Large Family Homeschool Life – Week 21 of 2021
Raising Arrows
Large Family Homeschool Life – Week 21 of 2021
After a week in the mountains celebrating our 25th wedding anniversary, I was ready to jump back into a full homeschool week!
Read all of the Large Family Homeschool Life posts HERE >>
NOTE: You may have noticed I was missing for Week 19 & 20. Week 19 was full of prep for Ty and I taking our 25th wedding anniversary trip to the mountains sans children for the first time! Week 20 we were in the mountains and even got snowed in!
MONDAY
I got up this morning and cuddled my baby girls. I sure did miss them while Ty and I were away on our trip.
I am so ready for Morning Time today! A week away did me good, but I do so love homeschooling, and Morning Time is everyone’s favorite thing!
By the way, if you’ve taken my Creating a Homeschool Schedule You Love course, you know it is my firm belief that you should save the subjects YOU really enjoy for Morning Time. Your teacher-intensive subjects should be your favorite subjects! Your homeschooling experience will be so much nicer if you do this.
For Bible, we did GrapeVine lessons (stick figuring through the Bible – read my GrapeVine Review!). We have also been adding in lessons from Sound Words – a theology curriculum for younger kids.
We read in Our Island Story, The Fallacy Detective, and The Way of the Wilderking – the 3rd book in the Wilderking Trilogy (I can hardly believe we are almost finished with this great series!)
Our internet was out all afternoon, but thankfully, all of the kids got their school work finished before the outage happened. I now have so many kids doing some type of computer schooling, it could have really put us in a bind if they hadn’t been finished.
During the afternoon hours, I did activities from The Peaceful Press’ Mountain Guide with the 3 youngest kids.
They have been begging for some activities, and The Peaceful Press is always at the top of our list when I need some wonderful hands-on schooling!
Check out their curriculum here >>
We also read in Rocks, Fossils, and Arrowheads Take Along Guide, and started a batch of rock candy from the recipe in the book!
These are such WONDERFUL books! We own nearly all of the Take Along Guides! Our first one was Tracks, Scats, and Signs – purchased at a homeschool convention when our oldest son was about 5 years old. Such fond memories are in these books!
Ty came home and we walked a couple of miles, which was super easy compared to all the hiking we did in the mountains!
We ate a quick supper and then I shopped at ALDI with our 16 year old and went to Walmart to finish out our shopping with our 20 year old.
Ty and I got snowed in at the cabin, so we were there a day longer than expected and the kids nearly cleaned out the refrigerators and cupboards! They even had to send their big brother to the store to get more food! (He took off work to come stay with them for the week. What a treat!)
That evening, I watched some TV with the big kids while Ty got the little kids ready for bed for me. It was so nice just relaxing with the bigs!
TUESDAY
I went to WW this morning and then ran by our local Kroger store to get some pineapple for an Apologia Biology experiment my 16 year old needs to do this week.
READ >> Apologia Science with Multiple Ages
For Morning Time we did GrapeVine, Sound Words, and used our Impressionism for Children book for Art Study.
We read some more in Our Island Story, The Fallacy Detective, and The Way of the Wilderking, plus did a lesson in our Folk Song music study.
While doing math, some of the kids ran into some “Common Core” issues with Khan Academy. I knew they had aligned with Common Core, but I didn’t know the names of the actual concepts taught until the kids started telling me they were having trouble. Well, come to find out, everything they were having trouble with involved Common Core ideas. But, I still want them to use Khan to brush up on their basics before moving on with any other math program, so I showed them which sections to skip over.
Aspen did a few lessons in Reading Eggs and Math Seeds. On days when she is struggling a bit more, I like to have her do some of these lessons to make the learning fun!
Mercy also wanted to do Reading Eggs, so I decided to see how she did with the real Reading Eggs and not just the Junior edition that is more fun and games than anything else. She actually did quite well, so I’ll probably add this to her routine once or twice a week.
I spent a lot of the afternoon splitting and merging pdf’s on ilovepdf.com so I could send the files to Family Nest Printing.
What pdf’s was I working on, you ask? Well, here’s the story…
The kids loved The Peaceful Press’ Mountain Guide so much, I decided to have ALL of the guides printed. If you use all of the Guides together, you have a year long Kindergarten Curriculum. (Learn more here >>). I already owned all of the guides individually, but you can purchase them all together HERE (better price, by the way!).
I decided I didn’t want the supplemental material for the Guides spiral bound (I’ll print those separately myself), so I split out those pages from the pdf using ilovepdf.com and then merged all of the “new” pdf’s into one so I could order from the printing company. A worthwhile investment!
After getting everything uploaded, I decided to unload my suitcase from our anniversary trip. I’m usually not this far behind in unpacking, but I had a lot on my plate these last few days and finally found enough time to get it done.
After dinner, I helped Ty with a house project and then we picked up donuts and a cherry limeade for Micah’s Special Night.
READ >> How to Have a Special Night for Each Child
WEDNESDAY
Ty and I had coffee on the deck this morning and sorted out some calendar issues. He left the house with what I thought were all my errands for the day. I was really hoping I wouldn’t have to leave the house today, but alas, that was not to be…
We started school a little bit late, but did our usual GrapeVine lessons and Impressionism art study. We read more in Our Island Story and then Story of the World. (We are finishing up our study of Henry V of England.). We also read about John Wycliffe from Trial and Triumph.
The little girls did some more in Reading Eggs today, and then we had nachos for lunch.
After lunch, I got a text saying I needed to pick Megan up from work at the coffee shop and drop her by a friend’s house. The 15 and 16 year olds asked if I would take their recent wages by the bank and put them into savings, so I did that too.
Melia (16) made Horseshoes and baked beans for dinner. The Horseshoes are a recipe friends of ours made for us several years back after visiting Illinois. The baked beans were because we need a #10 can to go over the smokestack of our grill at the mountain cabin when it is not in use.
Interestingly enough, we do not buy #10 cans very often. We shop almost exclusively at ALDI (they don’t sell #10 cans unless it’s a Special Buy), and while that means I have to open SEVERAL cans at a time, it is still MUCH cheaper than big box stores.
After dinner, Ty and I walked 2 miles and then picked up Megan from her friend’s house. So much for not leaving the house today!
THURSDAY
This morning, I took Megan to a doctor’s appointment, then raced home to get school done in time for the big kids to go to work at the bee farm.
(Are you noticing how my life with bigs and littles involves a lot of leaving the house?!)
Morning Time was GrapeVine, Sound Words, Impressionism, and a Folk Song. We are learning about the “3 Johns” this week – John Wycliffe, John Hus, and Johannes Gutenberg, so we read in Trial & Triumph (John Hus), The World of Christopher Columbus and Sons (Gutenberg) and watched a short documentary on the Gutenberg printing press.
I also handed out a family tree from Tapestry of Grace for our upcoming study of the War of the Roses.
READ >> How We Do Tapestry of Grace with a Large Family
After Morning Time, I helped the 12 year old with his long division. All he needed was a little confidence. Then, I tidied up and did the dishes, which is usually someone else’s job, but I thought I’d surprise everyone.
READ >> Children’s Chores for the Kitchen & Dining Room
That afternoon, I worked on wading through email. Why do I have so many emails?! And most of them are not something fun like emails from all of you!
That evening, I had to run out to snag a wedding present for a friend’s daughter who is getting married tomorrow. When I got back, the kids were making popcorn (a usual Thursday night treat!).
After popcorn, I gave the baby girls a bath, tucked them into bed with me because they wanted to snuggle, and then we all fell asleep! I must have needed some rest.
FRIDAY
This morning, we reset the house and the kids did their Home Blessing chores while I got ready for our friends’ daughter’s wedding.
READ >> How We Do Home Blessing
Megan worked this morning and then raced home to get ready for the wedding too because this daughter happens to be her childhood friend from many moons ago. She is only a year older than Megan, so Megan is feeling the pang of singleness right now.
We ate a quick lunch and then drove the 3 hours to the wedding venue – a lovely barn in the middle of rolling fields. It was a beautiful, rustic wedding with sunflowers and teal and brown accents. Instead of cake, we had donuts, and there was a candy bar – we brought back little bags of candy for the children who stayed at home.
We got home very late that night, but it was well worth the trip to celebrate and visit with our friends!
