How does a mom of many teach all her kids all those subjects while juggling a toddler? With a good schedule! At least, that’s how I manage! There were several things I had to consider when creating our current schedule.
- Making sure someone was playing with the toddler at all times. (He can get into trouble fast!)
- Having older children do review work with younger siblings. (That leaves me more time to focus on teaching new concepts.)
- Finding ways to incorporate several (or all) of the kids into one lesson. (Teaching history once is much more time efficient than teaching it four different times.)
- Spending time with the toddler before school time starts. (It’s so important to love on the little ones before pouring my time and attention into the big kids.)
- Working with my younger kids first before they get tired and distracted. (And oh, boy do they get distracted and tired quickly!)
- Squeezing in meal times, chore times, rest times and free time. (Because school work is only part of our daily life.)
- Taking into consideration all the possible interruptions that come with having six children!
I’ve included a picture of our schedule below. If you click on the image, a pdf will open up for easier viewing. Update: Scroll down for an updated schedule that is working even better for us!
The yellow highlighted areas represent when I am working with one or more children. This helps me to see, at a quick glance, who I’m suppose to be working with at any given time. On most days, all of the school work (except history or science) is finished before lunch. We do history every day (with a short review lesson on Friday) and save science for Fridays. We all try to stick to the schedule as best as possible but normal interruptions (like a dirty diaper, a spilled drink or a tantrum) are a reminder that the schedule doesn’t always have to be followed.
Update: Our first schedule was working great for several months but then my 1st grade son’s work got a little more challenging. He was unable to get all his school work done in the scheduled time so I needed to adjust the schedule to allow more time for him to work on his subjects. The more challenging work also meant that his attention span wasn’t lasting as long so I knew that he would need playtime in between the more challenging subjects. Here is what I came up with. If you click on the image a pdf will open for easier viewing.
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Hi Janelle! I just found your blog and I really enjoy it. I have 6 kids, same ages as your five along with a 8 month old baby. I was wondering if you could offer me some advice on how to “schedule in” the baby with the rest of the kids. Thanks so much and God bless!
Hi Jen,
So nice to hear from you! Here is a link to my tips for homeschooling with a baby. I hope they help! Let me know if you have any more questions. 🙂 https://www.janelleknutson.com/2014/02/03/homeschooling-with-a-baby/
We have 5 kids 6(1st), 4 (pre-k), 3, 1, and number five due in July. This post was very encouraging for future planning.
Beth,
Congratulations on baby #5! It can be be hard to stick to a schedule with a baby. I just had baby #7 and we are following more of a routine now instead of the schedule. That means we aren’t sticking to the times but still following along with the order of the schedule as best we can. Some days we just enjoy baby and skip the school work! Enjoy your new baby!
How do you let kids know it is time to change to the next block on the schedule? Do you have an alarm or something? What if a kid has not completed their work (as kids get older, certain subjects can require more time:)
Any updates to how you manage your kids’ age span as they have grown since you made this? ( Are you still using this type of block scheduling?)
Thanks for great posts.
Great questions. I set an alarm for myself. Our house was so small that I could let the kids know (in a normal voice) that they had 5 minutes left and then that the time was up and time to switch to next thing. If kids were working diligently during the set time and didn’t finish work then they could pick up where they left off the next day. If they were goofing off and getting distracted then they had to finish up later in the day. When the kids got into middle school and high school, I let them be in charge of their own school schedule. When we were still using this type of block schedule, I would ask the older ones to take one 30 minute block of time to help with a little one. Then the rest of the time was theirs to manage.
We are not using the block schedule right now. We are following more of a routine. I shared some of our newer homeschool schedules in these two posts (that include video).
Our Simple Homeschool Day Schedule
New Homeschool Routine
Can you tell me more about how you had your older children work with your younger ones? Specifically what literature were they doing together and which workbooks? Have you found subjects/assignments that work well with siblings? Thanks!
PS, I used this in the spring and it made things so much smoother when we shook up our schedule. assigned someone to be with the littlest, and when sibling had to work together.