Combining Subjects for Your Homeschool Kiddos
I have been taking the last several months to expand on the ideas developed in a previous blog post titled 5 Things that Changed our Homeschool for the Better. I dove deeper into the five areas discussed in that blog post. First was Focusing on Building a Reading Foundation. Then we looked at year-round homeschooling in Why Year-Round Schooling Works for Our Home School. Now we will look at combining your kiddos in subjects so you’re not overwhelming yourself trying to teach some subjects multiple times a day. Homeschooling generally does not take a long time but adds in multiple students. Maintaining a home can quickly become overwhelmed.
Combining students for us started very simply, which was also very natural. Our youngest (now middle child) just journeyed along while I was teaching big sister. I did eventually separate them for history. I have since kept them together for history and combined for the bible, geography, science, art, sign language, music, and our advent schooling.
The options are limitless on what subjects you can combine with your kiddos. Most homeschoolers (I included) choose to keep math and language arts separate subjects. I will add that I also pulled our oldest out for lessons on puberty.
I have a few tips that I suggest you can follow as well to combine your kiddos in your homeschool successfully.
1. Set age-appropriate expectations. Do not expect your five-year-old to be able to do the same work as your twelve-year-old. One might color a picture about their science topic, while another fills in vocabulary worksheets or writes a report.
2. Utilize video or audiobooks to free up time. This year for science, I decided to purchase the audio version of the book, and it allows our girls to do the same lesson. Still, they each listen to it during their independent work time, usually when I am working with the other on their subjects (math, spelling, and reading/writing).
3. Let kiddos teach and help each other on projects or worksheets (if you use them). You can also allow younger kiddos to watch older kids do experiments or give presentations on the subject they are learning about. So much more learning happens when we teach it to others or help others work through their understanding of a subject.
4. Where you need to, you can adapt the curriculum or lessons to make it work for all. Maybe you slow down the pacing of tasks, or you can take things out or add items in if you need it to be easier or more challenging.
5. Do together subjects first. This has always helped us stay on task so much better in the morning. I don’t have to find our middle child, who may already be done for the day, to start together lessons. Plus, we have done this for so long now that it’s routine and expected. They occasionally have to come back together to do things I assign together. Still, I’m not pulled in ten directions trying to wrangle them in at the end or middle of our school time.
The only difficulty we will face is when our oldest is ready for high school subjects. Then we will separate for everything, but I am hoping that by that time, our oldest should mostly be independent and be dependent on me for instruction. We will cross that bridge in about two years.
As always, keep following our journey on our Facebook Page or Instagram. If you want more in-depth conversations, check out our Facebook Parent Group.
Also, take a look at our Home School Printables Page. A Lot of free printables are currently available.