Large Family Homeschool Life – Week 6 of 2022

Morning routines, delightful books, and a redo to my homeschooling schedule were a part of this lovely (and productive) week!

Read all of the Large Family Homeschool Life posts HERE!

MONDAY

My Morning Routine has become very routine. Every day, I make breakfast for the little girls, brew some iced tea (we go through 1-2 pitchers of iced tea a day – unsweet), brew coffee, water the herbs and microgreens, feed the sourdough, and do my Bible study with my coffee mixed with protein shake.

If you are looking to solidify your own daily routine, check out my Daily Homemaking List to get you started:

After my Morning Routine, I make sure everyone else is up and going on their Morning Chores before school. We usually start school around 10am, Monday through Thursday. We always take Fridays off and clean the house on that day.

Learn more about our 4 Day a Week Homeschool Schedule…

For Morning Time, we did our Obey Bible Study, which is focusing on a hymn study of Trust and Obey right now. We also read about opium in China in the late 1700’s. We also read about William Carey in Trial and Triumph, and finished with a chapter of Justin Morgan Had a Horse.

Then, I set the 16 and 17 year olds up with their own Hoopla accounts through our local library so they could listen to the audiobook The Story of Napoleon by HE Marshall for free.

I started doing Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons with Mercy to help her learn to blend her sounds. This is the best tool I have found to do this, and we rarely have to do more than a few lessons to get it down.

After a lunch of leftovers and soup, the big kids and I finished the BBC production of North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell. I have never read the book, but I really enjoyed the movie the first time I saw it and just as much this time, so I ordered the book from Thriftbooks.com. (We get a lot of our books from here at a great price!)

Later, I picked up holds from the library. These are the ones I had ordered via Interlibrary Loan:

So nice to be able to get books from the library and not have to buy every single one; although, I do often find ones I want for my own personal library this way!

Melia (17) had a friend over for a crafting afternoon. The little girls joined in and the boys went outside to practice knife throwing.

I made Pumpkin Forte with some pumpkin I was needing to use up. It was from a favorite church cookbook of ours and is similar to my Pumpkin Crumble Cake. The kids ate it for a snack, and we saved the rest for dessert that night.

Since Lia had a friend over, Keian and I took over her night to cook and made a simple dinner. I also made some air fried parmesan carrots for Ty and I. They are so yummy!

TUESDAY

I woke up later this morning than I would have liked. I got most of my Morning Chores accomplished and a bit of my Bible Study done before Morning Time needed to start.

For Morning Time, we did our Obey study and then followed Napoleon on the map of his battles and conquests and finally his defeat and exiles. We also reviewed the oceans and the continents, and then read a chapter in Justin Morgan had a Horse.

Aspen worked on calendars and Mercy worked on counting by 5’s in math. Then we made ramen for lunch along with leftovers.

I have Bible Study tonight with my friend Shelley, so I pulled out the last loaf of the yeast banana squash bread to share with everyone.

During the afternoon hours, the kids made all sorts of perler bead creations and I took a walk since it was 60° out!

By the way, if your kids have never used perler beads, I suggest starting with a set that has lots of colors and templates to help them design like the one below. There are also lots of great ideas on the internet!

My friend picked me up for Bible Study and we had a lovely time of fellowship! We have a meal, prayer time, Bible study, and finish with singing.

When I got home, I made jalapeno poppers and Melia made a strawberry julius for Keian’s Special Night.

WEDNESDAY

I ate breakfast this morning while reading For the Love of Christian Homemaking.

For Morning Time, we did our Obey Bible Study, sang Trust and Obey together, read more about Napoleon and watched these videos on the history of Versailles.

After lunch, I ran the big kids to work at the bee farm and took a look at the beeswax taper candles their boss had made because I’m wanting to buy a few. I ended up taking one to try in our candlestick holder to see if I like how it looks.

Once home, I decided I needed to do a major Brain Dump and figure out how to redo our homeschool schedule so I would have time to do Nature School with the little kids. I started writing down all the issues I am having with our schedule and potential fixes and schedules that may or may not work. I ran every single idea through my usual routine and threw out anything that wouldn’t flow nicely with our day.

In case you are completely lost by my “Brain Dump” and “Nature School,” I’ll explain…

First off, a Brain Dump is a trick I learned from Mystie of Simply Convivial. She has an entire membership course designed to help you create lasting routines in your home and homeschool. (You can also buy separate classes.)

And “Nature School” is a phrase I am currently using to describe the special projects and “fun” learning activities I like to do with my younger crowd (ages 5-9). The reason I am currently calling it Nature School is because we are using The Peaceful Press’ Nature Guides. We are in Ocean Guide right now, which would probably be better in the summer months, but oh well!

So, the plan I finally came up is one I have used in the past with good success. Basically, it works like this:

• Morning Time
• Independent School Time
• Lunch
• Nature School (we used to call it Afternoon School)

Having it in the afternoon allows me to be flexible and I don’t have to do projects every day since I’m often busy driving the kids to work on Wednesdays and Fridays.

A successful Nature School will also depend on my planning. I do something called Flexible Homeschool Planning (I even wrote a book on it!) that allows me to pick and choose from all the ideas in any curriculum so they fit my life and schedule!

After I did a little planning, I transplanted some herbs that had outgrown their containers.

For dinner, I made stew using leftover vegetables I’ve been stowing in the freezer, plus a pound of hamburger. The kids weren’t super fond of it, so I’ll give it new life as Shepherd’s Pie tomorrow night and try again.

That evening, I worked through 6 months of taxes for the blog and did a final edit of a new video I filmed on Affording Groceries for Your Family.

THURSDAY

We kept the heater off last night, so the house was about 58° this morning. I went ahead and turned it back on to take the chill off the house.

Ty had to get a COVID test this morning for a trip he is taking this weekend with the military. It came back negative, so he’ll be packing tonight.

I started a load of laundry and worked with Aspen on her workbooks – Phonics, Math, and Handwriting – before Morning Time. For Morning Time, we did our Obey Study, then read about John Adams in A New Nation.

We also made a new President card for John Adams from the pages at Productive Homeschooling. And then we finished up Morning Time with a chapter from Justin Morgan Had a Horse.

We had leftovers for lunch, and Ty stopped by with some cinnamon popcorn from a local popcorn shop. It’s the one place we have found that has cinnamon popcorn just like the kind my mom used to buy at a shop when I was a kid. We all had a treat for dessert!

I did some school planning and then ran errands. I picked up holds at the library and then tried to grab a deal on some hamburger ($3.99/lb for 93% lean) at a local supermarket, but it was all gone. I’ll try again tomorrow.

When I got home, we did Ocean Guide. Then, the kids did chores – cleaning up the kitchen, folding towels, tidying up – and then they all went outside to throw knives and play kickball. While they were out there, I joined them and cut down the stems of the phlox and the hostas. We are trying to fill in an area of the backyard with these phlox to help with erosion. They are so lovely and bloom toward the end of summer, which is quite nice.

I also refilled the birdfeeder. We’ve been having lots of birds lately, which I keep track of in a Birding Journal that I keep near the back door.

I took another short walk with Aspen (7). It was awfully cold and windy, so we didn’t last very long.

For dinner, I made Shepherd’s Pie with yesterday’s stew and some instant potatoes I needed to use up. The kids decided from now on, our veggie scraps should be used up that way and NOT for stew. Duly noted!

FRIDAY

Ty left at 5am for a military event in another state, so I got up with him and ended up getting the dishwasher going and washing up the extra dishes that didn’t get done the night before. I also let the dog in and out, and then went back to bed.

Eventually, we all woke up and I got everyone breakfast and we tidied up the house for our weekly house cleaning. The 2 older kids had tidied up quite a bit the night before, so it didn’t take long to get the house ready for our weekly chores.

Once I got the kids started with their weekly chores, I headed out to run some errands. I went to the supermarket again and managed to get 20 pounds of hamburger at the $3.99 price.

I also mailed the book Stand Tall, Molly Lou Melon to Megan at college. She really likes this book, and I figured it would make her smile to have it show up at school.

When I got home, I made an Apple and Cranberry pie using the last of the cranberries from the freezer, an apple pie filling I canned in August, and some whole wheat pastry flour I have had in the freezer for entirely too long.

The little kids made Valentines for their siblings and I watched some preserving videos and did some meal brainstorming. I like to use this meal planning template that I created because I can just write down all of my ideas and not have to assign them to a day of the week.

I looked through my freezers and pantries to determine if anything needed to be used up. I did find I have a lot of wild rice that needs to be used up, but I’m really not sure how to use up that much wild rice. Ideas anyone?

We ended up having a “party supper” because the bigs ate pizza with a friend, and Daddy is away. I don’t particularly enjoy cooking when Daddy is gone, but then take away the big kids too, and I might as well throw chicken nuggets in the oven! Well…it wasn’t chicken nuggets, but it was little smokies and corn and cucumber slices.

For the barbeque sauce on the little smokies, I took a jar of home canned sandhill plum jelly that ended up with too many air bubbles and turned it into BBQ sauce using this recipe. (This recipe was so good, I ended up making a HUGE batch from all the failed jelly and canning it the next day!)

I just LOVE productive weeks like this!