Monthly Archives: May 2015

If you are a homeschooling mom you are probably like me, where you might skip over a few things over the years and then by the time your child enters middle school you wonder if you taught them everything they are supposed to know.

For myself, we teach at different levels for each child.  What one grasps easily another may struggle.  We glide over things that are difficult and fly through the easier things.  I have found most math textbooks are way too repetitive and pointless.  I know, but that is just me.  After teaching my older ones, I realize what really needs to stick and what you just “need to know.”  That is why I revamp and write my own.

This elementary Math curriculum covers everything required from 1st grade up to 5th grade.  It is repetitive in  the “important” things and teaches the “less important” things.

I will be having my 5th grader do this as well as my 2nd and 3rd grader.  The 2nd and 3rd grader will work at a slower pace but my 5th grader will work at a faster level.

Use it for the 5th grader who needs a good review or use it as a challenge for our younger grades.  Use it for a couple of years, since it covers up through 5th grade.

If you need a rough estimate of where each grade level begins and ends—as you know you review every grade level as you get older, but here is the breakdown:

1st grade goes up through page 30;  2nd grade ends on page 80;  3rd ends on 120;  4th ends around 140;  and the rest is 5th and lots of review.

Again this is a FREE printable PDF file.  Print it off and give your child 1-2 pages each day of school.  They will learn much and it won’t cost you more than paper and ink.

Enjoy and be blessed.

click here for the download.

Having a large family has made me encounter things that probably don’t bother most people, but become bothersome when serving food for large amounts of people.

One big issue, was drinks.  Getting drinks for 6 little ones takes up extra time.  We solved that by getting every child and adult their own water bottle.  Each child get’s their own before meals and that solves that issue.

Another thing that slows down my time, is getting out silverware from the drawer for every meal.  Now that may not seem like a big deal for most, but when you are scooping out plates and getting out silverware for at least 6-8 children three times every day, it can become more work.

I used to have a nice heavy crock container that fit all of my spoons and forks into it and that set out on my server window in our old home.  It was a great fix for getting out extra silverware but unfortunately it did not make the move in one piece.  Since we moved here, I just put the spoons and forks into the drawers like most people do.  But I have noticed that it has become an issue again, so I decided to do something about it.

I took some cans and pounded down the inside where the metal sticks up from tearing open the can.  I then covered the inner ring with some electrical tape to make sure no one would cut their fingers.  I spray painted them different colors and then hot glued them together.  Don’t be frugal with the glue, coat it nice and thick to hold it tight.  There you go a DIY silverware holder.  Simple and easy.  When meal time rolls around, this sits next to my scooping out area and I just grab what is needed for meals.  Easy—simplified.

Need a good, easy, and most of all FREE bible study curriculum for your elementary aged student?  We have it.  Plus we have an animal study that ties into the bible learning–so you get two classes in one!

For our bible study for the elementary aged children, we are using the Illustrated Family Bible from DK as our main source.  It is easy to read and I felt it covered the main stories we wanted to learn.  We read a new story 4 times per week.  After each story, we have bible trivia on the stories we have already learned.  Each week, we memorize a bible verse that the child practices writing each day.

We also are using Character Sketches books from Institute in Basic Life Principles.  These well made books have a vast wealth of information.  The books take an animal and give you an in depth account of how it functions in nature.  It then goes on to relate it to a character trait of a person in the bible.  Very neat.  We enjoy these books for teaching animals study as well as biblical study.    I chose 2 animals from the books each week.  Usually it pertains to what we are learning in the bible that week.

I then did a search for my own printable images of each of the animals—I included a list at the end for you to do a search yourself for and printed them off for each child.  As I am reading about the animal, the child will copy down some interesting facts about the animal as well as color the image in.  We will then put them together in a book to have an animal study.

I have also included  printable bible trivia questions from all of the lessons taught.

These are another great FREE resource for bible and animal curriculum choices this year.

You do have to purchase the following books to make it happen, but still an inexpensive route to homeschooling:

I bought the Illustrated Family Bible DK  and Character Sketches Vol 1,2,3 from Institute in Basic Life Principles.

I found these books relatively cheap online.  The character sketches are a little more, but they are big and heavy and nicely made books.  Don’t worry about getting a newer version, we use the old version and the bible and animal information is still the same—it doesn’t change.  They are a good in depth animal study as well as biblical person study, we don’t absolutely love that many books but these have stayed on my shelves for many years.

Click here for FREE printable elementary bible curriculum

Click here for FREE printable bible trivia to go with the curriculum

This elementary Grammar course was written to include ALL of the information needed to satisfy curriculum requirements through the 5th grade.

I have a child who will be doing the 5th grade this year and I wanted to make sure that he did EVERYTHING that was required of him before he starts middle school, so I covered it all.  We start out with the basics and move up through a 5th grade level. Some of the material will be a review of what he has already learned, but in case he forgot some requirements, he will be redoing them to reinforce his lessons.

But wait………I also have a 2nd and 3rd grader who will be doing this same curriculum.  They will learn, probably not at the same speed as the 5th grader, but will work at their own independent levels.  Maybe they will take a couple days for some of the new concepts, while the 5th grader will fly through it faster.

If you are looking to review all of the concepts taught in the elementary levels, then this book is for you.  Maybe you skipped over some years from teaching Grammar–I know we did–then this book will be an excellent source for you.  Maybe you want a little more challenging source for your 2nd or 3rd grader, then this course will be good for that.  Whatever your reason, you can’t go wrong because it is FREE.  Download and try it, it’s risk free.  No more wasted curriculum books that you bought only to go through them half way and decide they were NOT going to work for you.  We have been there and done that.  That is why I write my own, I like to give my children the information that they will need and not waste our time doing things that don’t matter.

Since I will be using this course with 3 children this year, I printed off the course and then put it in plastic sleeves in a 3 ring binder.  This way my pages stay nice and whatever page they are working on, they can just turn to it.

Click here to get your FREE download

Another issue that we encounter in large families is the laundry situation.  I have done numerous different schedules and ideas over the years and some worked better than others for those season in my life.

Currently we have laundry for 11 people.  I don’t have to wash diapers anymore…..we are in the youngest child’s potty training days.  But I do remember the days of washing a full load of cloth diapers for 3 children.  Not anymore. We are in the world of pull ups now–smile.

In our last home, I was able to use my HE washer and dryer and that was sooooooo nice to be able to throw in a large load of laundry and let it go.  I didn’t hang much on the clothesline in the last couple years in our old home, due to the strain of work required of me from little ones.  But, since moving here there was already a washer and dryer in the home and we decided to just use that. I call it my “mini sized” washer and dryer.  It is a normal regular sized one but much smaller than what I was used to.  But when life hands you lemons…..you make lemonade.  So we use what we have and just do it.

My big laundry day is Monday.  I usually have 6-8 loads at least to do, depending on whether I did any on the weekend.  I start early in the morning, and get it going.  I then let the wet laundry sit in the baskets until the sun comes up and hang it all outside.  If it is warm out, the drying process goes quickly and I am able to rotate it out within a couple of hours.  It is a true blessing to have warm weather pretty much most of the time, just for this reason.   When we were going through rainy season and winter cold, I did use my dryer more.  Unfortunately, I  noticed that our electric bill went up an extra $100 during that time.   So I then did a weather forecast and tried to do most of my laundry on the days when the sun was going to be out, to avoid that expense.  That  only had to do that for about a month this winter and for about 2 weeks when it was rainy springtime.

After it is all dried, we bring it back in and we have baskets for each room. I separate into the rooms: towels, Dad and Mom, older boys, younger boys, and girls.  By Monday afternoon before dinner, everyone takes their baskets and starts to separate clothing and put away.  We fold towels on the dining room table and my oldest daughter distributes them to the proper areas.  When Monday is over, our baskets are empty.  They are stored on shelves above my washer and dryer.

By Tuesday, I have more laundry to do and I find that I usually have to do 1 load each day until Friday.  Then on Friday, I try and get all the laundry hampers empty again for the weekend.   We do the same process as on Monday and everyone puts them away.  The weekend comes and we usually go out, so there is not much time for laundry.  Some days, I get up and throw towels in and get those on the line before we leave for an outing, but if I don’t then I have more to do on Monday.

Yes, laundry can be overwhelming.  Some days, I get tired of seeing something in the wash, that I KNOW I just cleaned and no one even wore it.  I could ration out the washing to some of my children, but I prefer to do it myself.  That is my big job and I ration out the other jobs to everyone else.  When my little girls get older, they will help more with it, but for me it is a nice feeling to be able to just get outside and hang it up.  I remember having lots of little ones and we used cloth diapers.  My favorite time of the day, was to be able to walk outside and hang them up.  Listening to the birds sing, feeling the sunshine—if only for a moment, did something to my soul.  It refreshed me for the day.  Sometimes, my ONLY time I got outside for the day, was to put diapers out and bring them back in.  Those were the days of lots of little ones.  Days I remember quite well, they were busy, WAY MORE busy then I am now, but good days.  Because now, my little ones are growing up.  I don’t have to change diapers all day long and nurse babies every hour or hour and half.  My life is much more free. If I want to sit outside in the sunshine, I can do that now.  If I want to run somewhere by myself, I can do that without even preparing for hours to get everything set for whomever was watching the little ones.  So hanging laundry……..yes it reminds me of that.  Reminds me of the days, of longing to get outside if only for a moment.  Now I know I can do it everyday.  So I do.

We still use our homemade laundry detergent. I have used that for the last, ummmmm at least 10 years.  It works well for us.  I notice in the HE washers, it dissolves better. What I do in my “mini washer” is put it in the washing machine first with water, to let it dissolve.  Otherwise you have clumps on your clothing.  We wash only in cold water. No sense wasting electricity for something that can be done in cold.  For my really dirty man clothes, I buy store bought detergent.  They get really greasy from the garage and need something a little more chemical like.

On my wish list is a drying rack.  We had a large one back at our old home, but I left it there to conserve space.  I have a screened in front porch and I would like to put it out there with socks and underclothes.  It will make it much more easier to dry then to hang it on the clothesline. I would even like a way to hang up dresses and shirts on hangers, then hang them on a bar of some sort.  Then when it was dry, just hang them in the closets.  My vision to make laundry easier…..in time, it will happen.   We don’t use that porch at all, other than for storage of items.  The children like to play out there but it isn’t a used room, so I think it would make a nice laundry hanging room.

That is how our large family controlled chaos…laundry, works in our home. I will continue to write about more issues that we face because we have a large family…….Be blessed