This is the fourth article in my Homeschooling 101 series. If you missed the first three posts on Finding Your Why, Choosing Curriculum and the Nuts and Bolts of Organization, be sure to read those here, here, and here.
Most homeschooling families have at least one little person running around just wanting to have fun while everyone else is working. The little eyes that say, “Guys can’t we put all this stuff aside and go to the park or play legos?”
The struggle to teach while entertaining non-school aged kids is universal to at least some degree and every homeschooling mom needs a few tricks up her sleeve to help keep the homeschooling day from getting derailed by the adorable, energy-filled, little cabooses.
My friend Lindsay, a homeschooling mom and mother of seven said, “Interruptions are always an opportunity to teach our children. Older kids can learn self-discipline, independence, compassion and social awareness as we learn and model how to work through interruptions in our day with grace.”
While diaper changes and discipline opportunities may feel like wrecking balls to the progress of the day, learning to embrace the messy rhythm of life with littles brings peace in the midst of chaos and freedom from the oppressive push for perfection.
Having multiple ages sharing a classroom has far more pros than cons. One of the most beautiful things is watching your kids develop friendships and connections with their siblings they may not have time to develop if they were in separate classrooms each day. You can learn to herd the cats and cherish the time together while still managing to get your work done most days.
To give you a deep well of ideas, I reached out to several of my friends and homeschooling veterans to weigh in and give their tried and true methods for juggling littles during the school day. Between the five of us we have twenty-five children, ranging in age from six months to sixteen, providing an ample well of successes and failures to draw from. Many of these ideas were universal across the panel of moms, each implemented in a unique way for each family.
Choose Curriculum Wisely – If you are in a season of diaper changes, breastfeeding and potty training, choose your curriculum with those hurdles in mind. The most interactive, teacher-led curriculum may not be the best fit for that season of life. An all in one box curriculum or online curriculum could be a good choice for a season if you want minimal planning, grading and hands on teaching. If you love getting elbow deep in teaching, projects, and crafts, then you could pick one subject to be more interactive (science is always the easiest, but there are tons of fun options for other subjects too).
Morning Time – Always include your little ones in your morning time routine. I know it is easy to turn the tv on in the morning and just leave it on but resist the urge and bring the little ones into the group. Even if they don’t sit still, they can glean a ton of information just by listening to Bible verses, memorization songs and read alouds. (I have an entire post about developing your own Morning Time routine next week!)
Pack n Play or Blanket Time – This is an idea I first read about in Babywise and was one of the most passionate suggestions given by my friend Kerry, homeschooling mom of four. The idea is designed for infants and toddlers, where you place the child in a pack n play or on a blanket with a few toys and books for a set amount of time. The child must stay in the pack n play or on the blanket the entire time. You can rotate the toys each session. This is a fantastic method to not only teach your child obedience but will help develop their ability to play and learn independently.
Simply start with a small amount of time, like 5 minutes and work up to larger chunks of time, like 30-45 minutes. Fair warning – this will take an invest of time on your part in the beginning, applying discipline if the child leaves the blanket before the time is up, but will be well worth your effort in the long run. As you work to increase the blanket time, you will have larger chunks of time to dedicate to lessons with your older kids.
You can also apply this to older kids in the form of room time. For instance, when my 1st grader is done with her lessons for the day, she could have an hour of room time to give me a chance to focus on lessons with the oldest kids or to prepare dinner or other chores.
It is important for the littles to understand that while Mommy will always take care of them, Mommy is not always available or responsible for their entertainment.
Rotating Stations – Five out of five moms in my panel agreed that rotating stations is the key to a successful school day with littles. You simply set up stations that each child or pair of children rotates through. Generally, 20-30 minutes works best for each rotation, allowing enough time to get something done, but not enough time to get bored. If you have a larger family, just pair kids up to rotate through the stations.
An important skill I have tried to cultivate in my children is to transition quickly from one activity to the other. I can quickly switch into drill sergeant mode when my kid’s moving from the piano back to her desk looks like a 20-minute parade of a molasses fairy through the schoolroom. Having timed rotating stations can help everyone hone these important transitioning skills.
Here’s an example of a rotation schedule:
- Station number one is working with Mom. This is independent time with Mom to work on harder subjects or new concepts, with math and reading being the most common subjects that need extra attention. Teaching a kid to read will probably take more of your teaching time than anything else. If you have a child in this category, know that for a season, you will have to dedicate more concentrated effort with them until they are able to work more independently.
- Station number two is independent work or play. For older kids this could be practicing an instrument, completing worksheets, handwriting, online math or spelling, or literature or history reading. For younger kids it could be blanket time, coloring books, play dough or puzzles.
- Station number three is play time with young siblings. Younger siblings love to have the undivided attention of their older siblings and older siblings often enjoy being a help and getting a break in their day to play kitchen or cars. Outdoor play is an excellent option for this station too. Have the older sibling take the younger sibling outside for the allotted amount of time, giving everyone a boost of physical activity.
- Station number four is screen time for the younger students. Try to keep this educational like Kids Bible app, ABC mouse, typing, math games or Spanish learning apps, but you don’t have to be legalistic. If they are quiet and happy for 20 minutes, count it as a win.
Keep Toys Accessible – Set up your school area with plenty of engaging activities for little ones. Probably 70% of the space in our school room is dedicated to things for the younger kids. (Middle schoolers and high schoolers just need a few books, a computer, a calculator, a pencil and a snack stash.) Have a set of toys and activities that are only accessible during school time (like playdough) to increase the excitement around those items. Also, keep them stored at a level they can choose from easily. Ideas for things to keep in your school area:
- Play kitchen (Do not underestimate a play kitchen. It goes in spurts, but this has been a fan favorite in our house for at least one person for 12 years and counting.)
- Puzzles easy enough they can complete on their own
- Coloring books
- Sticker books (We love Usborne’s sticker books!)
- Magnatiles
- Pattern Blocks/Tangrams
- Stamps
- Dot to Dot Markers
- Lacing cards
- Lift the flap books
- Reading books and picture books
- Playdough
Mandatory Outside Time – Everyone needs to burn energy, especially little ones. Having a recess break in the mid-morning will allow your little ones to burn off energy and give your older ones a nice break from their work as well. A timer is handy for this as well to keep a thirty-minute recess from morphing into a two hour field day. A trampoline could be a worthy investment!
Screen Time – You are not a bad mom if you let your little ones watch some TV during the day. While it doesn’t have to be your default, we ALL do it and your kids will be fine. Learning apps like ABC Mouse are great for short durations of time, but movies work too. Here are a few DVD/TV series that totally count as school: Magic School Bus, Liberty Kids, What’s in the Bible, Sesame Street and LeapFrog.
Limiting their screen time during non-school hours is also a bonus in helping it feel more like a treat than their usual fare. In our family, we have no screens on Mondays, limited screens on Tuesdays-Thursdays and more liberal screen time on Fridays. One suggestion with screen time: No screens before morning time. It derails everyone in the house and makes the morning routine drag on.
Magic Trash for Clean Up Time – Don’t forget to include your little ones in the daily clean up routine! My friend Natalie, homeschooling mom of five, shares her ingenious clean up trick: “I’ve always wanted the house at least picked up before my husband got home. Now that my kids are older, we have a pretty set chore rotation but that was pretty worthless when they were tiny, so we would play ‘Magic Trash.’ I would pick something in the house that was out of place but didn’t tell the kids. Then I would say, ‘Magic trash has been spotted!’ Everyone would rush to clean everything up. Whoever cleaned up the magic trash would get a sticker or lollipop or a quarter or something small. Not only does this work at the end of a school day, but it works really well when they had friends over, and the house would get completely trashed but cleaned up in under ten minutes. I still do this for big parties and offer cash to teens! They love it!”
Lunchtime Hacks – Lunchtime is my least favorite part of the school day. I don’t understand my own distain for it honestly. It is the Achille’s heel of my day. It’s not overly complicated but is a just a huge speed bump in the day that can eat away hours of time if your family is like mine where everyone wants a twenty-five-step gourmet meal in the middle of the day. Here are a few ideas to simplify the lunch routine:
- Have a set time for lunch (and snacks if you do snack time). Otherwise your children will eat ALL DAY and you will plow through a week’s worth of groceries in one day. Plus, they are going to ask you a million times if it is time for lunch, so just have a set time, teach them to read a clock and you could be in line for the Nobel Peace Prize.
- Rotating Lunch Schedule – Take the guess work out of lunch and set up a schedule cafeteria style. For example, Mondays – sandwiches, Tuesday – chicken nuggets, Wednesday – salad, Thursday – quesadillas, Friday – pizza
- Make ahead sandwiches – My friend Leigh, homeschooling mom of five, has an assembly line to make sandwiches at the beginning of the week, having them ready to pull out each day at lunchtime.
- Buddy System – pair an older kid with a young kid to help make the younger one’s lunch.
- Cook lunch – this is admittedly my least favorite thing to do, but when I do it, it makes the routine so much easier. Make a pot of soup or spaghetti or something that can easily be sloshed out to the army of hunger-ravaged little bodies.
Having little ones can be a fun, but exhausting time. During seasons with new babies, toddlers and preschoolers, it is best to set realistic expectations for the entire family. You will never regret spending time with your kids or watching their relationships blossom with each other. Just read together, pray together, do a little math and read some more…and have a full bin of snacks.
How do you keep little people busy during your school days?
Next week we will break down morning time to set yourself up to start each day off on the right foot! See you then!