Homeschooling one child can feel challenging. Adding more children at different levels can feel like launching a plate-spinning act, rushing from pole to pole to give each a quick twirl and keep all those plates in the air! While I have had to occasionally “clean up a [figurative] plate that hits the floor,” here are a few hints that have helped me keep everyone learning while teaching different ages.
Set goals and prioritize
Map out your year, but be flexible (use pencil!). Education is more than just academics, so it’s okay to include some character-building and passion-exploration goals as well. (When your children enjoy what they’re learning and are gradually growing in focus, attention, and flexibility, everyone wins!)
And speaking of academics: Keep it simple. In the younger years (preschool through early primary grades), your goal is to build relationships within your family while facilitating experiential learning, or “hooks,” on which they can hang their future learning.
When teaching multiple students, many parents feel most confident if they concentrate on mastery of foundational skill areas like language arts and math at each child’s own level. Then they can add a multi-level approach in areas of history, geography, science, and arts by utilizing family-friendly, grade-level-neutral materials. (More on that below!)
Organize your home and your schedule for success
Simplify your homemaking and your chores. Have a routine, but be flexible! Build in some “down time” as well as catch-up time. I found it helpful to incorporate a half-day off every few weeks to account for household chores (like the laundry pile!), interruptions to our hoped-for progress, and other “life happens” time adjustments.
Encourage realistic expectations and create an environment conducive to a learning lifestyle!
Encourage independent study
Teach your kids to work without you right at their sides each moment. This may be tough at first, but it really does get easier!
If your child can read independently, consider giving him his own lesson plan book so he can see the day’s expectations. Many parents express frustration that their child lacks self-motivation. When I ask how the child knows what to do next, the answer is often, “I tell him.” By doing so, parents unintentionally train their children to wait for instructions. While the parents may have a clear plan in mind, the children might only see a constant stream of tasks without a clear endpoint. Giving them the ability to see the plan in advance can help them feel more motivated to complete the activities. Here are a few more suggestions:
- Prep educational “while you wait for mom or dad” materials for times that your child needs to wait a few moments for help.
- Use the computer for drills, research, and educational software. Make it easy for them to correct their own work in skills areas such as math.
- Give your child his own planner with assignments listed so he can move at his own pace, or try Sue Patrick’s workbox system.
- Use material that is designed to be learned (vs designed to be taught) — material that can be used in a fairly self-guided way, vs needing mom to ask every question, give every example, etc.
- Nothing says your child has to do every subject every day. You may find that doing math and language arts each day is a good start, since those are skills subjects, but you may be able to do science one or two days a week and social studies two other days, with longer work sessions. Or science this month and history next month. Or even science this semester and history next semester — covering what would normally be a year’s work each semester because you can stay focused for longer each day (the school system calls this block scheduling.)
- Categorize materials into “learning stations” (a place to keep all your educational materials—like the way you would keep all your baking supplies in one area) to make self-study more user-friendly. Some items to include in the “learning stations” might be computer apps or CDs, supplemental workbooks or coloring books, games, or drills, as well as books on various topics related to the studies at hand.
- Begin the tutorial session with the circuit rider approach — get one child started on his work, ensuring he understands the lesson and expectations, then move to the next student, and go around the circuit.
- If your child really insists on “needing” you, try setting a timer for one minute of self-guided work, then next time make it two minutes, increasing incrementally until he can work 15 minutes on his own. You might consider offering a small incentive for careful, independent work — at least to build some confidence and habits.
Keep in mind that children tend to do what you inspect, not always what you expect, so try to stay nearby and available. As you inspect, you can give them positive, growth-oriented feedback they need to begin polishing their skills and become more independent learners.
Include your little ones
I recommend providing “mommy time” early and often! If you spend time with your little ones at the beginning of your homeschool day or learning session, they will be more content playing nearby on their own while you work with the older children. Include your toddler as a young learner—you’ll be amazed how much he’ll pick up by the trickle-down approach!
For example: involve the younger ones in discussions with your older children. You might not expect answers from the young ones, but don’t discount that possibility, either! If the conversation will likely be too far above their heads, keep educational toys nearby for the younger ones during the lesson times.
For more insights on and creative ideas for homeschooling with little ones, see my article “What to Do with Your Young Learner” as well as “Early Learning: The Toddler Years.”
Let your older kiddos help out
It’s okay to build in 15-30 minutes here or there for an older child to work with a younger child. This could be an older child actually tutoring a younger child, or just reading to him, or even playing a game or building with blocks with him. The older child can feel important and needed (and like he’s getting a break!) and the younger child is getting one-on-one time with a sibling — while you are getting a small block to work individually with another child (or get dinner started!). Of course, you want to be sure that your older child has plenty of time to work on his own projects and not feel like the child care provider for the day, but a brief “siblings” break each day can be a brain break for your older kiddo and a time-saver for you. (For more ideas, check out my workshop on “Homeschooling Middles While You Still Have Littles.”
Read aloud
When children hear good literature read aloud, it introduces them to a love for language, builds vocabulary, motivates them to read, and encourages them to use their imagination. Kids have a much higher receptive vocabulary compared to their personal reading vocabulary, so it’s okay to read books aloud that are well above their reading level. It can increase engagement and give you a feel for what they’re understanding if you stop occasionally to let them narrate back to you or to dramatize what you’ve read. And remember—leave time for discussion and enjoy the experience!
Adapt your curriculum
Math and language arts are sequential skills subjects, so you will want math and language materials at each child’s skill level, but for other subjects, the sequence is not so important. Consider adapting those educational materials to teach both younger and older students, especially in content subjects such as science and history or geography. These materials might include any or all of the following, for starters:
- textbooks
- workbooks
- biographies, historical fiction, and other “living books”*
- CDs, podcasts, and videos
- games
- projects/experiments
Select what you want your oldest child to learn about in those areas, then everyone covers those same topics (vs five different time periods of history at once, several areas of science….). To adapt your textbooks, you can use the table of contents (from the oldest child’s textbook) as a guide, then use living books for learning time—modifying assignments to give the younger ones learning material appropriate for their age and developmental level. Skim chapters, noting vocabulary (bold words or vocabulary lists), timelines, important people, project ideas, and experiments or field trips. You might use just this one book, or you might find lower-level textbooks that cover similar topics for the younger ones, then use them as references.
You would teach to the level of the oldest child and include the younger children in the learning. The younger children will “ride the mental bus to their own mental bus stop … and then they will hop off the bus.” Again, you will be surprised how much they can pick up in this trickle-down approach!
Or you may prefer to simply use the same multi-level, family-friendly, content-area program for all, such as Konos, Moving Beyond the Page, Tapestry of Grace, BookShark, Trail Guide to Learning, or Five in a Row, to list a few. These materials often already include adaptations for various learning levels.
If you are concerned that you may miss key concepts you want to cover with your younger ones, a scope-and-sequence guide can help you check off the milestones, if that’s important to you. See “What Should I Be Teaching?” for some skills checklists at the end of the article.
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While homeschooling multiple learning levels can be quite a challenge, you are a family first! As educational psychologist Dr. Debra Bell confirmed in her studies, “If we built a school from the ground up that is based on the research showing how kids learn best . . . we’d build a home.”
