I can’t decide if it’s lazy or efficient that when I’m talking with friends re: homeschooling issues I just blog about it so I can refer to it later. 🙂 (This one is prompted by Becky’s question and my realization that I’m in theory schooling three kids and should be adding a fourth to the equation this fall. HA! I need to ponder on this topic myself…)

Whenever possible we combine kids: art, music, literature, history, science. I try to have scratch paper or relevant coloring sheets for the little ones to draw on while I do the reading or I’ll ask everyone, “Draw me a picture of what you’re hearing as we read.” (Their Tempest pictures were great, I’m kinda scared to ask them to illustrate Macbeth!) I don’t care what the kids are doing while I read so long as they are relatively quiet so the older ones can focus, but I am surprised at how much the middle kids pick up when I think they aren’t listening.

The subjects I need to give individualized attention are language & mathematics. For now with spelling I have both older kids get their notebooks to right down the new words and I flip back and forth in the Spell to Write & Read guide giving them their spelling lists. Mo I try to write out the words for so sometimes C gets a couple words at once and he can usually remember them that way so I can focus more on Mo’s spelling.

Grammar I’ll sometimes do them together if it’s a review of parts of speech or a dictation or narration exercise. C will listen in on Mo’s since hers are a review for him but C’s are much, much more involved and require my attention (diagramming prepositional phrases for objects??) There are some days I cannot do it with him and we wait until Kit gets home, which none of us likes. We only do two grammar lessons a week per kid so sometimes I have to keep the kids on standby and when the little ones are distracted I say, “QUICK, grab your language book!”

Ditto for mathematics. If I can focus on the kids it takes maybe 30 minutes to complete (lesson & their written work) but that means a full hour I need little ones to be occupied. When I’m working with one or the other of the big kids I will ask the other child to distract the little ones. We strive for 3 math lessons a week.

We have a busy box with activities to keep little ones occupied. I’ll pull out a toy bin (train tracks, Little People, board game) and we rotate through those so there’s some novelty when they get them. I’ll start little ones on an art project so I can do a lesson, in good weather I’ll throw them in the yard.

And somedays it’s all about PBSKids.org or PoissonRouge.com or Sesame Street clips on Hulu! We try to check out educational DVDs from the library and I’ll save those to let the little ones watch while I work with the big ones. Sometimes I let them watch anything they can manage to stick into the DVD player without my help because I’m focused on a lesson. 🙂 I decided I’m okay with that, too, because when the lesson is done the movie goes off and I can engage all of them.

I’m thinking that I may try something new and alternate days, too. I’ll focus on the older kids on Monday & Wednesday for grammar & mathematics and I’ll do Tuesday & Thursday with the middle two (pre-K and K right now) while the older ones have some free reading time or educational games on the computer. I’m still trying to figure that out…

In some ways having the kids be independent readers does make it easier but the lessons they need my help on (math & grammar) are ones they cannot just read aloud, I have to instruct them so it does demand individual attention. We try to do lessons in the morning but sometimes with all the distractions it can take us 3+ hours to get through two grammar & two math lessons. As the little ones get older I hope they will better be able to stay occupied (in a non-destructive fashion!) and we can be more efficient about getting work done. But right now I am also trying to do lessons while nursing and getting a baby to nap so there is a constant (good!) reason for interruptions.

And schooling year round does mean we have some leeway so if we don’t get enough lessons done in one week I try to not stress it too much. I plan a schedule and create lists only because it gives me some sense of structure – in reality we are very, very flexible in how we implement things and that’s part of the joy of homeschooling.

More ideas here.