Homeschooling with a Toddler

I consider myself a veteran homeschooler. I have homeschooled at least one child every year for 17 years now. I’ve had anywhere from one to five children homeschooling at a time - and usually with a baby or toddler (or both!). 

Homeschooling with a toddler is probably the most difficult homeschooling season I’ve been in. Homeschooling with a baby is easy in comparison- they can’t crawl on the table and throw everything on the floor yet. 

The only time a toddler is still is when they're sleeping!

I’m not going to pretend that I have learned the magic secret to homeschooling with a toddler without losing your mind. Other than hiring a babysitter, you’re out of luck. The most honest piece of advice I’ll give you is this - This too shall pass. 

However, there are a few things that I’ve discovered that may help occupy your toddler long enough for you to read the directions on a worksheet or explain a few math problems.

But first - allowing a toddler to run free while you're trying to help your older children with schoolwork isn't always the best idea. You'll be running ragged trying to make sure the little one isn't swishing their hands in the toilet or tearing pages out of a book or putting things in their mouth. But if everyone is at the table, you can bet your toddler will want to be right in the middle of everything! There's no way around it. I'd rather try to entertain my toddler at the table than chase him around the house while I'm trying to teach other children. 

All the world's a stage!

If your little one doesn’t mind being strapped into a highchair or booster seat at the table (Zoey will tolerate it for longer than any of my others did), this is the thing to do when you really need to devote most of your attention to the other kids. A few snacks, a coloring book and colors, or a small container of play dough should probably work to distract your toddler for a little bit. If he starts to get bored with the activity you have provided, quickly switch it out with another. This may extend the time that they’ll spend contained in the seat. 

Water painting is fairly mess-free!

The next thing that works well for me is a “tot tray.” This is just a tray that contains a small activity that your toddler can do independently. Pom-poms and bowls, craft sticks and a water bottle, or magnets and a cookie sheet are examples of simple-to-set-up tray activities. I like these to have as few moving parts as possible, so I will usually provide three or four pom-poms or a small handful of craft sticks. Filling and dumping are two things that toddlers love to do!

I have an entire post about using tot trays HERE.

I also have some toys and games that are pulled out only during school hours. This makes them more exciting and keeps your little ones interested in them longer. It's almost like a brand-new toy! Forbidden toys are the best, am I right? Again, I make these toys that don't have tons of moving parts and can be played with open-endedly. 

Playdough is only pulled out during schooltime!

And my last resort is just to put the toddler in my lap. If I'm holding her, she can't get in to any trouble. She will usually be satisfied with a board book to look at, a pencil or crayon to draw with, or sipping out of my cup. For a few minutes anyway.

When all else fails, snacks usually prevail!

If you're homeschooling with a toddler underfoot, I suggest you learn to multi-task as well as just embrace the chaos that undoubtedly comes with the territory! And remember:

THIS TOO SHALL PASS!

Home and Homeschool Organization

Anyone who homeschools knows how hard it is to balance homeschooling with home - cooking, cleaning, tidying, managing all the things. Throw a baby or toddler in the mix and watch the scales tip even further.

I will have a 10th grader, 8th grader, 6th grader, Kindergartner, and an 11 month old when we begin schooling again in August. I'm trying to make some plans now so that our school days and home life will run smoothly this fall. Here are a few habits I'm trying to get started this summer to ensure we will be ready!

I used to be really good at having a set cleaning schedule. I had each day of the week scheduled for certain rooms, and we cleaned each room once a week. It worked really well and I'm not sure why or when I dropped the habit. 

I'm typing a master chart for each week that I'm going to laminate and hang up to keep us on track. Here is my schedule so far:

Mondays: bathrooms

Tuesdays: living room

Wednesdays: kitchen

Thursdays: dining room and homeschool room

Fridays: bedrooms

Saturdays: laundry room, porches, and yard work

I have each room broken down into the tasks I need to complete each week in each room. Hopefully this will help us to keep up with all of the cleaning each week...which brings me to the next item:

Cleaning and tidying up are two different things. Tidying up is what keeps the house from getting out of control. I plan to have a morning tidy, an after school tidy, and an evening tidy. We will tidy up in the morning after breakfast and before everyone heads off to do their various tasks for the day. Then we will tidy up when we are finished with school time. Finally, we will do a last tidy before we go to bed and after supper. There aren't hard and fast times for the tidy up times, but making sure we have three set times a day for tidying up will (hopefully) ensure that the house stays, well, tidy!

A few things that my idea of tidying up means are picking up toys as soon as you're finished playing, putting away school books, taking cups to the sink, throwing away trash, straightening up shelves or other surfaces, fluffing the pillows on the couch, and putting things back in their places. I'm imagining each tidy up time to take less than ten minutes. (And how many times can I say 'tidy up time?')

Morning habits are so important and helpful to get the day started peacefully. We have pretty good morning habits already, but I'd like to refine them and make sure they're second-nature instead of having to remind the kids every morning to do the things they've been doing for years.

Making up the bed is something I taught my kids to do since they were old enough to do it. The older they get, the more they want to 'forget' this task, but it only takes a few minutes and makes a big difference in how clean their rooms look. I want this to be something they do instinctively.

Getting dressed and ready for the day by brushing your teeth, fixing your hair, and putting on deodorant is also something I don't want to have to nag about. I get tired of asking a few of them, "Did you brush your teeth? Put on deodorant?" I'd like them to do all of this before leaving their room and bathroom area in the morning.

Making sure their dirty clothes are taken to the laundry room is also something I want them to do without me asking them to. The laundry room is like twenty feet from their bedrooms, so I don't have hampers in their rooms or bathrooms. That would be an extra step for me when they could just as quickly and easily drop their dirty laundry into the baskets in the laundry room. 

I try to make breakfast a few times a week and the other mornings they're on their own! I want them to get in the habit of washing their own breakfast dishes and wiping down the table. 

I'd also like them to get in the habit of reading a little in their Bible and having prayer first thing.

These few morning habits should help get our day started on the right track.

Meal planning is also something I have done off and on for years. I have been terrible about meals lately! It's been lots of fast food, ballpark food, or processed food interspersed with real food. I want to get back into the habit of cooking real food for the majority of our meals.

The biggest hurdle I have with cooking is meal planning. I'd like to have our three meals a day planned each week, and I'd really like to utilize my crockpot for at least half of those. When I can get dinner in the crockpot in the morning, that takes a huge load and lots of time off of my shoulders.

I'm going to make a master list of meals we like to eat and then break them down into groups: crockpot meals, casseroles, and meat-and-potato type meals. I'll try to do two crock-pot meals, two casseroles, one meat-and-potato meal, and two days for leftovers each week. 

Lunches will be sandwiches, frozen pizzas, or something else simple.

Breakfast will be cooked by me on Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday mornings and a fend-for-yourself on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday mornings. I'll cook pancakes, waffles, eggs, sausage and biscuits, egg burritos, or cinnamon rolls on my mornings. Cereal, toast, or frozen waffles will be on the kid's mornings.

Hopefully I can get my grocery shopping down to once a week without any in-between trips. Those quick little stops quickly add up! I run in for a few things and spend over $100! If I do that twice a week plus my regular shopping trip, I can easily spend $500 a week at the grocery store. I'd like to stay at $250-300 a week. 

I'm going to try to get all (or most) of our curriculum picked out, ordered, and ready to go in August. I'm planning to write my own lesson plans for science for the boys this year and for history for all the kids. I'm getting a jump start this summer with planning for the first half of the year. I want to have books, worksheets, notebooking pages, activities, and experiments all written down on paper so I don't have to think too much about it. 

I want to have Zeke's kindergarten curriculum planned out and ready to go as well. It's easy to spend several hours on the weekend trying to plan out the next week, but I'd like all of the work done this summer so I don't have to try to fit it in on the weekends.

Hopefully these areas of planning and organizing will help our homeschool days run much smoother this year, especially since Zoey will be walking soon and into everything...

What do you do to help your days run smoother?

Thinking About Homeschooling?

I've been homeschooling for more than fifteen years, and there are so many things I wish I could tell parents who are considering homeschooling their children. Oh sure, you need to know the laws in your state and ensure that you are following the requirements to homeschool legally, but that is not the only (or the most important) thing I would say. Here are four truths I want every parent who is thinking about homeschooling to know.

Homeschooling takes commitment. Lots of it.

There will be days when you don't want to "do school." There will be days you feel like quitting. There will be days, or even weeks, when you fantasize about the yellow bus picking your kids up in the mornings. 

You have to work through that.

You have to be committed to your child's education. As a homeschooling parent, you are in complete control of making sure your child receives the education that is appropriate for that them. Waking up in the morning and getting into the routine of schoolwork is vital. Teaching your child that school is not optional, it's not a "if I feel like getting to it today" type of task, it's not going to be hit and miss each day - homeschool work is going to be a non-negotiable.

You will have to be committed to more than just teaching your child each day. You will be committed to finding social outlets for your child, such as homeschool co-ops, sports programs, or clubs. You will be committed to spending money on your child's educational needs (more on that below). You will be committed to stay the course when your child is struggling with phonics or math facts or handwriting. But even though you will need to have dedicated hours to complete your schoolwork, especially as your children get older, homeschooling is not just a three hour a day job. This brings me to my next point:

Homeschooling becomes a lifestyle - it's not just another project.

Your house will start filling up with books, books, and even more books. You will have boxes of math manipulatives, science equipment, art supplies, maps, and pencils. If you don't have a dedicated room for homeschooling, and even if you do, your house will definitely showcase that you are a homeschooling family. There will be salt-dough maps and craft stick creations on your dining room table, timelines hanging on your wall, and pencil sharpeners on every flat surface. Instead of a beautiful vase of flowers on your sofa table, you will have a bucket of colored pencils.

More than that, you will learn to take every situation and make it an opportunity for learning. Playing outside becomes an informal nature study - "Look at those nimbus clouds, Mom!" or "Cool! Watch this spider wrap up this fly he caught in his web!" Simple questions from your child become a jumping off point for deep discussions. Vacations become field trips. Car rides can become the perfect setting for drilling - math facts, states and capitals, scripture. You will read books and then watch the movie and compare which one was better (always the book, by the way). You will cook together, clean together, run errands together, read together, and spend the majority of your time together.

And it will be beautiful.

Homeschooling is an investment - money and time.

You don't have to have all of the newest, shiniest curriculum out there to homeschool well. But it will take some curriculum! You will have to buy math books, grammar workbooks, lots of science and history books, as well as science equipment and counting bears and pencils and paper and ... the list goes on. Homeschool curriculum isn't cheap, either - especially if you're buying for multiple children. I do like to buy curriculum I can use with several kids at one time, but it still takes quite a bit for a large family!

It will seem like every week you need to buy something! A book that the library doesn't have, new playdough since yours dried up, more paper for the printer, copper wire for a science experiment...making allowances for these surprise items in your budget in a good idea! Anything I buy for homeschooling purposes is an investment in my husband's mind - an investment into our children's future.

You will also be investing your time into your child each day. Time spent teaching them new concepts, discussing the books they're reading, counting dried beans, sorting counting bears by color, subtracting with borrowing, and diagramming sentences. 

You will invest time into finding homeschool groups and taking your kids on field trips. You will spend more time at the library than ever before. You will spend time researching the perfect curriculum, pouring over samples and syllabuses. You will spend time re-learning algebra so you can help your freshman with their lessons. 

You will invest in your child - talking to them, answering their questions, asking them questions. You will learn so much about your child because you will spend so much time with your child.

You will learn so much right along with your child.

You have to know something to be able to teach it. Sometimes homeschool moms don't know what they're teaching before they teach it, and that is okay. You will learn as you teach! I have learned so much from teaching my kids, things I should have learned as a child but was never taught. I have had so many "a-ha!" moments with my kids. They love seeing me with a lightbulb moment! It shows them that learning is life-long and always enjoyable. I get really excited when I learn new things, and my excitement spreads to my children. I can't tell you how many times I've been reading our history lessons aloud to the kids and stopped and said with excitement, "I never knew that!" or "Wow! That makes sense. Now I understand ..." 

Let your children see you learning. Let them watch you learn a new hobby or read a book on something you don't know much about or follow a YouTube tutorial to complete a new project. Children do mimic what they see. If they see you learning new things as an adult, and having fun with it, they will be more likely to want to learn new things. Model a lifestyle of learning for your children.

Homeschooling has been such a blessing in my family's life. It takes commitment and investment, but the returns on both are outstanding. 

What would you tell to a parent considering homeschooling?

Blogging From A to Z: Back Burner

For this week's Blogging From A to Z challenge, my word is back burner. I don't know why this word came to me, but immediately I thought of all of the homeschooling subjects and activities that take a back burner in our homeschool. I started to wonder why they didn't get done and if it was important that they do. So here are some of my rambling thoughts!

Nature Study

I have always leaned towards a Charlotte Mason style homeschool, but nature study is one of those things that doesn't get done regularly. I've bought nature study curriculum, printed out tons of nature study journaling pages, and made entire binders full of beautiful nature printouts and posters. I've written it into our plans. I've had good intentions, but it just doesn't get done. 

click the photo to read about our nature bracelets

I think the main reason we don't do formal nature study is because we live in the country, on a farm, with tons of animals. My kids are outside in nature all day long. They have to feed and care for cows, horses, dogs, cats, chickens, and a rabbit. They work with their dad and he teaches them all sorts of things about plants - which are poisonous, which are edible, which the animals like and don't like to eat. They farm with him and see how crops grow. We have a garden that they work in and they know how hard it is to keep the weeds down and the plants producing. They learn so much from everyday life that formal nature study is unnecessary. I don't feel badly about not having nature study regularly anymore! 

I feel like if we lived in a city or in an area where we didn't have access to plants and animals, I would need to make nature study an important part of our homeschool. Trips to a park or local farm would be high on my list of outings each month.

Art and Music Study

Another Charlotte Mason staple, these enrichment studies have moved to the back burner! We used to do artist study, especially when I homeschooled all of the kids together family-style. It was part of our morning time, and we would read biographies of artists, look at famous artwork, and recreate masterpieces. It was a lot of fun! We also did a bit of music and composer study, but not as much as artists.

click the photo to read about Mercie's Artist Study from Homeschool in the Woods

The past several years, we have not done much (if any) artist study and zero music study. Thinking about why we skip this, I came to the conclusion that it's just not important for me to teach my kids. Right now, we are doing our best to get math facts and concepts down, learn the parts of speech, and read about history and science. Getting my boys to read on their own is a challenge sometimes, so I'm trying to incentivize that as well. 

click the photo to see our composer study from Zeezok

They love to do art - draw, paint, sculpt, and plain old arts and crafts. We also love to listen to and sing music. We have guitars they try to learn to play and Titus writes his own songs. To me, this is all the art and music study they need right now. I'm not going to stress because we haven't learned about the lives of some of the masters. We have several art books and biographies on our shelves that they are more than welcome to pick up on their own. And if they do, great! If not, it's totally fine.

click to read our 100 Days of Art series (that I need to start up again)

Foreign Language

I waffle back and forth on foreign languages and whether it's important to teach my kids or not. My parents are missionaries to Nicaragua and they know Spanish. I would love for my kids to be able to speak Spanish, especially if they ever want to go on a mission trip with my parents. It would be extremely useful for them to know Spanish. We've reviewed and used several different Spanish programs, but we haven't stuck with any of them.

click the photo to read about a Spanish program we tried from Whitzlefritz

I think the reason we don't prioritize foreign language in our homeschool is because I don't know Spanish. Sure, I took Spanish in high school in order to graduate, but I don't remember anything. Eli took Spanish I and II at high school the past few years, and he can't speak Spanish! Another reason is that I'm trying to get them to be proficient in English - spelling, writing, and speaking correctly.

I still don't know if I should be teaching foreign language to my kids right now, but I have decided we will worry about that when we get to high school. I have too many other things that I want them to master before we worry about Spanish. 

Typing

My older kids used a typing program called Typing Instructor. It was great! I have failed to make my younger kids learn to type. For one, they don't use the computer for typing much. They only type in a few words in the search engine to find a show or video they want to watch or do a bit of research. They don't type assignments on the computer, either. Titus was typing up songs he wrote, and it was taking him forever. But he did it!

Typing is a subject that I think is important to teach, and I do want to include it in their homeschool day next year. It will make it much easier when they get to the age where they do type assignments or reports! It will also make it quicker for them to type something they want to, be it a song or a story or a letter. I need to encourage them to type more! I'll probably use Typing Instructor again because it's cheap and effective. My older kids thought it was fun, too!

Closing Thoughts

I think the number one reason that these subjects have been a bit neglected in our homeschool is time. We only have so much time in the day, and I do have a lot of kids! Sometimes we want to get the basics done and then I'm too tired to make the extras happen. I do want to make sure we don't push anything to the back burner that is important to our family. 

When we had morning time as a family, we made time for hymn study, scripture memorization, chapter book read alouds, and these extras. Maybe I should implement morning time again next year? It took us less than half an hour and it did ensure that we got to the enrichment subjects. Do you have a morning time? What subjects get pushed to the back burner in your homeschool?

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Reflections on the 2021-2022 School Year

I feel like we had a really productive and postive school year this year! Mercie finished the 8th grade, Silas finished 6th grade, and Titus finished 4th grade. A few things I was reflecting on from this school year:

We didn't curriculum hop!

This is a big one! If you've read my blog for any length of time, you'll know that I usually get the 'grass is greener' syndrome when it comes to curriculum. I pretty much made a resolution that this year I would not change anything unless it was absolutely necessary. The only thing we really changed up was our language arts. We started out with Rod and Staff grammar and quickly remembered why we changed it up so many years ago! We also dropped Drawn into the Heart of Reading and I just let the kids read. We completed Heart of Dakota's Preparing Hearts for His Glory (Silas and Titus) and Missions to Modern Marvels (Mercie). It was such a good feeling to stick with one thing for the majority of our school year.

It was fun for the boys to do history and science together.

Testing out how bees suck nectar.

We read lots of good books!

Reading aloud is always something I want to do more of because I never feel like I do enough of it. I read aloud some really great books to Silas and Titus this year. They also read some great books on their own. When asked what their favorite books were from this year, they said:

Mercie: I Am David by Anne Holm

Silas: Jed Smith: Trailblazer of the West by Frank Latham

Titus: Buffalo Bill and the Pony Express by Eleanor Coerr

Their favorite book that I read aloud to them was Raiders from the Sea by Lois Walfrid Johnson. I have to agree - this was a fantastic book! It's the first in the series, and I just ordered the next one. There are five total volumes and I look forward to reading them to the boys.

We did some great experiments.

Science experiments are fun but sometimes I am tempted to skip the mess. I'm so glad we did most of the experiments in Preparing Hearts for His Glory! A few of our favorites were:

microwaving soap

Making perfume

Checking density of salt water

We made some pretty art projects.

Art is one of my kids' favorite subjects. There were some fun art projects in their curriculum that tied in to their history lessons. We also completed a few lessons from Art Achieve. This is a great drawing program available on SchoolhouseTeachers.com! We plan to pick this up again when start school this fall, but I may do a few lessons this summer with them as well. Here are a few of our favorite art projects from the year:

Geckos they drew using Art Achieve

Clay map of the Middle East

Roman coins from clay and a bag from a coffee filter

Stained glass from paper and vegetable oil

The boys did Bible Drill.

This was their first year participating in Bible Drill, and while it was a church program I was the director and we did a lot of studying at home - a lot! We incorporated it into our school day so the boys got lots of practice finding books and passages in their Bibles and learning scripture. It was a real blessing to all of us. I memorized all 25 of the verses, too! They went to the Church Drill and passed, District Drill and passed, all the way to the State Drill! 

Looking back it was such a great and productive year. Homeschooling is such a joy and blessing in my life, even when it seems hard and I want to give up. I'm so thankful God has given me more endurance, patience, and perseverance. I'm already looking forward to starting again in August (although taking the summer off is exciting!). 

How was your year? 

Heart of Dakota's Preparing Hearts for His Glory Year-End Review

It's such a good feeling to wrap up a schoolyear! We used Heart of Dakota's Preparing Hearts for His Glory with Silas, my 6th grader, and Titus, my 4th grader, this year. Heart of Dakota is a really great homeschool provider, and we've used several of their programs throughout our homeschool years. While we had a mostly fantastic year with Preparing, we aren't going to use Heart of Dakota next year.

WHAT WE LOVED

There are many things we loved about Preparing Hearts for His Glory. First I really loved the Teacher's Guide. You don't have a weekly grid schedule like most programs; instead there is a two-page layout for each day. That's right, for each day of the 4-day a week, 35-week program, you have a two-page spread detailing each and every assignment. This helped me a lot and kept me from flipping back and forth too much. 

We also loved most of the history hands-on projects. I tried to do the majority of them with the boys, and even when the activity sounded silly, they always had fun with it. The history projects were relevant to each week's lessons, easy to follow, and almost always used easy-to-find supplies. Toward the end of the year, we skipped most of the activities because we were so ready to finish with the schoolyear! I wish we would have done them, though, looking back.

stained glass project

The literature choices were excellent, and there were only a few books that we didn't enjoy - The Wonderful Winter, which we never finished because it was so incredibly long and repetitive, and Door in the Wall, which was interesting but really hard to read aloud because of all the old-fashioned language. Silas had some great literature in his history extension package! 

I loved being able to open the Guide, see exactly which books we would be using for the day, which supplies I needed to gather, and some of the "Key Ideas" which helped me see at a glance what we would be learning about.

WHAT WE DIDN'T LOVE

There were a few things we didn't love about Preparing Hearts for His Glory. The science portion is very disjointed in my opinion. Some days and weeks were full and fun, while others were dull, boring, and short. We didn't enjoy the constellation theme and substituted with a space unit from Gather 'Round Homeschool. Toward the end, we just read the book sections and asked the questions, skipping the experiments and demonstrations.

We also skipped the Bible memory as we were doing Bible Drill with our church, and we didn't enjoy the memory CD that was included and scheduled in. 

I don't love their math, grammar, and reading program choices, so we used our own. Toward the end of the year, I felt like I was only using the Guide for our history lessons (which I was!), and it felt wasted.

Heart of Dakota is also very expensive, as there are so many books to read. You could use your library if you wanted to, but our library doesn't have a good selection and the Interlibrary Loan isn't very user-friendly. 

We weren't crazy about Drawn into the Heart of Reading, which is the reading program by Heart of Dakota. The worksheets were hard to fill in and it was so time-consuming. We dropped it after just a few months of trying to make it work for us.

OUR TAKEAWAY

Heart of Dakota is a great program, but this coming year we are choosing to use something different. We wanted something more independent for the boys instead of teacher intensive.  With a baby due right after the start of the schoolyear, I need something that is going to be streamlined. Heart of Dakota is also very expensive, and I feel like I could use that money on some better resources. 

I can't wait to share what we will be using for this coming schoolyear!

Avoiding Homeschool Burn Out

Homeschool burn out is a real thing. I've been homeschooling for 14+ years, and I've experienced burn out many, many times - even to the point of putting some of my children in public school! I've tried to pinpoint some of my "burn-out triggers" so I can recognize when they creep up on me. Maybe you're experiencing burn-out and don't even know it!

Trigger One - Busyness

Being too busy is a surefire way to give me homeschool burn out syndrome. With five kids still at home (and one on the way) it's too easy to get "too busy." Often I don't even realize that I'm being overwhelmed with activities until it's too late. It's easy to balance everything in my head - but once I start juggling the actual balls of activities, I often get overloaded quickly.

Right now, I'm teetering on the brink of "too busy." I have one playing tennis up to three times a week, one that does tae-kwon-do twice a week, speech lessons an hour away from home once a week, midweek church services, Bible Drill with two of my kids, and other church responsibilities. I can feel "overload" coming on pretty quickly.

The questions I ask myself when I get too busy are: What activities can we do without? What activities are causing us more stress than joy? What activities can I drop without disappointing my children? Sometimes I have felt the need to have no activities for a while, and my children have not suffered for it. I think family time will trump extra-curriculars any day!

Trigger Two - Curriculum

Curriculum choices are never easy to make. I know I spend hours pouring over samples and contents and reviews to see which curriculum choices may work for my children. Sometimes, though, the curriculum we choose can contribute to burn out.

Are there too many components to your program? Shuffling back and forth with books or manipulatives can quickly get frustrating. Is there too much reading aloud for you or your children's preferences? Are the book choices dull or dry? Is there too much writing, or researching, or busy work? Are your children bored? overwhelmed? underwhelmed? 

I like to stick with curriculum for the entire year if possible. Switching sometimes creates more problems than solutions. However, you can tweak your curriculum as much as you'd like to suit your family better. You can always select a different read aloud than is listed, do some of the written work orally, cut out the busy work and moving pieces if possible, and add some fun projects (or take them away!). 

Sometimes a curriculum switch is necessary. If you feel that way, then switch! It may just the change you need to squash the burn out.

Trigger Three - Lack of Organization

It's easy to get overwhelmed when you aren't organized. If you're constantly look for the book you need, trying to find a pencil or sharpener, searching for the art supplies you bought last week for this week's project...you're going to get frustrated!

Homeschooling requires a lot of moving pieces - books, notebooks, binders, scissors, glue, pencils, crayons, and more. Having a place for everything, and everything in its place, helps tremendously! I try to keep our homeschool area organized, so I know where everything is all the time. I keep a basket with our current read-aloud books as well as my teacher's guide. This makes it easy to grab the basket and start school!

My kids each have bins with their school books in them. They know just where each thing is - math books, grammar books, reading books, science books. We have one bookshelf dedicated to just our current year's homeschool books. Finding a new book or activity guide is made really simple this way. I have a caddy with pencils, pens, markers, colored pencils, scissors, and glue sticks. We keep our sharpener right in the dining room so we never have to search for it. These are simple things to implement that help keep us organized each day. 

If a lack of organization is causing you to feel the burn, then I suggest you take a week off of school to get organized. Dump everything out, purge what you don't need, and find new homes for the items you use daily or weekly. Invest in baskets and bins, tubs and crates, caddies and buckets. It will make things much easier on you!

Those are my top three homeschool burn-out triggers and what I do about them. Pinpointing the triggers has helped me to avoid burn-out and get myself back on track. If you're feeling weary in your homeschooling year, try to identify any problem areas that could be causing you stress. Brainstorm some solutions for these problems. Take a week or two off of school and decompress. Change what you can and fix what is broken.

What are your burn-out triggers?

Mid-Year Curriculum Review

I can't believe we are halfway through our homeschool year already! We have been so busy that it has just flown by. We just completed Week 18 out of 35. I thought I would give a mid-year review on our curriculum choices and how they are working for us this year. 

Silas and Titus (grades 6 and 4)

I thought I would begin with these boys because they are using the same core curriculum, Heart of Dakota Preparing Hearts for His Glory. This is a year-long overview of world history. We have used Heart of Dakota in the past, but have never finished an entire year. Thankfully I can say, we will definitely finish this year! 

We are enjoying so many things about Preparing Hearts for His Glory. The history lessons are really great - the book spines are "A Child's History of the World" and "Grandpa's Box." There are plenty of great books that flesh these out, like "Tirzah" and "Fountain of Life." I really like the way each week is laid out in a predictable routine - Mondays we have a research topic that introduces our week-long history project; Tuesdays we have vocabulary words; Wednesdays are for hands-on geography lessons; and Thursdays are for timeline entries. The history projects have, for the most part, been pretty neat. They have made Roman coins with a drawstring pouch, maps, perfume, and a flip-book. 

Here they are making perfume from rubbing alcohol and cinnamon sticks.

An air-dry clay map of the Fertile Crescent and Mediterranean area.

We read from one of the history spines each day along with a go-along literature book. The readings are not too long or too short; I find they're the perfect length to hold the boy's attention. They do oral and written narrations along with guided discussion questions each week. 

Titus made Roman coins for his drawstring pouch made from a coffee filter and twine.

The notebooking pages are beautiful! They're full-color with plenty of room for writing narrations, defining vocabulary words, and timeline entries. Silas is on the older end of the age suggestions, so I ordered him the Extension Package. He has an additional independent reading along with notebook entries each day. He enjoys the books he reads!

The science portion is on the light side, but we have just gone with it instead of trying to add to it, like I normally would. I just don't have the time or desire to add more to our days right now! Now even though I said it was light, I do still think it's a great gentle science. We read living books like the "One Small Square" books. Right now we are reading "Find the Constellations." They have really enjoyed the hands-on activities each week. The science also follows a predictable routine - Mondays they add to their notebook; Tuesdays are for oral narration; Wednesdays they answer questions in their notebook; Thursdays are for hands-on exploration. We have done some really neat activities, like making a star "twinkle" on our ceiling and made constellations from glass beads and toothpicks. 

They are making constellations from glass beads and toothpicks.

We don't follow the math and language arts suggestions, and we have actually quit the Bible lessons as well. The Bible lessons are mainly memorization, and the boys are both participating in Bible Drill at our church. They already have so much memory work with Bible Drill that I'm not adding to that. 

Our math curriculum for the boys is Math Lessons for a Living Education. We've pretty much used this since the beginning and really like it. Next year Silas will move on to something different since he's in the last level of this, but Titus will continue with the 5th grade book. I like the short lessons, although they do get longer in length with each grade level. Silas is 6th grade and his math takes around 30 minutes a day. Titus is in 4th grade and his takes around 15 minutes. I like the large font and the ample space to work out problems. My boys skip the stories each week and haven't missed out on much of the actual math instruction for doing so. They weren't interesting to the boys and they were long! I told them to skip it.

Titus is making a fraction flip book. There are several hands-on projects in these math books.

We have skipped around in language arts a bit - we started with Rod and Staff, swapped to simple workbooks while I researched different options, and finally settled on Abeka language arts - the worktext only. So far I like the simple and straight-forward lessons. There isn't so much writing and it doesn't move as fast as Rod and Staff. Titus has retained more from the three weeks we've been using this than the entire time we used Rod and Staff. I think we will stick with this for the remainder of the year and then evaluate this summer.

The boys are also both using A Reason for Handwriting, levels T and F. They don't like cursive, but it's an important skill for them to learn and have so I continue to make them do it. It takes around 5 minutes a day - not that big of a sacrifice for them!

They also have independent reading that goes along with Drawn into the Heart of Reading, but we don't use all of the worksheets in the book. We pick and choose, skipping some and completing some. The worksheets were making the boys hate reading time, so I decided it wasn't worth it!

We also just started Titus with A Reason for Spelling because he needed some extra practice. We're only on our third week, so I can't really speak much about it other than we really like the gentle approach!

They also have plenty of real-life experiences every day doing farm chores like feeding and taking care of animals and collecting eggs. Titus just started Tae-Kwon-Do and is enjoying it so far! Silas plans to play junior high football this year at our local school (he is allowed to play as a homeschooler). I'm glad they are pursuing their own interests. Sometimes it seems like they're the same person as far as hobbies and interests, and although I want them to be best frineds (and they are), I also want them to be their individual self. It's going to be good for them to have separate activities.

I'm really thankful that they have plenty of time to be outdoors. We're done with school by lunchtime, so they have the rest of the day to go outside for chores and free time. 

When did your kids start pursuing separate interests, or have they always?

Toddler School - How to Start

Toddlers are so much fun to homeschool! I have six kids, so I've been through toddler school five times already and going through it my sixth. Over the years, my toddler's school time has evolved and changed. I've learned so much about this age group that has given me more confidence in teaching toddlers.

I have an Instagram account (@toddler_school) where I share Zeke's daily toddler school activities. I've been doing this since he was 17 months old and he is now 2 years 6 months old. I get messages all the time asking me about starting toddler school - how? when? why?

Toddler school will look different for every child because every child is developmentally on their own levels. The great thing about homeschooling is that you can adjust and adapt every activity to your child's abilities. 

WHEN TO START TODDLER SCHOOL

Knowing when to start toddler school will depend mostly on your child and partly on you. The age I recommend starting toddler school is around 15-18 months old. At this age, toddlers generally don't put everything in their mouth, are starting to focus for a minute or two at a time, and really enjoy structured play. (Remember, every child is different. If your child hasn't reached these milestones yet, it's perfectly fine to wait a few months.)

HOW TO START TODDLER SCHOOL

I always suggest starting with a simple activity that you know your child can complete. If you present a challenging activity at first, your child will be frustrated and will not want to continue with it. Here are a three examples of simple activities for young toddlers:

Color Sorting - Start with a few items in only two colors - maybe three red pom poms and three blue pom poms. Provide colored cups or felt or paper to sort in/on. Once your child is comfortable sorting two colors, you can gradually add in more, one at a time.

Pom Pom Push - This is a great first toddler school activity! Simply provide your child with a "push container" (as I call them) and some pom poms. A push container can be anything with a small hole that pom poms will fit through (even an empty water bottle will work, but it's hard to get the pom poms back out!). Every toddler I know that has tried this activity has absolutely loved it. It's simple, it's fun, it's portable. 

Craft Stick Drop - Again, this is a really simple activity. Give your child craft sticks and a container with a hole that they can drop them into. These activities are great for fine motor skill development!

I also suggest doing toddler school around the same time each day, so your toddler knows when to expect it and what to expect. I started Zeke's toddler school early in the mornings, first thing. He came to expect a "tot tray" right when he woke up. He would even go to his empty tray sometimes and bring it to me to fill! 

Don't expect your toddler to spend thirty minutes on toddler school, either! When Zeke first started with his activities, he normally spent two to five minutes on them, depending on his interest level. Keep your expectations low and you will probably be pleasantly surprised! 

I also leave the activities out for most of the day, in an accessible place for Zeke. He would often go back to the activity several times and play on his own. This also fosters independent and self-directed play.

Finally, don't be disappointed if your child decides to do an activity differently than you had imagined or planned. Sometimes Zeke would change up the activity but it was still beneficial for him! If I let him do his activity his way, he would usually decided to do it "my" way as well.

WHY DO TODDLER SCHOOL

Some people wonder if toddler school is necessary. While I don't think it's necessary, I do think it's incredibly beneficial and gives your toddler a great start on their educational journey. 

I don't think it's necessary it's teach your toddler all of their alphabet, or how to read, or how to count money. All of that will come with time. Toddler school is all about exposure, experiences, and exercises. 

Exposure to new ideas - Experiences with new materials - Exercises for fine motor development

Spending a few minutes a day with your toddler focusing on new ideas sets the stage for preschool. It gives your toddler the knowledge that learning is fun and normal. It prepares them for absorbing bigger ideas and harder concepts. It also gives you special one on one time with your child, especially if you have multiple children. I homeschool my older children, so giving Zeke that undivided attention in the mornings fills his bucket and helps him get through the day. I also really enjoy that time we have. 

I do use a toddler curriculum with Zeke now (I wrote it; it's in my Etsy shop!), and it's a letter of the week curriculum. We are on week six, and he hasn't remembered any letters yet.  That's not my goal. My goal is to introduce him to the idea of letters and sounds, tracing, cutting and gluing, coloring, sorting. He loves the worksheets we do together, the books we read together, the crafts we make together. I don't worry if he can't even sing the entire alphabet song, can't count past ten, and doesn't know all of his shapes. He has great visual discrimination skills, great fine motor skills, great tracing skills, and a love of toddler school. I believe this is time well invested into him. 

Over the next few weeks, I'll be sharing some different ideas for toddler school based on the age groups - 12-18 months, 18-24 months, and 24-30 months. Subscribe to my blog so you don't miss any new posts! I'll also be including new and free printable resources with each post. 

I'm including some pom-pom shape cards today. Download, print, laminate, and use with pom poms or buttons. I have included six shapes in black and white and color. 

Leave me a comment telling me why toddler school is or isn't important to you!