Large Family Homeschool Life – Week 7 of 2024

New curriculum! Plus, Valentine’s Day and Ash Wednesday activities.

Read all of the Large Family Homeschool Life posts!

MONDAY

It’s new curriculum day! We read in Hurlbut’s Story of the Bible, and then got started!

For Hundred Acre Wood, we started by reading Chapter 1 of Winnie the Pooh. The kids laughed and laughed! We are using The Complete Works of Winnie the Pooh to read from.

Then, we talked about how A.A. Milne and Ernest H. Shepard were and how they came to be working on this project.

We studied bee anatomy using a handout from the curriculum and the felt pieces we cut out a couple of weeks ago:

For Phonics, Mercy is reading a book about King Alfred and the Battle of Hastings. I assigned books to the older kids related to the curriculum we are currently using.

Then, I went to a long lunch with a friend I only see every 6 months or so. We have been friends for many, many years and you can tell – we just pick back up right where we left off every time!

On my way home, I did my Aldi and Walmart shopping. It was a small shopping trip this time because I had some food leftover from last week.

For dinner, the kids ate leftovers and I had a baked potato and chicken. Then, we ran over to see the puppies! They will be getting their shots and heading to their new homes soon, so we figured we better see them when we can.

That night, we had a quiet evening at home. I am working on a continuous granny square blanket made from variegated brown yarn. I want to hone my skills before I invest in better yarn. My 19 and 18 year old do not have afghans from when they were babies, but everyone else does. I decided if I can figure out how to do this, I’ll make them their own to pass down!

TUESDAY

Early start to the day, and it began with me dumping tea on my laptop. I quickly wiped it down and then turned the thing upside-down. Hope there’s no damage!

After I walked the dog, I got the laundry going. We had extra sheets and towels over the weekend from having guests. We are a little bit behind because of it.

Honestly, I feel behind on EVERYTHING. I think it is because we have had so much company and I have been going so many places, it is difficult to manage what I have to do at home and I feel discombobulated and torn as to what to tackle first. I tend to feel this way when I am uber busy, and it looks as if February will continue to be a busy month, so I will need to figure out my schedule and take some down time just to THINK!

I went to Weight Watchers for check in this morning and then gathered the children and some sandwich fixin’s for lunch and we drove 2 hours to the house of a childhood friend. We lived next door to each other all throughout our growing-up years and she was our class valedictorian and I was salutatorian. She now has her doctorate and 5 children and she homeschools! It was such a wonderful visit, and I’m so glad we took the time out of our schedule to do it!

When we got home, our older daughter was hosting a Girl’s Movie Night with a bunch of girls from church. They are all in the Young Adult group together and wanted to do some things outside the regular group. They were watching Pride and Prejudice and eating popcorn and talking so much I don’t know how they could have actually watched the movie!

I made the kids pancakes since it is Shrove Tuesday. Then, we watched “The Masks” – an old Twilight Zone episode that happens on Mardi Gras.

WEDNESDAY

This morning, I prayed for the friend I visited yesterday as I walked Winston. When I came home, I wrote a Valentine’s message on the dry erase board in the kitchen and put out heart candy on the table for the kids to have during Morning Time.

For Morning Time, we focused on Valentine’s Day first. Using the information from my Celebrating the Church Year Online Guide (yes, I use my own products!), we talked about who St. Valentine was and watched a video about him. We also read verses about the heart from the Bible and talked about the 4 types of love displayed in the Bible.

Then, we read a book and talked about bee anatomy again while the girls played in a Bee Sensory Box full of honeycomb cereal, fake flowers, and rock bees my 19 year old daughter painted for them.

Then, we moved the discussion into Ash Wednesday thoughts. We wrote out confessions – anything that was bothering us or we felt needed to be given over to the Lord – and put them in our pockets to carry around all day until we throw them in tonight’s campfire. We discussed how these sins and griefs weigh us down, but the Lord forgives and we need never pick those things back up.

We also talked about upcoming Lenten projects and got out our Giving Jar and our Sacrifices Jar. You can learn more about these things in Celebrating the Church Year Online Guide or the Liturgical Calendar Guide for Protestant Families (which comes free with the online guide!).

After I got everyone helped with their independent schoolwork, I headed to our military installation to run errands. At the PX, I bought some HOKA shoes for myself. I’m needing something that feels good on my feet for all the walking I’ve been doing, and my husband LOVES these shoes! Then, I went to the Commissary and stocked up on meat. They have some of the best meat deals around, so I like to get what I can when I’m there.

When I got home, I ate a late lunch and finished editing a YouTube video and got it uploaded. Then, I took the kids to the library. They did the February Scavenger Hunt, a craft, and I picked up some holds.

Once back home, the kids played outside with friends while I uploaded a podcast and wrote an email.

That night, we had our Ash Wednesday campfire! I started the fire with some homemade fire starters a friend and I made – wax from the tailings of candles, lint, found nature items and string – they work really well! We read from Psalms and threw our confessions in the fire, and then roasted hot dogs. Everyone felt a sense of relief burning their confessions in that fire!

THURSDAY

Today, we are washing all the sheets! I decided to sort the linen closet as I was looking for fresh sheets to put on the beds. We have 3 extra sets of twin sheets for the kids’ beds, so we got those on the boy’s beds. Everyone else will have to wait until the sheets are through the wash to have fresh sheets.

The pile in the middle are pillow cases, and the one on the left are queen sheets.

We finished Hurlbut’s Story of the Bible during Morning Time today! Such a lovely walk through Scripture!

Then, we observed 2 paintings of oak trees – one by Van Gogh and one by Shishkin. We also read their biographies. Then, I let the kids choose one of the paintings to try to reproduce. Here are the results:

We also read a couple of Bee books and read in The Long Winter.

After Morning Time, I worked with Mercy on money using real coins. I think it makes a lot more sense if they can see and feel the real deal!

For lunch, the 19 year old made cabbage and bacon. I’d had the cabbage in the refrigerator for a while because I was originally going to make a soup with it, but never got around to it, so she wanted to turn it into bacon and cabbage.

After lunch, I added more sections and information to the Celebrating the Church Year Online Guide. I am having so much fun with this new product!

A friend called and asked if I’d like to go with her to get her puppies their shots. These are the puppies our Kip sired, so of course, I said YES, and the 2 “grandmas” took a road trip!

When we got home my kids and the neighbor kids gathered around the car and played with the puppies for a while before my friend took them back home. She texted me later to let me know my favorite puppy, Louis, had a home! I’m so happy for him!

That night for Special Night, our 13 year old requested quesadillas. I had in my head they should be ground beef, so I had my 15 year old cook up the meat, but as I was assembling them, I remembered the 13 year old had requested CHICKEN quesadillas! OOPS! So, I saved back the hamburger for another day (always nice to have pre-cooked meat on hand!) and got the chicken into the air fryer.

For Special Night, our 13 year old planned a Connect 4 tournament – which I won! Then, the older kids played Minecraft together on their server while I washed Mercy’s hair and continued to work on the sheets – the never-ending sheets!

FRIDAY

It is snowing big, wet snowflakes this morning. It’s been a while since I’ve had to bundle up to take the dog out for his morning walk. BRRRR!

After breakfast, we began our house reset and then Home Blessing. While the kids cleaned, I repaired Mercy’s quilt. She calls her quilts Ning-Nings. When she was a baby, she would make a noise that sounded like “ninga, ninga” while she played with the corners of her quilts. She only likes quilts and blankets with similar corners. She’s rubbed holes in nearly all of them! And this particular quilt is falling apart in other places, so I got it all fixed up for her. By the way, it is not the first time I’ve repaired this quilt!

We are still working on sheets and towels, but the boys managed to squeeze a load of their laundry in as well.

For lunch, we had leftover quesadillas and my 11 year old told me I am a good cook – awwwww!

I had a salad with Tyson blackened chicken. I managed to find some at the Commissary on our military installation. Hooray!

Ty bought me a new book – Holy Hygge, so I took some time to start reading it. Pretty sweet to have my man buy me books! He knows me well!

Then, I worked on some Large Family Homeschool Life posts. I am WAY behind with these! There just don’t seem to be enough hours in the days to recount the hours in my days!

By the time I took the dog for his evening walk, there was very little snow left. Such strange weather for a February.

That evening was fun-filled (so kidding) – I worked on a menu plan and bought a macerating toilet online for the bathroom we are putting in the basement. Sometimes life is full of boring details that have to be taken care of.

And so my week ended!