Large Family Homeschool Life – Week 32 of 2025

This week was Ty’s birthday, but the Army has him once again. In fact, the past 5 birthdays have been spent elsewhere with the military. But, Ty always makes the best of it, thankfully.

On Monday, I got up and did my usual routine – take a walk (or do strength training), feed the sourdough, fill the ice machine, make iced tea, make coffee, make my breakfast, and enjoy the deck out back before the kids get up and start their schoolwork.

This month is Declutter the Den in the Basement month, so before Morning Time, I worked through a few of the bookshelves down there and started in on a plastic “dresser” that has been storage for photo albums and miscellaneous newspaper clippings and memorabilia from my husband’s previous job. The dresser used to be the “little boys'” dresser in our last home, but they have long since outgrown a plastic dresser. They are all taller than me and the 16 year old is even taller than my 6’4″ husband!

Speaking of the 16 year old…he took his driving permit test on Monday and passed! So, now we begin the 50 hours of driving required by our state for him to get a full license. He will be my driving helper once our 20 year old moves out this October.

School this week was a bit different because my 14 year old and 16 year old worked at the bee farm on Tuesday and we went to my sister’s to swim on Wednesday. So, on Monday, we doubled up on Morning Time lessons so that we don’t fall behind.

I have big plans to be done with Unit 1 of Year 2 of Tapestry of Grace by the end of September so we can jump into Holiday Homeschooling October through December!

Learn more about how we homeschool through the holidays…

We are studying the Middle Ages, and this week’s topic is Feudalism, so lots about knights and lords and castles! We also began planning our Medieval Feast! This post is all about the one we did many moons ago, which I will use it to help me plan this year’s as well.

As I said earlier, we went to my sister’s to swim on Wednesday. The kids only got about 30 minutes of swimming before it started raining!

We headed back to their house (right across the street from the community pool) and had a lunch of tacos and brownies with cream cheese frosting. Then, we spent an hour playing foosball and Mexican Train Dominoes.

My brother-in-law actually made several wooden wheels (we have one at home) specifically for the game. You can see what they look like in this picture…

And if you’d like to learn how to play, here’s a video that explains it all:

On Thursday, we finished up our lessons on Feudalism. We also did another watercolor lesson from Lily & Thistle on leaves.

I checked in with the kids on their latest literature assignments to see how they are doing.

The 16 year old is reading The Radioactive Boy Scout and finishing up Beowulf.

The 14 year old is reading another version of Beowulf and Rolf and the Viking Bow.

The 12 year old is reading a graphic novel of Beowulf (after reading the same version the 14 year old is reading) and then I assigned him Castle by David Macauley.

The 10 year old is reading You Wouldn’t Want to Be a Medieval Knight! and Leif the Lucky.

And the 8 year old is reading The Tomten.

I also brewed some kombucha. My 24 year old really likes it, so I thought I better get a batch going again now that she’s back home.

On another note, I have to say it has been REALLY nice having Walmart+! Another large family mom who is in the same season as I am told me how much it helped her, and I took the plunge and have been so thankful I did! I keep a running list in the cart and then order when I need it. It’s free delivery to my doorstep within a few hours and I never have to try to fit an hour long (at least!) trip to Walmart into my schedule! I feel like I have really redeemed some time with my family doing this! Definitely worth checking out!

Read all the Large Family Homeschool Life posts here!