Tips and tricks for homeschooling moms

[heatherlynnky]

I will admit, sometimes I feel like the kids are using the last thread of my patience. Fighting me over schoolwork, chores and even eating. The school year is the worst of course because there is SOO much more for them to fight me over. This year I am adding 2 littles to my group. I am a little scared to be honest. how to handle middle schoolers with preschoolers and a kindergardener. How do I fit in making lunches with o much more to do. Any tips on the littles. This is my first time ever teaching kindergarden or preschool. I would rather teach algebra than the alphabet. YIKES.

Anyone else have tips for oganization? I really would love to get through this new experience sane.

 

[mrscoyote]

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[moolie]

Definitely involve the older kids in teaching the younger ones, this makes it more fun for everyone and is how "one room school houses" always ran in the old days. Have then read to and with your little ones, do drills/games/flash cards etc. with numbers and letter sounds etc. Break up the day often with games and exercise and outdoor playtime for everyone--playtime makes for much more stimulated brains and a better learning environment. If you don't already, it's a great idea for each child to have his/her own personal "slate" or small chalkboard to work things out on (from math problems bib & little, to handwriting practice, to spelling practice)--saves paper plus it's FUN.

Can you clarify your question about how to fit in making lunch? You're not doing it all yourself, I hope? Lunch time is perfect time to get everyone pitching in--even (or especially) the little ones. They learn so much--about nutrition, portions, fractions, good eating habits and cooking skills. Let them do according to their abilities--from getting ingredients out of the fridge or cupboard, to measuring or spreading or mixing, to setting the table etc. I guarantee you that kids always enjoy a meal they have helped with or prepared themselves a LOT more than one that someone else has made--they know what it took to create, and they feel a huge sense of accomplishment.

As with most things in life, the more responsibility you allow kids to take for their own learning, the smoother things go and the more they learn

(caveat to all of the above, I'm not a home school Mom, I'm a former elementary school teacher--but it all rings true no matter what the learning environment.)

 

[rhoda_bruce]

You need to get everyone to bed at a normal time and be up before everyone, so you can actually sit down to drink a cup of coffee alone, while you prepare your mind for the day. As soon as possible, get the older kids up to start a batch of clothes and prepare breakfast, so you can make sure all the animals are tended to (unless you have a child that understands what care the animals need). The point is...whatever you are doing, make sure other work is being done and not video games. Once you are ready to start the day, START. You need to hurry everyone off the phone, unless it is extremely important to take a call. Its important to make everyone understand that you don't have time to BS. Neighborhood kids can only stay if they respect what you are doing. Give them chores too, if you have the fun house everyone likes to stay at. Once I get started in a single subject with one of the kids, a lesson goes by pretty quick, so we just keep at it and in no time we have done a week's allotment of lessons....then its time to change subjects, or we will be too far ahead on one thing and fall behind on something else. I might do 3 subjects like that with one child; then that child needs to work independently on a subject she is able to do alone....like math, handwritting or the like. At that point, I am with another child. We might go only 2 or 3 hours like that and then its time for chores again and we all need to do the chores because we all live here. Never allow the children to believe the house is mainly your responsibility. You are the mother.....not the maid. Part of the point of homeschooling is to teach them responsibilities, so might as well teach them how to truely take care of themselves. Even a preschooler can be taught how to do simple chores and accept responsibilities.
At night time, you will want to use the reading books from the lesson plans as the bedtime stories. My 3rd grade child has reading lessons, with small stories and also has a chapter book assigned every quarter (9week period). That is our normal night's reading to put little ones to sleep. But if history is interesting, I suppose that can be read as a story also.
If the house becomes too chaotic, leave with all the books and go to the library or use the churches facilities, if you are allowed. Sometimes a change of scenery is the perfect thing for better attention. When friends or even family members aren't respecting me while I'm trying to teach in my house.....I grab books, children, my purse, keys and I leave......and I might stay gone for many hours. I might go to a park with take out food....then for sure no one will be seeing me for a long time and the kids will be having a blast because while I'm working with one child, the others will be swinging, monkey barring, etc..... Keep changing your game plan.

 

[heatherlynnky]

I am the only one on this. The older kids wake up earlier and do farm chores and then we will start their lessons, hopefully before the littles wake up. If I can get at least assignements done and the morning chores before 8:30 the day has a shot of going well. Then one of the littles wakes up for his kindergarden. The 3 year old sleeps in most times. She is a slow riser and with her all I am doing is alphabet, colors, shapes and counting. She will get more fun time during school than the others.

Lunch is on me. I can't let the older ones help because that upsets my parents and they will not eat anything the kids make. I have to be the one who cooks all meals for the day. Mom and dad are on the dependent and grumpy side but I like to keep things peaceful and happy here. Its a bit challenging. I got dinners down. I am almost considering cooking lunch at the same time as breakfast. Seems like I do more cooking than anything else on some days. I gotta find a way to make this more efficient.

 

[Blaundee]

I & my 3 siblings were homeschooled, and for themost part my mother didnt actually have scheduled classes & didnt hands on teach everyone all of the subjects. We were given our books at the beginning of the school year, and when we finished them, we finished them- so if you were lazy about doing your schoolwork in the winter, you had to keep doing it during the warm months when you'd rather be outside. Also, we could either set certain goals for the day, for instance one section of each subject, and when we were done with our goals (that had been okay'ed by Mother, of course), we were free to run wild on the ranch the rest of the day (well, until chore time hahaha), OR we could opt to do schoolwork until 5pm. We were given a lot of freedom, and it worked out really well for us. We were given weekly tests, especially in spelling & english, and if you didnt do well you had to do that section of your book again- which is incentive to do well the first time because you wanted to finish your book early in the year! lol We had state testing every other year, and always did far better than the public schooled children (we didnt have study materials for the tests, either, it was simply testing what we knew). While we had science books, the majority of our science was hands-on with our animals & gardening, and every year we would enter a project in the 4H science fair. We were very involved in 4H, with weekly meetings and many projects. The only time we had classes that required our parents to actually sit down & say "here's how you do it" were if we couldnt understand something and needed help. We used a lot of Abecca books and Rod & Staff math books (I may have misspelled Abecca, but I've been out of school for over 13 years now lol). We were responsible for taking care of our animals without reminders- if we didnt, they would be sold, but it never came to that, and we often made meals for "home ec" class credit The payoff of that is all of us kids are excellent cooks! We are very well-rounded, responsible, able to take care of ourselves, & still love to learn

 

[Blaundee]

Oh, I just remembered... one way Mother got us motivated to read a lot was having "read-a-thons" where we would get donors to pay us for each book we'd read, & then we would send the money to a blind children's camp that our church has We really enjoyed doing that

 

[Blaundee]

Another thing- we had daily devotionals, which those & any other group settings were always geared toward the youngest. Mother always said that when you are leading a group of any kind, always gear it to the youngest, weakest, or most challenged person so that everyone is included. (we still follow this principle in Bible studies, riding lessons, eveyrthing)

 

[bornthrifty]

(hi am not new I just haven't posted in a loooong time)

agreeing here about having the olders help out with the littles, works here very well,

about the meal prep
for me I had a routine last year where I made breakfast ahead, (soaked oatmeal overnight in crock pot so all I had to do was turn it on in the am)
and I made lunch and dinner both at lunch time worked nice and really didn't take longer

or I made large soups that we ate for several days

now as for wanting peace in your home, and I certainly can appreciate that!, but with all kindness and respect if your parents don't like the kids cooking lunch then perhaps they could cook lunch, I meannnnn, I am at a glance looking at all you do to make sure your household, and school, and farm are running smoothly and am left wondering if they are contributing and wonder why they would want to stifle the childrens ability to take on more responcibility and to learn and grow by making the lunch (not to mention how much that would help you out)

quite frankly now this is just my opinion if your kids made lunch and the grandparents dont want to eat then I think... good !!we'll save money on groceries that way, lol dinner wont be far away they can eat then I would say, but that is what I would do in my home, And I in no way completely know the dynamics of yours, so forgive me for bold opinion,

 

[lcertuche]

Soups, crockpot one dish meals, etc. are great ideas that I use. I like to bring the kids (one at a time) into the kitchen. Baking bread can be a science experiment on yeast and using any measurements can teach fractions.