August 16th - August 28th Notes

Sunday morning we had a simple breakfast before home church. Today we discussed Alma chapters 53-63, then watched a cute stop motion animation with Legos that went over those chapters. Lunch was bacon and pancakes. In the afternoon we video chatted with Makayla. Then we meal planned as a family, with all the kids choosing a dinner or treat to help cook this week. Dinner tonight was Oliver's project. He made a recipe from our most recent Raddish Kids box - Pizza Pockets. They were yummy! In the evening we had a family movie. 

Monday morning I was out the door just after 6am to grocery shop, not having done that on Saturday because we were taking Makayla to college. Two stores later I had nearly everything on my list, and I scored a good deal on ground beef. By the time I returned home my husband had kids up, fed, and moving around doing their morning tasks. I sat at the table and taught 7 math lessons, one after another. Any kids waiting for their lesson turn worked on other tasks (independent reading, chores, etc). At 10am I pulled the 7th grade and under kids in for science. Today we read about two famous waterfalls, read a few questions and answers from our Q&A book, and did a lesson on different bodies of water. After exploring what identified different water features the kids all pulled out playdough and construction paper and built bodies of water as I called them out. Rebekah and Tobias loved participating in this part of the lesson. We also read about the Alaskan Gold Rush and the Yukon River mapping project that resulted, discussed why it was important, and why even today it has to be rechecked and adjusted each year (tides, currents, erosion, storms, and so on and their affect on the mouth of the Yukon River floor and sandbars). After this group, I went over Chemistry with Joseph and Emma. The rest of the day was spent cooking, playing, crafting, drawing, and enjoying family time. 

Tuesday was a simple homeschool day. We followed our routines and everything was done by lunch. In science for the elementary/middle school kids we studied the effects of weathering and erosion. In the early afternoon Emma and Mason made soft pretzels with another Raddish Kids recipe. They were easy and delicious! Joseph cooked dinner - chicken tacos. He cooked chicken in the Instant Pot, rice in the rice cooker, then prepped things like chopping lettuce, plucking grapes, etc. A few people decided to add Caesar dressing for a repeat of our Chicken Caesar Wraps from an earlier Raddish Kids box. 

In the evening I started printing a new piano course - Broadway in a Breeze. We have been without piano lessons for a good while now, as our teacher needed to stop before COVID even began. Joseph and Daniel have stayed diligent at continuing to learn piano. One program we were introduced to during piano lessons was Hymns in a Hurry. The musical notation he uses makes it easy to begin playing songs with chords within a day, and it's been something we enjoy. Dr. Kelly has released several other piano programs in the same notation, from Primary Songs in a Hurry and Pop Songs in a Hurry, to the newest release, Broadway in a Breeze. This one has several songs from The Greatest Showman, among other things. Joseph and I have both been playing them.

Wednesday we started with language arts lessons, then math, reading, and history. Today's topic in history was the Phoenicians, including their shipbuilding, purple dye, and trade. We also read another chapter in Slave Boy in Judea. The kids are enjoying the story, and so am I. 

In the early afternoon we headed outside to enjoy a buggy but not as hot day for an hour. Then we came in and the kids wanted to watch The Greatest Showman, after hearing Joseph playing some of the music. Emma took a break from watching the movie to mix up a meatloaf, put it in the oven, and toss some potatoes in the Instant Pot for dinner. It was the recipe she chose to make this week, and her first attempt at meatloaf - which she found to be a disgusting mixing process.

Thursday morning kids alternated between regular homeschool work and observing the construction of a wheelchair ramp on the front of the house for Mason. I am sure you can guess which lessons will be more memorable 5 years from now! A husband and wife team did the construction, working steadily all day. Grandma came to visit for a bit before dinner, and then after dinner we changed out the toys that are available downstairs. 

Friday the construction continued, as did the homeschooling. One thing I love about homeschooling is there is no hurry. We can do our work steadily through the morning, or take breaks after every single subject and spread things out through the whole day. Even better, my kids can each do what works best for them. I have one child who asked not to be woken up at 7am. They are fine with getting a later start with their work and doing things later than the other kids. I have another who is often doing their first subject by 7:30am. This evening we also did meal planning. While last week kids chose meals and helped cook pretty much every dinner, this week I chose new meals and will just call on helpers as needed. We're trying some new meals, and sticking with some old favorites too. 

Saturday we got back to our regular grocery shopping day. We also started pulling bins of clothing from the attic, going through what we have, and seeing what may need bought as the seasons change. We made it through four kids: Rebekah, Oliver, Daniel, Emma. 

Sunday our morning started with church at home. For our lesson, we did an activity the related to one of the verses from our Book of Mormon scripture study this week, Helaman 5:12:

"And now, my sons, remember, remember that it is upon the ^arock of our Redeemer, who is Christ, the Son of God, that ye must build your ^bfoundation; that when the devil shall send forth his mighty winds, yea, his shafts in the whirlwind, yea, when all his hail and his mighty ^cstorm shall beat upon you, it shall have no power over you to drag you down to the gulf of misery and endless wo, because of the rock upon which ye are built, which is a sure foundation, a foundation whereon if men build they cannot fall."

We had a box of Duplos and a box of cards and kids divided into two groups. Half built a house with the blocks, half built with cards - or tried to. We discovered it took very little wind or movement to cause the card houses to come tumbling down. After the first round, teams switched building materials. We had some good discussion about foundations, buildings, and the storms of life. We sang a fun Primary song with hand motions with the little kids about the Wise Man and the Foolish Man, which comes from Matthew 7:24-27 in the Bible. 

Dinner tonight was new, and a hit. We made cheeseburger sliders with this recipe. It was delicious. The only thing we did differently is use a vegan mayo, because of Joseph's egg allergy. We also video chatted with Makayla, which we do pretty much every day or two. She starts classes on Monday and will have a full course load (19 credits), be a TA (teacher's assistant), and is excited for it all. 

Monday morning was full of math lessons. Samuel was working with yards, feet, and inches, going through the house measuring things and people. Mason learned to multiply by 4. Caleb learned to divide by 3s and 5s. Oliver worked with decimals. Daniel was factoring equations. Emma and Joseph were working with angles and drawing angles in geometry. 

Our construction crew returned to pour concrete, which was very entertaining for the kids. We are getting closer to a completed wheelchair ramp. 

Tuesday is one of Daddy's long days at work. Okay, so all of them are long. (3:30am-6:30pm or later) The homeschool morning kicked off on a bit of a slower start, with kids not rolling out of bed until 7am or later. Everyone ate breakfast, did morning chores, and got to work. Mid-morning our construction crew returned to remove wood molds from the concrete and attach the small metal ramp we need on the enclosed porch to our door. 

In meal planning last weekend, I was kind to myself. Tuesday always seems like an extra long day, being the first day of the week Daddy is back to work. I planned super simple meals. Lunch was sandwiches or leftovers. Dinner was pita pizzas - which are easy. I toss a bunch of pitas on big baking sheets and kids come add their own toppings. A few minutes in the oven and dinner is ready. 

Several of the boys have been creating characters for their Hero Kids game. They draw the characters, create their information card with abilities, defenses, etc, and make a paper figure for the game board. It is interesting to see their creations.

Wednesday morning I was happily surprised to hear Caleb cheering when he realized it was a history day. We do science Mon/Tues and history Wed/Thur/Fri. He was excited to hear the next chapter in our read aloud to find out what would happen next with Madoc the slave boy. It was a great chapter and the kids are fully invested in what is happening. They are also finding it interesting to see what civilizations were in power during different events in biblical history, as we cross over some of that with Mesopotamia, Assyria, and Babylon. 

The morning sped away helping kids with various lessons, as usual. I pretty much don't look up from helping until lunch time. Today our house smelled wonderfully because of my older kids. I love having older kids, because they bake! My 15yo son made four loaves of banana bread. The 14yo daughter, who loves all things Lord of the Rings, made a double batch of Lembas bread. The 12yo was dinner chef, and made cinnamon rolls from scratch.

Thursday breakfast was leftover cinnamon rolls and banana bread. School happened slow and steady through the morning. We have been slowly listening to Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban over lunch and we are close to the end of the book. Mason is discovering it all for the first time, and it has been so fun to watch as the story unfolds. Our afternoon had a quick library pick up and then some robot drawing using Ralph Masiello's Robot Drawing Book as inspiration. Dinner was a new recipe - orange chicken and rice. I breaded and fried chunks of chicken breast in oil, made an orange sauce, and used my handy rice cooker to make 8 cups of rice. Dinner was delicious! 

Friday dawned cloudy but kids were cheerful. We read another chapter in Slave Boy in Judea for history and the kids gathered around the table to notebook about some of the history topics we've studied recently. Today kids wrote/illustrated about the Neo-Babylonian empire, the wall of Babylon, the Ishtar gate, the hanging gardens, King Nebuchadnezzar II's rule, the destruction of Jerusalem, the temple of Solomon, and the captivity of the Hebrews, among other things. 

It is almost lunch time, so I'm going to hit publish and go enjoy our Friday.

August 8th-15th Notes

Saturday the kids kicked off the day with their Saturday morning video game time. I spent 2 hours in an online training for seminary teachers. In the afternoon I took the kids outside to play when our new refrigerator arrived. We have been down to one fridge for a long while, and it is difficult to fit food and milk for 12 people in a single small fridge. We saved up cash and then COVID hit and caused delays production of the model that was the right size to fit the space we had in this old house. We finally got the fridge today!

Sunday was a peaceful home church day with Samuel helping teach the lesson. In the evening we had a small family get together as a goodbye Makayla party, before she heads back to college next week. We also surprised my husband with a cake celebrating his college achievement. He just finished his associate degree and a certificate this summer, after a lot of hard work one or two classes at a time over the last several years. It was loud and fun.

Monday morning I was working on school with a few kids before 8am. Jason took the last 4 kids to the dentist for cleanings. I did our Monday homeschool work with the rest of the kids, then finished up working with the gone to the dentist kids. In the late afternoon I was able to go grocery shopping, now that we had a fridge ready. It was a hot day, but it was nice to get shopping done. In the evening I worked on my own class for seminary training. 

Tuesday everyone woke and rolled into the school morning after breakfast. It was a smooth and easy day. I spend most of the morning working with one child or another - or a group of children. Friends from church brought more veggies over from their garden. This time we found potatoes, tomatoes, onions, and more in the box. We mashed half the potatoes to go with meatloaf for dinner, which was delicious. 

Wednesday is notable because several kids decided to get into dress up costumes on and off throughout the day. You never knew who would come to the table when you called for a child. Would it be a ninja, a prince, a dragon, or an astronaut? 

Dinner was made by Daniel tonight. He chose to try a new recipe from a Raddish box - Spanikopita Bites. We are still pretty new to using our Raddish kits, and have yet to remember that while we have a much larger family than the recipes are set up for, we don't know if many people will like the new recipes, so making the recipe the regular size might be good sometimes. Ha! The spanikopita had a filling of feta, parmesan, ricotta, and spinach. Halfway through our plan for a doubled recipe we decided to make a sweet dessert with half the fillo dough. We mixed up sugar, honey, and cinnamon and drizzled it on the dough before folding it up. Some kids preferred the sweet version, some preferred the savory version, and some preferred a bowl of cereal - after trying both versions of spanikopita.

Thursday and Friday were our last two days with Makayla before she went back to college. Homeschool still happened in the morning, as well as helping with packing and prep. We got Mason's triple surgery scheduled for mid-September. There were last meals together, tears, and secret card projects. Friday evening we loaded the van with her boxes and bags. 

Saturday the morning alarm rang at 4:30am and my husband, Makayla, and I got up, ate breakfast, and started driving. Grandma held down the fort at home, with the other nine children. They love when she's the one in charge. Our drive was rainy, but had little traffic for most of it. We made it to Makayla's new dorm at 12:00pm and spent a couple hours helping her get unpacked, hit the local WalMart for groceries for her dorm, and built a shelving unit. At 3:00pm it was hugs goodbye and Jason and I drove back home through more rain, arriving at 10:00pm.

July 27th - Aug. 7: Last week of summer, First week of Homeschool Year

Monday one of my husband's sisters was able to visit most of the day. She has come in from Utah and around the other things she needs to get accomplished here, she is spending time with us. On this day she brought her longbow for the kids to try some archery in the morning, then came back later in the afternoon and stayed for dinner, along with doing some painting crafts with the kids. 

Tuesday was project day for me. In between the usual mom life I sorted bins of our science, art, craft, homeschool supplies, and games. We are trying to rearrange the dining room shelves where our homeschool materials are kept, to be a bit more user friendly for the school year. 

In the evening I worked on printing and preparing history and science materials for first semester. We will begin our year with the Water and Our World science unit from The Good and the Beautiful for my 7th grade and under group of boys. The whole family will do The Good and the Beautiful History Year 3 together. 

Wednesday we kicked off the morning with a quick breakfast and then headed outside to play before it heated up. I just realized I forgot to record a tender mercy from last week, so I'm remedying that now. You see, we own one bike. It's an adult bike that was given to us several years ago when Joseph needed to learn to ride during scouts. We're not a biking family and simply have never had bikes for our kids. Fast forward several years to now. Only my oldest 3 children can ride a bike. We still do not have small or medium size bikes for younger kids to learn on. And we don't want to spend money on them, either, because our money has other priorities for our large family. This was fine, until Daniel decided he really wanted to learn to ride a bike this year. Then the pandemic hit, and all money has been designated 'let's survive the crazy economy' money. So no bike. Until one random day last week, when a church member who has no children, stopped by our house with a medium sized bike in hand, asking if we wanted it. Another church family's children had outgrown the bike and given it to him, as he was collecting some scrap metal from them. He thought of us, and just like that, the prayer my son had been praying for some time was answered. We had a bike he could fit. In the last few days three boys have learned to ride that bike down the rutted, rocky alley by our house. 

Wednesday the kids also helped me move things to the attic, sort a few shelves of school materials, and  do a bit of baking. 

Thursday was a cloudy day, very gray and dreary, even with little rain. The kids spent the morning enjoying their last visit from Aunt Danielle. In the afternoon I sat down with each child's school books and read the first week's lessons, making notes of any supplies we need for activities or experiments. Kids chose folders for their science and history notebooks and added name labels. Of course, Rebekah and Tobias want their own 'school folders' like the big kids, so we have a stack of 18 folders ready to go. 

We kicked off Friday morning in the kitchen baking a couple of cakes. We don't have another birthday in this house until October, but we decided to celebrate Harry Potter's birthday. It is our final Friday of summer break, and we are on the third book in the Harry Potter series as a read aloud. We've listened to these books all summer. It just seemed like the perfect way to close out our summer.

Saturday was a whirl of small things. I was out the door early to grocery shop, then home for breakfast and unloading. Next was a trip to the UPS store, the library drive thru, and then a long drive to IKEA with Makayla. The evening was family time and final printing and organizing of school things, including the weekly assignment sheets. 

Sunday we had a sweet home church where Caleb helped teach the lesson. He did a great job helping us learn about the Atonement, repentance, and challenged everyone to team up and find scriptures about repentance, then bring them back to share. 

In the afternoon we played games together - Would You Rather Harry Potter and then Harry Potter Uno.

Monday was our first day of homeschool for the year, so of course Mason and I were gone for 3.5 hours at a surgeon's appointment. Before we left at 8am I worked with a few kids who wanted to do some of their school early. While I was gone Daddy made sure kids got reading done. After I returned we did afternoon school. This is one thing I love about homeschooling! My kids can work when they are ready, we can be super flexible with our schedule, and we aren't locked into specific hours of the day for school work. 

The surgeon's appointment went well. We're waiting for a phone call to work with a scheduler because Mason's 24th, 25th, and 26th surgeries are ready to be done. All 3 will happen in one day, just 3 separate sites (right femur, left tibia, and left tendon on his heel). We've been expecting these for a while, so no surprises. 

In the afternoon my husband got 4 steroid shots after a check in with one of his surgeons. (Both elbows and the knee he has not had surgery on.) We are hoping not to have a repeat of 5 months off after surgeries like he had last year when he had shoulder and knee surgery, but are not sure exactly what is going on in these joints.

Tuesday was day two of the homeschool year. It was much slower than usual because I had to orient 7 kids in their new language arts courses from The Good and the Beautiful. I've got kids doing level 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, and 7. It went smoothly, just slower than things will go once we are all into our new routines. Emma also had an orthodontist appointment, which took an hour out of our morning. By the time all subjects were done by all children it was nearly 4pm (with a solid 1 hour break for the orthodontist in the morning, and a 2.5 hour break for lunch and afternoon medical care). Not all kids were working all of that time, some of it they were waiting around for their turn to work one on one with me, or they were already finished with all individual work and waiting for our afternoon science lesson. 

Wednesday was the first day that felt like a normal school day, with no appointments, and lots of smooth movement from lesson to lesson and student to student. Even though I had 7 students last year, this year of 7 students takes more of me working one on one. Those choices were made on purpose, and will be a positive in our year, but we are still figuring out the best way to have things run smoothly. Here's what I mean:

I need to teach one on one math lessons once a week for Caleb, Oliver, Daniel, Emma, and Joseph. The rest of the week they practice the new skill and review old, only asking for help when needed. They use Math U See curricula. I need to teach five one on one math lessons a week for Mason and Samuel (total of 10 lessons). They use The Good and the Beautiful Math curricula.

I need to teach five one on one language arts lessons a week for Caleb, Mason, and Samuel (15 lessons). The older 4 children need me for small parts of their daily language arts, typically 5-10 minutes each. Everyone is using various levels of The Good and the Beautiful Language Arts.

I do speech therapy with Tobias daily. I read aloud to Tobias and Rebekah, and do some preschool-ish play.

I teach two science lessons to the group of Daniel, Oliver, Caleb, Mason, Samuel. Tobias and Rebekah usually join us, this has a lot of hands on fun they like. This group is using The Good and the Beautiful science units. I review science with Joseph and Emma once a week, or as needed. They are using Exploring the World of Chemistry by John Tiner this semester.

I teach two history lessons a week to the entire group of kids, Joseph, Emma, Daniel, Oliver, Caleb, Mason, Samuel, with Tobias and Rebekah often joining. Then we add in a third day of history for notebooking about what they've learned. We are using The Good and the Beautiful History Year 3 because we've loved Year 1 and 2.  

We have a family read aloud going, currently Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.

We have a history read aloud going, currently Slave Boy in Judea. 

I read on my own and then meet with Joseph and Emma to discuss our current Boomerang Book Club title: Emma by Jane Austen. 

Joseph and Emma chose to do a Culinary Arts and Nutrition elective this year. That is being integrated into daily life, lots meal planning, grocery shopping, and cooking.

I oversee piano lessons for the kids still doing piano. Even though they play better than I do, I'm able to read music and help figure things out, or just be a listening ear. I also work on my own piano practice when I can squeeze it in. 

We do family scripture study daily. Currently we are 322 pages into The Book of Mormon, in Alma chapter 46. This puts us a bit ahead of where I'll start out at the end of this month teaching daily seminary lessons (Mon-Fri at 6am) with nine teens from church. 

As you can see, it is all totally doable, it just takes a bit of time to get into smooth routines. 

Thursday was another day of learning at home, followed by an afternoon outside. We loved the sunshine and slightly cooler afternoon temps. 

Our first Friday of the school year went great. Lots of reading, discussion, and notebooking.