Homeschooling with Many Young Children

Getting Organized:
In your home and homeschool

 

Dear Friends,
(This is a reprise of an article I wrote in 2006. Several of you have asked about homeschooling with young children, so I am sharing this with you today.)

How do you homeschool a houseful of children? And why would you want to homeschool that many children? Wouldn’t it be easier to send them off to school all day? Couldn’t you get more done, if your children weren’t around all the time? You have how many children? Are they are all yours?

These are all questions I have encountered since we began our homeschooling journey. I thought my reader would like to read some of my responses to these questions. In doing so, I hope that you are encouraged.

Starting with the first question, I will tell you that homeschooling 5 children while pregnant was a busy year. Add to that a dying grandparent to visit every day and three surgeries for two of our children, and it was definitely one of our harder school years.

Would I change anything? No. So the “how of homeschooling a houseful” starts with prayer and planning and mercy and grace. I pray about our homeschool. I pray that I teach the children exactly what God wants me to teach them. I use the unit study approach for most subjects. I have picked math curriculum based on each of my children’s different learning styles.

When we had a day when we wanted to visit my grandmother, we went to see her. When we returned home, we worked on our schoolwork. When a child had to have surgery, I gave all the children the day off from school. We would make up the day later. They have been known to do two days’ worth of work in order to catch back up. I do have a lesson plan.

The children know what is expected each day, and they know that we can adjust it if necessary. This summer, we are focusing on spelling, reading comprehension, and math skills. I know which child needs review in which subject. We are using Spelling Power to bring up our son and daughter’s spelling levels. I have never tried this program before, and we like it.

Why would I want to homeschool 5 children (and more, if God sends them to us)? Simply, because God told us that He wanted us to homeschool our children. We take the passages in Deuteronomy and Proverbs very seriously. My husband and I want to train our children for the Lord. We want them to know what the Bible says, and we want to direct their education.

We have sent our oldest two children to public school, so we know that parents do not have input into what their children are taught or exposed to in public school. Our relationship as a family is stronger, since we began our journey as a homeschool family.

Wouldn’t it be easier to send them off to school all day? No, we have had that experience. And it makes the evenings very busy and chaotic. We also have spent hours getting a child to complete her homework. Would you want to work at your job all day, and then come home to 2 or 3 hours’ worth of additional work?

There are more time-consuming parts of sending your children off to school. You have to get them transported back and forth each morning and afternoon; you either have to get them to and from the bus or drive them or carpool. And there is the fund-raising, parent-teacher group, the push to volunteer at the school, and many other things that take a lot of your time.

Couldn’t you get more done, if your children weren’t around all the time? No. I did not get as much done in the hours that the children were in school compared to what I get done now. The time they were at school, I had to take care of a preschooler, so I only had the few hours that he napped to really get anything done around the house. Now, we have a schedule each day, and the children help out with household tasks. They will play with the younger children while I work on tasks.

You have how many children? Are they are all yours? Normally I get these questions from people when we are out in public. God laid it on our hearts to leave the number of children we have up to Him. Since we have given that area over to Him, He has blessed us with more children.

I would love to hear any comments about what I have shared today.

Your Zone Mission today is to declutter items from one dresser drawer.

Your Home Blessing for today is to wipe windows and mirrors.

My menu plan for Wednesday is regular pasta for the boys and zucchini noodles for me with a salad.

Have a great day!

Please like & share:
This entry was posted in homeschool and tagged , , , by Tami. Bookmark the permalink.

About Tami

Tami Fox is a homeschool mom of 6, who in age from 26 to 11. She and her husband have homeschooled for 17 years and have graduated three of their children from their homeschool. They are currently homeschooling 3 boys who are in grades 11, 9, and 6. They use hands-on learning and unit studies to ignite the fire of learning in their children. Tami is a homeschool author and conference speaker. You can contact her by email at Tami@TamiFox.com. Buy her book, Giving Your Children Wings at https://tamifox.net/giving-your-children-wings/.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>