5 Days of Homeschooling 2017

What a week! Not only has the blog hop been going on, but it’s been a crazy busy one for our family. My husband had surgery on Wednesday, so I’ve had to take over nursing duties for him on top of the regular stuff with the kids. He frequently drives the boys to their activities, so that’s been on me this week. This isn’t me complaining; I’m more simply justifying the lateness of my final blog hop post. This introduction is actually rather fitting for my topic, though (the part about driving the kids around specifically). 

Oftentimes in homeschooling families, one parent is responsible for making sure the education happens. I personally think this is a good thing. Taking charge of our children’s educations is one of the most important things we do, whether you homeschool or not. But what about those subjects you don’t feel competent to teach? In those cases, it’s perfectly fine to use another teacher! This can be in the form of a co-op, a tutor, or even something like dance class or online lessons. Our family is pretty inward-focused, so we aren’t involved in a co-op, but my boys (the older 3) take dance classes. I am absolutely not a dancer, so we take them to a studio for dancing; this is the main way we utilize outside teachers. We do also use online teachers when the opportunity arises, too.

As for how this relates to kids with an age gap, I think it has two main benefits. First is the obvious one: getting help with the teaching allows you to spend time with your littles. But there’s one slightly less apparent reason that I can come up with, especially if you sit in the classes with your big kids at least some of the time. That is, you might just learn something with them! And that could help you to feel more confident teaching when the little kids are ready for the same classes years down the road.

Thank you so much for joining me during this blog hop, even if I was two full days late with my final post. 

Blessings,

I know that the title of this post is a little confusing; it sounds like something that would be asked by someone who’s not sure they can do something really hard (like homeschooling their kids). While that’s part of what I meant by it, it’s actually more of a “conversation” between child and parent. When you ask your child to do something on their own, they might ask, “But can I do that?” Your response should be an emphatic, “Yes, you can!”

Such is the case when our children get a bit older and they’re ready to begin tackling some of their school subjects on their own. This can be difficult for both parent and child. We’ve been guiding them thoroughly and intently for so many years that when they reach the middle school years and it’s time to teach them to be truly independent, it can be a bit scary for both of you. I know this was the case when we reached this point with Seahawk (13, 7th grade). It felt weird to suddenly just push him out of the nest, so to speak, but it turned out to be exactly what he needed.

What does this look like in our homeschool? Because we’ve been doing this for a couple of years already, it’s pretty basic. I give the older boys a subject and specific assignment (do this page of math), and then they do it. Sometimes a lesson needs to be taught first, especially if it’s new, but sometimes the textbook itself is a good enough teacher and they can just read the lesson and then do the exercises. When they’re done, I look over their work to make sure they understood the concepts and nothing needs to be clarified further or retaught.

Another thing we’ve recently added to our homeschool to further enhance the boys’ independent learning is weekly research papers. Every Tuesday, we go to the library. My mom takes the littles to story time (this falls into the category of allowing/asking for help when you need it that I talked about in the Day 3 post) while I help the bigs choose a topic and find books about said topic. They go over the books, take notes, and choose which ones to bring home. They have until Friday to turn in a paper on their topic. I don’t give them any firm guidelines except for the due date. This forces them to work on their own, but it also allows them to express themselves. See, some subjects (like math, science, or literature) are pretty dependent on their grade level and not so much based on their interests at all. But the research paper allows them to choose any topic they want – I give literally NO limits on this – and learn more about it. I was hoping that this weekly project would accomplish two things: a) help them expand their horizons and begin to research topics they didn’t necessarily think they’d have any interest in, and b) teach them to want to learn and how to learn. So far (we’ve been doing it about two months), I think we’re on track with both of those objectives.

How do you foster independent learning in your homeschool? I’d love to hear your tips and tricks in the comments!

Blessings,

This post should have published yesterday. I didn’t realize that it hadn’t. Due to that, I’ll post my day 4 musings later this afternoon.

Hello, and welcome to Day 3 of the Homeschool Review Crew annual 5-day blog hop. I hope you’ve been reading and being blessed by all the different blogs sharing about different aspects of homeschooling this week. I know I have.

Today, I want to talk about how it’s okay to have your older kids help out with the younger kids. This is one of the main benefits in having a gap between the kids in my experience. We often ask Seahawk (and Munchkin, but to a lesser extent) to help out with the little brothers, and this is useful for a few reasons.

• It frees me up to do other things, such as help another brother with something or work on time sensitive things like meal preparation.
  • Sometimes I feel guilty relying on the big kids to help so much, but when I remind myself that they’re learning valuable life skills (taking care of young children is one of the most important jobs in the world), I ease up a bit.
• It teaches the older child responsibility.
  • Learning to be responsible is vital for our children as they age. If we don’t teach them how to care for people and things, they’ll be disastrous adults, and as parents, our job is to make sure that doesn’t happen. Allowing them little bits of responsibility that grow bigger as they do is not only good, but an obligation on our part.
• It teaches the younger child to rely on someone besides Mom.
  • When our babies are new, they need Mom for everything. As they get older, it’s healthy for them to begin to understand that other family members are also capable of caring for their needs. This will ease them into becoming big kids – and later, adults – as they grow.

In addition to helping with the smaller kids, older children can also help with other chores around the house. The phrase “train yourself out of a job” comes to mind. The reasons and explanations are basically the same as what I talked about above in relation to caring for younger siblings, but in the case of helping with things other than childcare, they can be applicable to families with fewer children.

So the next time you feel bad about asking your older child to help out with a younger sibling again (or is that just me?), remember that it’s actually good for everyone involved when they lend a hand.

Blessings,

Welcome to Day 2 of the Homeschool Review Crew 2017 Blog Hop! As I mentioned yesterday, I’m talking about homeschooling kids with a large age gap, and today my topic is time management tips. I may not be the best person in the world for this, but I’m going to give it the “old college try.”

One of the main problems I run into as a homeschool mom with big kids and little kids is figuring out how to work with the big kids (mine are 7th and 5th grade) while the little kids (in my case, ages 4 and 1) are also vying for your attention. This is a daily struggle, because the older kids need help with some of their subjects, but the youngers aren’t mature enough to just go play on their own for a few hours during the schoolday. Here’s how I handle this.

• First, get up before all the kids so you have a little bit of time for yourself.
  • This is important so that you don’t end up feeling like you never get any time to yourself (a common thing for me). Making sure you have even just half an hour in the mornings can make a world of difference.
• Prepare the school things in advance.
  • If you know what you expect the big kids to do in a given time frame (day, week, month, however you choose to break it down), then it’s easier to pass that on to them. When everyone’s on the same page, things tend to go a lot smoother. My ideal method is a daily to-do list for each of the kids, and a monthly calendar for myself.
• Don’t neglect the little kids, even during school hours.
  • This one isn’t so much a time management tip as a “keeping your sanity” tip, but it’s important nonetheless. It can be very frustrating having a preschooler yammering in your ear while the baby cries, all while you’re just trying to read a chapter aloud to the big kids. (Ask me how I know!) Sometimes the little kids are truly just being noisy for no reason, but sometimes they actually need something. Learn your own kids and how to discern which is which. When it’s the latter, pay the little guys the attention they need.
• Take advantage of help whenever you can get it.
  • I know a lot of families are facing this homeschooling adventure solo, but if you do have family or friends nearby, utilize them if they’re willing. In our case, this is my mom taking the little kids to Story Time at the library while I help the big kids with a research project each week. Sometimes it’s my husband taking the littles for a walk in the morning. Whatever it looks like in your family, do it!

What’s your best time management tip? Even if you don’t have kids with an age gap, I’m interested in hearing from you in the comments! And make sure to check out other blogs participating in the Blog Hop through the linky below. They’re all writing about fascinating topics this week.

Blessings,