Raising Arrows
Large Family Homeschool Life – Week 43 of 2021
It’s the last week of October and we are in full-swing Autumn Homeschooling and Fall activities!
See all of the Large Family Homeschool Life posts HERE!
MONDAY
The weather has turned chilly. We still haven’t turned on the heater, and we still leave the windows slightly cracked at night, but we are lighting the fireplace more often and many of us are cuddling up with more blankets at night. I’ll soon add the electric blanket to our bed.
Ty left for work and I cuddled up by the fire before going back upstairs to get ready for the day.
I have a late lunch date with a friend, but it will be difficult to find the time to get ready for that with school this morning.
I made pumpkin spice coffee and iced tea. Then, I ate my peanut butter and banana toast while I did my Bible study – Jesus, Fill My Heart & Home.
One of today’s Scripture readings was Psalm 127 – the passage that inspired the naming of this website!
After devotions, I got the kids up and dressed the little girls. They often try to dress themselves, but sometimes they need a little bit of guidance and help with the harder things. Plus, I need to oversee the teeth brushing and hair fixing.
For Morning Time, we read in Philippians, and then I read several books to the kids while they worked on a Lion Leaf craft from the Wild Family Guide I purchased last week. It’s no longer available, but the products this group puts together are always unique. These Leaf Lions turned out so cute!
The books I read from today were:
We also learned more about our composer – Haydn – and our artist – Tanner. And finished up our Morning Time with If You Lived with the Iroquois and Children of the Longhouse.
I helped Aspen with her Phonics book – she’s doing great with it! And then, I headed out to lunch with a friend. We hadn’t gotten together for quite some time, so we spent a couple of hours talking over taco salads, and then I ran to Aldi for my weekly grocery shop.
Still not everything I wanted was stocked, but I did end up getting some of those things at Walmart instead; although some things were missing there as well. The biggest thing I was needing were the ingredients for my Cranberry Celebration Salad for Thanksgiving.
We are having Thanksgiving a bit early this year, so I don’t want to wait until the last minute to pick up what I need.
Before dinner, the kids went outside and starting filming a new movie. They like to do this from time to time, and it always turns out so neat! They used our shed their location and came up with a storyline and used my phone to film.
The 15 year old did a bit of editing on the movie before I called everyone to dinner – potato soup and fruit cocktail. Nothing fancy tonight.
That night, I taught the boys how to use a hot glue gun. They have been interested in making miniatures like their older sister who often uses a glue gun for her projects.
The kids made a tent in the living room to sleep in, and we did family worship time before they headed to bed.
READ >> A Simple Approach to Family Worship Time
TUESDAY
Ty and I stayed up late talking, so I slept in a bit. The kids woke up and made eggs for breakfast. Thankful they know how to do this!
For Morning Time, we read in Philippians. I finished reading The Year at Maple Hill Farm today. Then, I read to the kids from If You Lived with the Iroquois and Children of the Longhouse. The big kids left for a field trip with a local homeschool group later in the morning, so we didn’t do a lot for Morning Time.
Some older friends of ours came over to buy our XTerra. They brought us tons of veggies from their garden since the first frost is coming soon! Yay!
Ty and I ate lunch together and then he headed back to teach his afternoon classes. I was going to bake bread, but decided to process all of the fresh vegetables instead because the tomatoes definitely needed to be taken care of soon. With all of the wet weather, many had split skin.
I made salsa from a recipe I had never tried before, and jalapeño jelly to go over cream cheese this holiday season. Everything I needed for these two preserves came from our friends’ garden!
For dinner, Ty and the little kids had imitation crab meat and I had nachos. The big kids grabbed burgers on the way home from their field trip. I ate my dinner outside with Ty because I was hot and tired from working in the kitchen all day.
We had Family Worship Time and then I grabbed a cherry limeade shake for Melia’s Special Night. She also had Chicken Dumplings that we had picked up from Aldi yesterday.
WEDNESDAY
When I got up this morning, I made Mercy (5) some breakfast and checked on my pepper jelly to be sure it set up. Then, I removed the rings and put them away in the downstairs pantry.
I made the bed and laid out Ty’s military clothes on our bed from the dryer. He’ll put them away when he gets home today. He always does his own military uniforms, so they don’t add to our regular laundry.
READ >> Daily Large Family Laundry Routine
I decided since I already had the canner out, I would finish up the sandhill plums our friends brought to us a few weekends ago. Not all of them were fully ripe, so I separated out the ripe ones and got them cooking down in a large stock pot. I think I’ll have enough for 1 batch of jelly, which makes me very happy considering I had 2 batches fail earlier in the season. (I’ve had a rough canning year!)
READ >> Sandhill Plum Jelly Recipe (includes video!)
We had another short Morning Time – read in Philippians, read Winter is Coming, and Why Do Leaves Change.
We finished up with If You Lived with the Iroquois and Children of the Longhouse.
Then, I took Melia to an appointment and then home for lunch. Then, back out to take the big kids to work!
When I got home, I made the jelly and processed it and then baked bread. Phew!
I also helped Micah cook dinner – Trim Healthy Mama Chicken Fried Rice. We really like this dish!
I recorded a podcast intro and outro for a friend’s podcast. She’s going to be taking some time off and is having other podcasters introduce old episodes from her archives as a way to keep her show “alive” while she’s out.
I also finally finished last week’s Large Family Homeschool post and sent out an email to my readers.
Large family homeschooling and homemaking help in your inbox!
THURSDAY
Another rainy day. I went to some doctor’s appointments with Ty this morning and then out to lunch and coffee with him at a local coffee shop owned by another homeschool family.
Only the older kids did their independent school work this morning, but I promised everyone I would read to them later tonight.
We did make a Dutch Apple Pie together as part of project from The Peaceful Press’ Autumn Guide. We used apple pie filling I canned earlier this year. It was actually just the filling without any apples because I had some leftover and hated to waste it, so I canned it. The kids sliced apples into the bottom of our pie crust, and then we poured the canned filling over the top. Lastly, we added a crumb topping and baked our yummy pie! We’ll have it for dessert with our dinner tonight.
We had a family meeting in the living room to talk about this weekend’s Fall Festival and our November plans. For our meetings, I use my Holiday Homeschool Planner. You can learn more about it here:
I worked on more homeschool plans on my own while baking another loaf of bread plus some rolls. This batch did not turn out as well because I added too much flour too soon and it ended up too dense. But, we’ll still eat it!
For dinner, we had spaghetti and salad and Dutch Apple Pie with homemade vanilla ice cream – a treat our 17 year old likes to make with this Cuisinart Ice Cream Maker.
We polished off the evening by tiding up around the house so there won’t be so much much to do in the morning for house cleaning.
FRIDAY
Got up and made myself a Fall Coffee from Aldi. Then I tidied up a bit and got the kids stared on house cleaning. I spent my time cleaning and arranging the Guest Bedroom – something that has been a goal of mine since I read in my devotional – Jesus, Fill My Heart & Home – earlier this week.
Our guest bedroom is also where my sewing supplies and our family puzzles are kept, so I had kind of let things slip in that room and I’m a bit embarrassed by how many people have come and gone from that room and had to sleep in the midst of the mess!
After cleaning, I took the big kids to work. Then, my sister and brother-in-law met me at home to drop off their dog, a Schnoodle named Buster, while they go on vacation. Everyone here is thrilled to have Buster around! He’s kind of latched onto me – I must remind him of my sister.
Ty came home early and we drove together to pick up the kids from work. On the way home, Ty aired up the tires on the van because they had created a warning on the dashboard. However, we ended up deciding to buy a small Husky inflator since the free air wouldn’t inflate the tires enough.
Ty finished up the tires at home, and I quickly threw together a Chicken Noodle Pot with green beans. The kids also ate some of the homemade bread with honey on it.
We spent the evening putting together puzzles in the living room. A nice quiet way to end the week!