again!