Large Family Homeschool Life – Week 30 of 2023

A busy, rainy week and a road trip to visit our oldest son and his wife!

Read all of the Large Family Homeschool Life posts!

MONDAY

I woke up this morning to a thunderstorm. Ever since it rained on St. Swithun’s Day (July 15), it has been raining nearly every day! We learned about this legend in Exploring Nature with Children, and the kids have been shocked to see it played out in real life!

“On July 15, the saint’s feast day, the people attempted to enshrine his remains in his church. Legend has it, however, that St. Swithin caused torrential rains to fall for 40 days, until the intended transfer was abandoned. This is the source of a very old Scottish weather proverb regarding rain on July 15: ‘St. Swithin’s Day if thou dost rain, / For forty days it will remain.’”
almanac.com

We were supposed to have swim lessons today, but they got canceled because of the rain, so we did Morning Time for the first time in a LONG time. I can’t believe how crazy this summer has been – I almost doesn’t feel like we are year-round homeschoolers!

For Morning Time, I read in Hurlbut’s Story of the Bible and followed up with a chapter in The Ology. The reason I am doing 2 different Bible lessons is because we had already started Hurlbut’s when we began doing The Playful Pioneers, which includes lessons from The Ology – a book I have not read to the kids before, but wanted to. I didn’t want to quit reading in Hurlbuts, so, I’m doing both! Probably not the best way to handle it, but it’s working.

We started a study on clouds using Exploring Nature with Children (mentioned above) and Captivating Clouds from Our Journey Westward. The two resources work really well together and the kids are learning a lot! (I’m learning a lot too!)

We read a couple of cloud books today – one is a favorite from when my older kids were little – It Looked Like Spilt Milk by Charles Shaw:

and one I had not read before – The Cloud Book by Tomie de Paola:

Then, we read in Little House in the Big Woods with some of Pa’s fiddle music playing softly in the background (you can find the albums on Spotify or buy one of the CDs here).

We also did a couple of pages in the Little House on the Prairie Binder Builder. This is a lapbook type resource I purchased back in 2011 when I read through the Little House on the Prairie books with my older kids. I’m struggling with the whole concept this time (and I’m pretty sure I struggled with it back then as well). I’m not a “lapbook-ish” kind of mom, and it feels like busy work or at the very least, EXTRA work I don’t really have time for. So, I’m not sure how much longer I’ll continue the project.

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If you are interested in reading about our adventures the last time I read through the books (this was long before The Playful Pioneers existed!), check out these two posts:

• Little House on the Prairie Homeschooling
• A Little House on the Prairie Christmas

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After Morning Time, I sent the kids off to do independent school work and helped the little girls with math and phonics. For lunch, I made Asian Bowls and then quickly worked on show notes for Podcast #149 – How to Include Toddlers in Your Homeschool that will be released tomorrow.

Aspen (8) came in to show me that she had figured out how to put her hair in a ponytail! Then, I helped her fold and put away her and the 6 year old’s laundry. This is a new chore for her, so I try to help her when I can.

After the laundry was done, I took Aspen and Mercy with me to Winston’s 3 week check up for his broken leg. As we drove the 30 minutes to the clinic, we looked at the clouds and named them – education in action right there!

Later that afternoon, I spent some time on a blog project and then made a menu for the upcoming week’s dinners. Most often, this is how I plan our food – breakfast stays the same, lunch stays the same, dinner rotates. This week, I tried to make a plan that used a lot of the food we already had on hand.

Once I had a list, I ran to ALDI for a few things and grabbed Special Night food. The total bill was only $55! For dinner, we had Chicken Caesar Wraps, salad, and strawberries – I already had the salad and everything for the wraps on hand.

That evening during Special Night, we did something we don’t usually allow – the boys played together on a Minecraft server Creed created using MineHut. Part of Creed’s Special Night was him creating the server, so we allowed him to play on it with the boys. They had a blast!

Later, I ordered some pajamas from The Hair Bow Company for the girls’ Christmas pajamas – something we often do for Thanksgiving Presents. I buy a lot of the girls’ clothes from here.

I also worked on putting all my liturgical calendar ideas into one document (that I hope to share someday soon!). This has proven to be a HUGE JOB!

TUESDAY

A couple of the kids have sore throats today, but we still went to swim lessons. When we got home, the boys worked on getting nails and screws out of some reclaimed wood Ty picked up for our remodeling project. I worked on laundry – never ending laundry! I need to redo our laundry schedule because it seems like everyone needs to do laundry all at the same time!

Then, we did Morning Time. I let the little girls stay in my bed and watch a show because they were both feeling puny with sore throats. So, it was just me and the boys!

We read in Hurlbut’s and The Ology, and then did a lesson from the Music in Our Homeschool Membership – Video Game Music! It was such a neat lesson! Then, I read in Little House in the Big Woods and we did another Binder Builder page.

We also had a lively discussion on Sundays and what those should look like because Laura had to sit still and be quiet all day long. It was a very good discussion, and something that has come up in my liturgical calendar studies.

Sundays are mini-Easters – they are to be treated as celebrations of Christ’s Resurrection! My kids pointed out that by requiring everyone to sit still and be quiet, the children only learned to hate the Lord’s Day, and we all agreed that is terribly unfortunate and could have been handled much better.

I made the little girls chicken noodle soup for lunch and had a charcuterie style lunch for myself.

Ty was home, so we ran to fill up the car with gas at $3.59 a gallon! EEK! We also vacuumed out the car and bought drywall mud for the renovation. After our 22 year old moves back to college next week, we’ll begin work in full force.

Ty ran to pick up our oldest daughter from work and then they went to work out on post. I made 2 casseroles for Bible Study tonight while they were gone and then did my lesson from Ephesians – nothing like being last minute!

The 18 year old worked the garden at the bee farm today and brought home 2-3 bushels of tomatoes! We laid them all out and then I sorted them and threw out the ones that weren’t good, froze 6 gallons worth (whole, unpeeled) and took the rest to Bible Study (3 buckets worth!).

At Bible Study, we ate the casseroles I made along with the extras other people brought, studied Ephesians, sang and prayed. One of my daughters and my daughter-in-law (and Baby George) came along tonight. We always have a lovely time of fellowship together!

WEDNESDAY

I ran the kids to swimming lessons, but they decided to cancel because of lightning in the area…again. They will have a make-up lesson on Friday (they don’t usually have lessons on Fridays), so hopefully, the kids will feel like they’ve gotten a full 2 weeks of lessons by the time this week is done. (St. Swithun’s Day strikes again!). If we ever do lessons again, I’ll opt for indoor lessons!

Once back home, we did Morning Time – Hurlbut’s The Ology, and Captivating Clouds. Then, the plumber showed up, so we did The Playful Pioneers after lunch.

We read chapter 6 of Little House in the Big Woods, and the kids drew a bear from a lesson included in The Playful Pioneers.

Then, we read chapter 7 and learned about maple syrup. We even took the time to watch a DVD we got years ago from Moore Family Films – More Than Making Maple Syrup. It was so fun to share this video with this younger set of kids!

Then, we did a little taste test between real maple syrup and pancake syrup. The kids all liked the real syrup better. After that, we made the maple fudge recipe from Farm Anatomy. (I love these books from Julia Rothman!)

For dinner, we had what was leftover of the casseroles I took to Bible Study and also the leftovers of a Trim Healthy Mama Pizza Casserole I made over the weekend.

Ty went to our church’s men’s group and the older girls and I watched BBC mysteries on BritBox.

THURSDAY

This morning, I had to take our oldest daughter to a doctor’s appointment, so Ty took the younger kids to their swimming lessons. Then, the boys headed over to a friend’s house to mow.

When they got home, some friends from out of town had just arrived, so they played all afternoon – even outside despite the awful humidity.

The 18 year old brought more tomatoes home from work, so we sorted again, and I froze a couple more gallons and then took some to neighbors.

That evening, Ty and I went to an event at a museum we are members of. Thankfully, they moved the event inside because the heat and humidity are at dangerous levels.

When I got home, I gave baths and began packing for our trip tomorrow!

FRIDAY

I have lots to do today!

I took kids to their extra swim lesson to make up for the rainy days, and then we stopped by the car wash to vacuum out the van before our trip to visit our oldest son and his wife.

Then, I dropped the kids off to start Friday cleaning chores with the 18 year old in charge while I dashed back out to get groceries to take with us on the trip and gas to get us there.

Once home, I worked on laundry – towels and the little girls’ stuff. I also blew through any chores that shouldn’t wait over the weekend – like removing food from the refrigerator and switching out the litter in Alice’s litter box.

We finally managed to get all 12 of us, plus 2 dogs, loaded up in the van and headed out! We made it to our Blake’s in-law’s house in time for a late dinner of Chicken Spaghetti, Texas sheet cake, and cupcakes with my daughter-in-law’s famous almond frosting!

We stayed the night and ate all of our meals at their house because they have enough room to accommodate us all. The entire weekend was lovely and relaxing!

Here’s a cute photo of my oldest son holding our puppy to finish off this week’s post!