Re-intro time! 👋 I’ve been a bit quiet on here over the past couple of years (life with 12 kids will do that 😆), but now that I’m subscribing to X and getting verified, I thought it was a great time to say hello again. I’m Lisa - a homeschooling mom of 12 (though two are now adults!) and a freelance writer and virtual assistant.

One of my teens bought a CD burner after our neighbor gave the family a huge new thing of CD-Rs, so now the kids are having fun burning cds from our iTunes collection to listen to on their bedroom CD players 😁

How would you sell electric fans to cheerleaders? Or frisbees to veterinarians? Put your selling skills to the test with the game Pitch It! This one has been on our shelves for a while, and we pulled it out today and had such a fun time playing! It’s perfect for a wide variety of ages (my 11, 13, 16, and 17 year old played with me!) It was a joy to listen to the kids come up with their product ideas and present them, trying to convince the other players to vote for them. You win by earning $5 million.

We had a “bedtime tea” party tonight and I broke out all my fancy China, and we had chamomile tea and just sat around visiting for a while before we counted our blessings together and moved into normal bedtime routines. It was lovely! Sometimes, slowing down is the best thing we can do.

A sandbox was one of the best investments in our backyard that we’ve made. The younger kids spend hours out here every week, and the sensory play is so calming for them.

We spent the evening in the kitchen with strawberries and steam and sticky spoons. My eleven-year-old stood beside me, cloth in hand, wiping the tops of each jar I filled with strawberry jam. Earlier during the process, she asked how to tell when the jam was boiling a rolling boil, whether the lids would really pop, and if she could spread the foam on toast after we got done like I used to do with my mom. She did, and she loved it! These are the so-called old skills: boiling water baths, pectin and patience, knowing when fruit is ready and when a jar has sealed. They allow us to turn a bumper crop (or in my case a sale at the fruit stand) into a delicious breakfast for later. Filling the pantry is also school. Measuring, timing, following a process, cleaning as you work, putting food by for a season you cannot yet see. It’s learning without the workbook… Just fruit, sugar, heat, a child who wants to help, and the quiet lesson that competence is something you pass from one generation to the next. One day she may can peaches with her own kids. Or she may just open a jar in winter and remember the evening the kitchen was warm and the strawberries were everywhere. That is reason enough to keep the skill alive. If you have a child, a niece, a neighbor kid, or even just a friend who has never heard a lid ping as it seals—invite them to join you in putting up some food. What are you canning this fall?

My teen taught herself the written language on Ninjago and now pauses the show to translate for us. The “gibberish” on screen is real words, that make sense contextually- when you know how to read them. Homeschool doesn’t always look like a workbook. Sometimes it looks like a kid who cared enough to crack a cartoon code.

I just ordered math and language arts materials for the upcoming school year! This year, my children are in the following grades: - Preschool - Kindergarten - 2nd grade - 4th grade - 6th grade - 9th grade - 12th grade We are almost all looking forward to starting school and getting back into a more normal routine!

My children have all made their selections, and here are our unit studies for the year: - August - National Parks - September - The Water Cycle - October - Daniel Boone and other “Trailblazers” - November- Animals - December - The Best Christmas Pageant Ever - January - Ancient Rome - February- Map making/cartography - March - Dr. Seuss - April - the Amish It’s a nice mix of topics, so it should be an interesting year! Now I get to start planning resources, activities, and potential field trips for each!

Decluttering our homeschool stuff is so hard for me! Even if something wasn’t a good fit, I really struggle to get rid of it. But today I purged a big box of stuff. The shelves look so much better and I made room for the things I’m ordering for this year.

So thankful for pawn shops and Facebook marketplace- I l purchased five decent quality band instruments for my middle and high schoolers for an average of $163 each - including some recorking fees. I was roughly planning on spending $250 each so I’m under budget! Now the noisy learning phase begins 🤣

I’m in full homeschool planning mode! We’re continuing a monthly unit study format (with each student picking a topic that I’ll schedule throughout the school year), plus group history and science, and individual math, language, and music. Plus all the field trips and their monthly book reports. Should be a great year! National parks is our first unit, which has been a joy to plan!

My 16-year-old daughter asked if she could set up an escape room in the basement. She went all out, hanging sheets to create a “room” and moving furniture to decorate it. I’m looking forward to trying to solve the puzzles later today!

Anyone know what to check for with a used clarinet? I’m trying hard to avoid the knockoff instruments that are all over Amazon, so I’m sticking to local marketplace and pawn shops for the kids’ instruments and going with more reputable brands.

I’ve been feeling the need to introduce more music into our homeschool, so I’m doing something crazy 🤪. I had each of my middle and high schoolers (5 total) pick a band instrument to learn this year. I found online lessons and a local teacher (one of the residents at our missionary retirement community was studying to be a band director before he got called into ministry!) and we’re doing this! I know nothing about music. But my husband was in band once upon a time and I feel like with YouTube and everything else, this is the golden age for learning! So the next little while around here will be filled with the sounds of kids learning the glockenspiel, flute, trumpet, clarinet, and saxophone. 🎶 we’ll see how it goes!

Scheduled to leave western Montana tomorrow on our trek back to Missouri, and wouldn’t you know it - winter storm watch in June 🤪😆. Currently researching alternate routes to avoid the high passes on 190, which is forecast to get 6-12 inches ❄️. Fun times!

Glacier National Park was on the agenda today! Next week we start the trek back to Missouri.

Ah, wide shoulders, I’ve missed you! The roads near us in MO don’t have anything this wide. 😆 Definitely small differences across the country, and I’m so thankful to have the opportunity to travel with our family so they can experience it.

The Idaho Potato Museum was a family favorite during this trip! We learned a lot about one of our favorite foods 😆 🥔 And they had the coolest collection of Mr Potato Head parts I’ve ever seen - like a mermaid tail!

I did an escape room tonight for the first time, with six of my kids. It was so much fun! We’re staying in ID and did a potato themed room, which was perfect!

In Salem to give a ministry update at a supporting church, and we had the opportunity to walk around the capitol building grounds. So pretty!