Large Family Homeschool Life – Week 18 of 2026

State studies, dissections, plant shopping, and teaching the last child to read!

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Early Monday morning, storms rolled through the area and our creek overflowed its banks! It was still raining when I got up, so I lifted weights in the living room instead of my usual morning walk.

Most mornings, I take about a 2 mile walk and pray. Our Tuesday night Bible study has been on prayer, and I have found that while I’m really good at praying in sighs and what I call Apron Prayers (because of how many years I have spent managing a large family), I am not great at focused prayer time. Now that the children are older and can manage without me for longer than 30 seconds, I am starting to use these walks to learn how to pray longer, more focused prayers and also to simply abide and listen to God. The walks make this possible because I don’t get interrupted fielding questions and there’s nothing for me to do but walk!

The Titus 2 Bible Study I attend happens every other Tuesday. We gather for dinner together and then study together, sing together, and pray together. We gather from about 6 different churches in the area, but we have become like family. Before my daughter got married, she would come too and she was always in charge of making the food we were bringing to the potluck. Now that she’s moved away, I often find myself scrambling to figure out what to bring. This week, my 13 year old son made No-Bakes for me to take, which I GREATLY appreciated!

Speaking of food, here are the meals we had this week:

Monday – Potato Nachos made from leftover baked potatoes, sliced and placed on a parchment lined sheet pan. It was my 17 year old’s night to cook and he added cheese, jalapeños, bacon bits, ground beef, and green onions and baked them in the oven for 30 minutes. He had been working with his 15 year old brother all afternoon at a family friend’s house, so this was a quick and easy meal for him to put together. And I must say it feels really good to use up leftovers by making them into something new!

Tuesday – We learned about Rhode Island in school that morning, so my 11 year old daughter and I put together Pizza Strips for dinner from my 50 States Recipe Post.

Wednesday – Our little girls had their AWANA Awards Night, so dinner was provided at the church. We had fried chicken, macaroni and cheese, cole slaw, and desserts. This is the first year we’ve done AWANA in a long time. My oldest daughter offered to drive them every week, and ended up with 3 extra neighborhood kids tagging along!

Thursday – Easy Crockpot Chicken Tacos from The Well-Planned Kitchen. Everyone raved over these and they were so easy for my 13 year old son to make – just pop them in the slow cooker with some seasoning and diced tomatoes! I did make some Wonder Wraps (the revised version from Trim Healthy Table p251) to go with my meal (tasty!) but everyone else used whatever tortillas and wraps I had in the refrigerator. I also made some Cottage Herby Dip (THT p523) to use in place of sour cream for me, but I can’t say I’m a huge fan of that idea. May need to try a different seasoning.

Friday – Leftovers and I grilled myself a steak (yeah, I’m that mom). It’s ok – the 15 year old grilled smash burgers on Saturday to make up for it!

Throughout the week, I also cooked up zucchini and peppers with Cheesoning (this stuff is so good!) to have as a side during the week, made Trim Healthy Mama Cookie Bars (not my favorite), Wake Up Trim Down Banana Bars (Trim Healthy Table p344 – definitely a favorite!), and started my brand new kefir grains (bought them on Etsy). Not sure how I’m going to like kefir, but I’m giving it a try.

Also, the little girls baked a cake with the 25 year old and got to try out the piping bags and tips my daughter-in-law bought for them. This summer she’s planning on having them over for a few days and teaching them how to make and ice cupcakes.

In our homeschool this week, we’ve been learning about Louis XIV and the other kings who wished to be absolute monarchs as well, but England was having none of it, how the Union Jack Flag came to be,.

We also learned about the Carolina colonies, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island using Music In Our Homeschool’s 50 States Songs and Notebooking Pages State pages.

While studying Pennsylvania, we dug a little deeper in to the Quakers and Pennsylvanie Dutch heritage. The kids tried their hand at making Hex Signs like the ones you see in this Pennsylvania Dutch folk art.

Our main resources for school right now are:

Our Island Story

Story of the World volume 3

Making 13 Colonies

And our current read-aloud is Book 2 of the Wingfeather Saga.

I often pull in videos and books that support the timeframe we are currently studying. The older boys are reading The Prince by Machiavelli and Pilgrim’s Progress, as well as some government documents from this time period. The youngers have a version of Little Pilgrim’s Progress they are reading, and our youngest is reading a picture book on William Penn.

We watched a video tour of Versailles, and a couple of videos about the Pennsylvania Dutch – who by the way, were German, not Dutch and who share a very similar history to my family’s heritage. One of the dishes Pennsylvania is known for is a Pennsylvania Dutch dish – Chicken and Waffles. We watched a video about that recipe and next week that meal will be on our menu!

I took my mom out to shop for plants for her porch. Her apartment in our basement has a door that walks out to a little cement area where she keeps a few pots of red geraniums and now a hanging plant and a few chairs. I bought a hydrangea for my front porch while we were out and we both bought potting soil. I spent a few days this week repotting some plants I wintered over and sprucing up the deck and front porch.

On Friday, I got up at 4am to send Ty off for a military event. When he has a long drive I make him a Stanley thermos (the old fashioned green kind) full of coffee. When it’s a flight, I make him an iced tea for the drive to the airport. He’s been gone a lot with all that is happening in the world.

After he left, I went back to sleep until 7am, and then I got up and went to a Catholic charity sale in a neighboring town. This sale happens twice a year, and I love to go because it is all “name your own price,” and I am often able to find exactly what I’m looking for at the right price!

This year, I found a Broyhill recliner that matches another chair in our living room nicely.

I bought a shelf that I think I’m going to use to store appliances in the kitchen. I found 2 matching end tables for the guest room, a Cuisinart Food Processor (that would have been $170 new!), a percolator that is exactly like the one I use to make my Christmas Punch (that will go one of the kids), a set of Franciscan earthenware that reminds me of my Grandma, and a bike for little Mercy!

My 21 year old daughter also sent me with a list since she couldn’t go this year. She wanted photo albums (check!) and a rug in her style (think Persian in blacks and reds). I was pretty skeptical I’d find a rug that fit the requirements, and sure enough, I only saw one rug at the sale. But then!!! As I was walking out, I saw more rugs outside along the building all rolled up. There was one that caught my eye that looked like it could be black and red, but I had already checked out and the place was a mad house, so I figured I’d shoot a pic of the rug rolled up to my daughter and I could try to go back later.

About an hour before the sale closed for the day, I went back with my 11 year old who wanted to look around and lo and behold…it was the ONLY large rug left in that area! I quickly asked the lady who was keeping watch on the things outside if we could cut the tape off of it and unroll it and measure it, and so we did – and it was just a bit larger than what my daughter had wanted, but it would still fit in her house, and it was EXACTLY What she wanted! It was even made in India and was in fantastic condition! What a God-send!

I stored the rug behind our living room chairs wondering how I was going to get it to her, but then a mutual friend came up and he took it back with him and helped her get it settled in its new home! I love how God is in the most minute of details!

Even with all of this, the most major event in our homeschool happened Thursday when our youngest daughter finished her Phonics curriculum and officially graduated to our family Computer Time schedule!

Hard to believe the little girl pretending to read in this picture can now actually read just about anything she picks up.