How Do We Get ALL the Homeschooling Done? Answering Your Questions!

Their schoolwork, for the most part, should be something they enjoy. It shouldn't be a drudgery, and that doesn't mean that it's always like that, but for the most part, it should be pleasurable. It's fun to learn, and some parts of learning are not fun, but the overall package shouldn't be so weighty that your child is discouraged. Welcome to Our Life Homeschooling. My name is Sherry, Christian, wife to my high school sweetheart, Nelson, and thankful mom to 10 incredible kids. I'm the author of the blog and YouTube channel, Our Life Homeschooling, where I share homeschooling encouragement for everyday moms. I believe that motherhood is ministry, and homeschooling is simply an extension of parenting. My passion is to cheer on other moms who are at home doing the most important work of all, raising the next generation for the glory of God. Hi, and welcome to the Our Life Homeschooling podcast. This is episode number 70. I'm gonna be talking about my morning routine, independent work. In this episode, I'm answering some questions. Some of them are left over from my last Q&A. I think I had like 55 questions that people sent me. I couldn't get to them all, so I'm gonna try to get to some of them today. We are about two weeks into our school year, and we've just been doing some light schoolwork. We've kind of gotten our feet wet in morning time. We started our simple morning time notebooks. So many of you are joining me this year. You can find them on the blog for $9, and you can go on there and see all that we're studying. We've started already with Patrick Henry's speech. We started memorizing some verses from Deuteronomy 32 and some from Joshua. We have Old Testament verses, and then some New Testament ones. We're just catching up on our Bible story, which is really cool because we're learning about the leadership of Moses transferring to Joshua and him taking them into Canaan, the Promised Land. And we were able to go see Joshua live at Sight and Sound just last week, which was incredible for my kids to be able to see these stories that we've been reading about every morning performed right in front of us. And on top of this, our five-year-old in her Sunday school class at church is also in this same spot in the Bible. So she's also learning the stories. And a couple times in the middle of the performance, she was so cute. She just covered her mouth, her eyes got real big, and she said, we learned about this in Sunday school. And we're also reading about it at home. So for them to be able to see that was just so cool. And then in math, I thought I would just share with you where some of them are. So our kindergartner, she is just still learning all the sets that make up 10. So nine and one, five and five, four and six. But this week, we brought it down. I always start with the base 10 system first, but we brought it down and found out the sets that make six, one and five, two and four, and three and three. And I just used some counting tiles for this. That was her lesson for today. And then our third grader, he is learning place value to the thousandths place and what each digit represents. So that's where he is. Our fourth grader is learning about milliliters and liters. So this week, she was just seeing how many liters would fit into a bucket. We talked about how much a milliliter is. It's like an eyedropper. And how much a liter is, it's about a lemon juice bottle or half and half. I tried to find something that they can relate it to. Our sixth grader is in a geometry section of math where he's learning how to measure angles. And so just this morning, they gave him an example of something they wanted him to draw out. He had to draw, he had to measure five inches and then do a 60 degree angle and draw another line that was seven inches and then connect them to make a triangle. So just little assignments like that, angles and measuring out length in inches and centimeters and putting them all together to make a triangle. So they're all in different places. Our eighth grader is starting into pre-algebra and then our 15 year old is starting geometry. So all this is just getting going again. And we also had an exciting weekend this past weekend. Ever since we've been married, we have been doing applesauce with my in-laws. So we used to do it at their house. We would all go there. They would buy the apples at a local market and we would do several bushels of apples. But we got to a point where we're doing so many and they're not doing that many. So now we do it at our house and they come here. They brought a couple bushels of apples. We had a couple bushels of apples that we found locally. And together, it's a whole family affair. We make lots and lots of applesauce. I think we finished this year with 200 quarts, which is actually less than what we normally do. We had, I wanna say, 25 quarts left over, something like that. And so we just do a little bit less. And then we did some applesauce for my in-laws as well. It's always fun when you do a project together as a family. The kids always feel like they're contributing to something important. And just, I love the atmosphere. Even though it's a ton of work, there's just something about doing something together with your extended family, working toward a project that just, it's a bonding time. And we just have so many great memories of doing that with our family over the years. So that was this past weekend. But I want to get to some of the questions that some of you have been asking me. And the first one is about a morning routine. And this is the question. How do you manage breakfast in your household? With so many littles, I find that getting everyone dressed, fed, and cleaned up can take the better half of the morning. Looking for strategies to help streamline this so we can start the homeschool day at a reasonable time. Four kids ages seven down to one. So just thinking about where you are in your homeschooling season. It's a place that I was in. This is the early stages. You have all young kids. So they're all dependent on you. They can't do much on their own. And so it's just, it's a completely different phase than what I'm in now. So I can share with you what I'm doing now. But it looks so different from what I did then. So right now, we have a lot of older kids. And when we get up in the morning, I usually go out there and I will make breakfast for my five and three-year-old. And the rest of our kids will make breakfast for themselves. Sometimes I'll make it for my eight-year-old. But the rest of them, they all kind of pick what they want. When our kids were all younger, we all had the same thing every morning. It was just easier to keep everything the same because I had to make it all. But now that they're older, we usually have just a couple options. So they can make themselves eggs. We have yogurt and granola. We have toast. Sometimes a child wants to get up early and make pancakes for everyone. Or sometimes I will make breakfast for everyone. Occasionally we do things like that for fun. But for the most part, the kids get up and make their own breakfast. And then I just take care of the younger kids. And we have just a set, this has been really helpful, is just have a list of the basic breakfast meals that are available. So kids know what they can make for themselves. One thing we've always done is save cereals for a morning that we're gonna go out. So we don't have cereal every morning. It's not really very healthy. So I try to limit how much cereal we're having. But we do save it for co-op days or the days that we go to church. Because on those mornings, we have to be out the door really early. And cereal is just a really simple thing for the kids. Often they can get it themselves. So that's just one way that we cut down on that when we have to go out. When I had younger kids, there's no easy way around this, but I'll just share a couple things. I made breakfast for all my kids. And so one thing that has helped me, again, is just to have a list of my go-to meals so that I don't have to think about it. A lot of the stress comes from thinking about, oh, what am I gonna do for breakfast this morning? And here they all are, and they're asking me questions, and the baby's got a blowout, and I gotta go change this. And it's just so many things going on. But if you have a plan already set in place, you have a list of meals that are options, and then all of those ingredients to make them are in the pantry, it helps you, it cuts down on a lot of that decision-making. And then I would just rotate through those meals. Your oldest child, your seven-year-old, can help you. So take advantage of that. And they may not be able to do a whole lot, but there are things that they can do. And then when I was in this stage, I always felt like getting breakfast and cleaning up was an obstacle to getting to our schoolwork. And instead of seeing it that way, it really helped me to see it as part of our day and part of the learning. So when you finish breakfast and you have to clean up, first of all, don't do it by yourself. Your seven-year-old, and I'm assuming you would have probably a four- and five-year-old, they can help you. In some way, they can do something. However helpful it is, it may be kinda helpful, and then not all that helpful. But if you are doing all the work and everybody's just waiting for you, then that's a sign that somebody can step up and help. Have them help you, see the work as part of your day, you're teaching them life skills, and then get to your schoolwork. And if you have a seven-year-old, this, again, is just kindergarten, first grade, and their schoolwork doesn't take that much time. So you should be able to get that done in an hour. If it's a first grader, if it's kindergarten, 30 to 45 minutes. It shouldn't take that much time. I have another question here about independent work. For students grades one through five, how do you schedule their subjects together? Does everyone do math at the same time, or do you do math for one and a different subject for another at the same time? Do you start independent work at the same time? And if so, how long do you all work on those subjects, or do you time each subject? This is several questions in one, but it's really all under the umbrella of independent work. So I think I'll just go through and explain that part of our day. First of all, all of our kids have checklists, the ones that are independent. So my kindergartner is not independent. I have a third grader who's going to be getting his checklist for the first time this year. Now sometimes I've had kids that are in second grade that are just always ahead of everything, very responsible, they love to read, they're go-getters, and they have had a checklist at second grade. But this child has not been ready for that until this year. He's gonna start with a checklist in third grade. So a child has to be actually independent to be able to go through their work on their own. If you have kids that are younger than that and are not independent, then you're gonna be in that stage where you are teaching them everything and you're doing a lot of the work with them one-on-one. And while that is a lot more work for you on the one hand, they also have less work to do and it takes them less time to get through it. Like I mentioned, a kindergartner is just gonna take 30 to 45 minutes. And in those younger grades, first, second, third, their work can take one to two hours. It's shorter. So you may be working more with them, but they can get through their material more quickly. And the older they get, the more material that they cover. We don't all start our independent work at the same time. For us, our morning starts at 8.30 when we start morning time. And our morning time length really depends on how much I cover in a day. And this can vary based on what I wanna do, what we did the night before, what our kids want to do, but we all end morning time at the same time. And after that, each of the kids go to their chores. For chores, especially right now, the kids know what to expect. We've been doing this for so long. I had a period of time where I was checking their chores regularly so that everyone was doing it well. But we've kind of, we've been there. And I know that I can rely on my kids to go do their chore, do it well, and then get right to their checklist. So I haven't been checking their chores each individually. There may be one or two kids that I'll check on it. But the idea is as soon as they're done with their chores, then they go right to their checklist. So in that way, no, we're not all starting our independent work at exactly the same time. But in general, it usually only takes like 30 minutes for us to all get done with chores. And I can just see all the kids trickling into the table and we all usually end up sitting down at the same time or close to the same time to start our independent work. On their checklist, no, they're not all doing the same subjects at the same time. However, the first thing on their checklist is math. And I've done this specifically because I find that my kids need to be fresh to do math. And doing it first thing in the morning has worked best for us. So everyone has math first. And I've shared this in many other videos. But in math, our kids are working for the most part independently through Singapore Primary Mathematics. That's the curriculum we use. I love it because the kids can do a lot of it on their own. And I sit down one-on-one with them as they come to a new concept. But they're not all coming to a new concept at the same time each day. So it's staggered out. So Monday, I may be helping Julia as she begins a new lesson on liters and milliliters. But then on Tuesday, she's kind of got the idea and she's just doing the practice exercises. And Wednesday is also another practice. But on Tuesday, maybe I'm helping our sixth grader as he begins his lessons on measuring angles. So it just gets staggered out how much I'm helping them. As far as how long they spend on each subject, I don't time them. But I've told them generally how much time each subjects should take. So math takes a little bit longer. It's usually about a half an hour, sometimes more or less, depending on the age. If I notice that a child is spending too much time on a subject, which does happen, then I will look at it and usually I'll just say, it looks like you've done enough. This is more than I want you to try to get through in one day. Let's stop at this spot right here. And then tomorrow you can pick up and finish this little section here, whatever it is. So lessons should be fairly short. If your lessons are going so long or it's taking them so long to get through it, then maybe you just need to relook at what they're doing. Do they understand the concept? If they understand the concept, it shouldn't take them that long to do it. And then secondly, how much work have you given them to do in one day? When I give our kids their checklist, they pretty much have an idea of how much I expect them to cover in each subject. So math takes, like I said, about 30 minutes, give or take. They'll sit down and when they get to copy work, that should take about 15 to 20 minutes. One of the subjects we do is satara geography, where they're supposed to set a timer and get on and do this computer program. It's all finding different places in the world on maps. They do that for 10 minutes. So that is timed, but they know that that is something they're supposed to do on that section of their checklist. The same thing for typing. They have typing lessons that they do on the computer, but those are only, they're supposed to set a timer for 10 minutes. And I try not to have two computer subjects in the same day. I'll stagger them. So they'll do their geography maybe on Monday and that's 10 minutes on the computer. And then on Tuesday is their typing lesson for 10 minutes on the computer. Another subject they might have would be grammar. And our kids know that I want them to complete one to two pages in their grammar workbook. So they just, I give them an idea when we sit down with their checklist and make it out at the beginning of the year of how much they're supposed to get through or how much I expect them to get through in each subject that's listed. And this kind of leads into the next question, which is, do you have any tips to motivate a reluctant learner? And every child is motivated by something. And if you can find that motivation and channel it in the right direction, it really helps. Some kids are motivated by competition, our one son. If competition is involved, he will be there. And so I try to find ways to make that work in his schoolwork. I couldn't always do it, but sometimes I could. The same child is very motivated by seeing how much he has to get done. Instead of me teaching him a lesson that he doesn't know how long he's gonna be sitting here because he can't see everything that I have to get through. He's just relying on me teaching him. And when he has his work right in front of him and he knows I have to complete problems one through 15, he is very motivated because he can just get going and get through them at his own pace. And if he works really hard, he can get through it quicker and go do something fun that he wants to do, like go ride his bike around the neighborhood or whatever. So it really helps if you can find their motivation. And for some kids, this is a little tricky because they're all different, but I do really think that each child is motivated by something. And sometimes you can turn their work into things that are just geared more towards their bent. So I have girls that love to write stories. Instead of giving them an essay to write for their writing assignment, one of them is working on a book she's writing. And so I just give her time in her day, every day, so maybe 15 minutes on the computer to get on and write more of her book. So sometimes you can do things that way where you learn what excites them and you can just kind of gear some of their learning in that way. I think some good questions to ask are, have I assigned them too much? If you've given more than is reasonable or if it just feels like such a heavy weight for them, it might be more than you should be giving them. They should be motivated to get to their work. It should be exciting. And not that it always is. I'm gonna talk about laziness in a minute because that can be a problem. It's human nature to just want to do the easiest thing and not to work hard, so that is a part of it. But if you've given them so much that it just seems just like a heavy weight, and I have done this. I did this with our oldest child in middle school, I think seventh or eighth grade. I went back to that place that I was in kindergarten. I was so intimidated in kindergarten. I thought, how am I gonna homeschool my kids? And then as we went through first and second grade, I gained confidence. I realized I can do this. This is a wonderful education. And then we hit middle school and high school, and I went back again, and I thought, oh my, I should be doing all these things because now this is high school. This is important. And so I piled on all these readings that were just deep and, quite honestly, boring. And it looked good because I could check off all these things that he was accomplishing, but he was not enjoying it. And so I had to really look at what we were doing and make some changes. And then you could just ask, is the lesson too long? Do they have too many subjects to cover in a day? That's something else I did with our oldest son. I put too many things on the checklist, and it was just, it was so much. It was unnecessary. And then to speak to laziness, we all have kids that will just always want to do the easiest thing. And I've told our kids when they come to subjects they don't want to do, or if I get a lot of pushback, we'll keep it short. The lessons are short, but there are some things you just have to do. This is a skill you have to learn to function in the adult world. It's not gonna take up all of your day, but you're going to have to sit for this period of time and chip at it day after day. It will get easier as you get better at it. With our kids that just don't want to do their work sometimes, I've just tried to instill in them that there are always gonna be things in your life that you don't wanna do, but you just take it a little bit at a time, you tackle it every day, and as you do it, you gain more confidence when you learn how to do hard things. So those are just some ideas I have. I would say if you are listening to your kids, if your kids know the boundaries, if you have lessons that are appropriate, that are right at their level, that are just enough of a challenge, their schoolwork, for the most part, should be something they enjoy. It shouldn't be a drudgery, and that doesn't mean that it's always like that, but for the most part, it should be pleasurable. It's fun to learn, and some parts of learning are not fun, but the overall package shouldn't be so weighty that your child is discouraged. The next question goes along with what I was just talking about, so maybe I'll elaborate on it a little bit more. I have a list of subjects that we teach, but I feel we can never get through them all. I've tried timers, but the children don't finish in time. I think my question is, how do I get them to finish on time and complete their work? We are really falling behind in major subjects, and I mean we are getting through them just extremely slowly. We teach a lesson, and then they do the worksheet, but it takes so much time that we can only do three major subjects, and then the cycle repeats the next day, so we don't get to history or science. My children are in fourth and fifth grade. Again, I would just go back to looking at exactly what you're doing. I would ask if you're doing too much. Take a look at what is happening in each subject, so don't look through the lens of your curriculum. For example, they're doing math, and then they probably do some kind of practice problems for math, and then they have writing, so maybe they're doing copy work or something in a workbook for writing, and then they have reading. Are they doing, are they reading it, and then also doing comprehension questions, which requires a lot of writing, because that's more than I do. I don't require output for every single subject. When our kids do a reading, I'll often have them tell it back to me or narrate it back to me, and then at some point in the day, they're doing a written narration or doing some written work, but you don't need to have output for each subject, so then if you would get to history, you wouldn't need to read your little history section and then do this craft, do this writing assignment. We just keep it a lot simpler than that. They don't have to necessarily be doing some kind of work that is displaying what they've learned in every single subject, and we don't necessarily do science and history every day either. I remember even, not that I think that school is the ultimate standard, I don't. I think homeschooling has raised the bar so high, but since I know people like to look at what they're doing in public schools, I can tell you that when I was teaching in public schools, we had a block for language. We had a block for math. We also had a block for content areas, and so for one semester of the year, that content area would be science, and for the next semester of that year, the content area would be history, so the kids weren't learning both history and science all year long. I like to always be working through history and science somewhat, but we don't necessarily do history and science every single day. We'll stagger it out, do maybe two days of science, a week, two days of history, so I would just check some of those things. Are you requiring an assignment or a project for every single subject, and then how often are you expecting to do, to add in history and science, and just look through the lens of your kids' needs, of what you want them to learn. Instead of looking at all this stuff on your curriculum that you're supposed to be doing, you can probably eliminate a lot of things. Do what's best for you and your kids. Your curriculum is a tool. It shouldn't be something that's like a slave driver that always makes you feel like you're behind. This question is, how do you homeschool multiple kids? Do you have time dedicated for individual kids in a day? And I think the heart of this question is in that word, dedicated time for individual kids in a day. How do you get to each of them? And I have two things. The first is that I try to check in with my kids at the end of the day, every day. It doesn't mean I always do, but that's my goal in my head. I want to have their checklist in front of me. I wanna go through, have them show me their math, their copy work, show me or just talk to me about what they read in science that day, if that applies to that child. Just go through and have them share each thing. And then with my older kids, sometimes it doesn't always happen. It'll happen every couple days or every other day, especially with kids that I know are responsible. And every time I check on them, they just have everything done. Then I'm more likely to have a little leniency there. But the second thing is that just listen to your kids. Listen to what they're asking for. I think being available and being responsive when something is important to them means so much more than having a special planned outing or a special event. I'm not trying to discourage any kind of planning or mommy-daughter time or anything like that. I think those things are great. However, I personally think that it means more to kids when you are responsive and available when they need it, when they're having a problem, when they have a question, when there's something they really want to do that you sit down and you stop everything and you say, okay, how can we make that happen? Or you get something on the calendar. Our one son is so motivated by money management. He wants to start a budget. And I can't remember how old he was when he wanted to do this, but we told him, well, to have a budget, you actually have to have income. And he just, he wanted to do this. And so we got him some Dave Ramsey books and he was so motivated to learn how to put this budget together. He made this whole folder of ideas and plans. And I say all that just to say, I think if you listen to your kids, you learn what's important to them and you're able to meet their needs individually. And just remember that homeschooling doesn't take all day. It takes a part of your day. And then we have so much time left that we can be working here with this child while you're in the kitchen, helping them do some kind of baking thing that they wanted to try. That's another thing. I have a daughter who loves to bake and she is just always wanting to try these new creations. Can you go get these special ingredients? So just listening to what's important to them. Our other daughter, she wanted a typewriter for her birthday, an old fashioned typewriter. And so we just tried to work to see how we could make that happen. Listen to your kids. And I think you'll find that you are meeting their individual needs. And if I ever have times where I struggle with this and I worry, probably shouldn't worry, but worry if I am getting to each of my kids, one thing that has really helped me is to just write it down. Anytime I do any little thing, like play spot it with my five-year-old, I'll just write it down. And when I write it down, it's a visual for me to see, oh, what am I worried about? I did all these things. They're getting plenty of individual time with me. So that's also helped me. All right, this question is, how many books do you read during your read aloud time? This varies a lot. Right now, I'm reading an older child book and a younger child book. I also will occasionally throw in some history readings. So our kids are doing Veritas Press's self-paced history lessons. However, I do like to read history to them. With my kindergartner, I'm reading the Dahl-Lehr books. So they have Benjamin Franklin, Pocahontas, Paul Bunyan, Columbus, stories like that. I'll be reading those to her. But for my older kids, I'm going through some of the Our Island Story chapters. And that I will do maybe one day a week, two days a week. So I'll add that in to the readings that we're doing. And so usually, always an older and a younger kid book that's just for fun, just for pleasure. But I also love reading history books to my kids. So sometimes the older kid book that I'm reading kind of is a history book. And so then maybe I wouldn't do as many of the additional history readings, like the Our Island Story. I may not feel like I wanna do that three days a week. I may only do it one day a week or something like that. You just adjust to what you have on your plate and you make changes based on the needs of your kids. So if you're doing a formal history program, then maybe you wouldn't need to be adding in a history reading like I am. But that's something I love doing. And so we do that a couple days a week. It really just depends on where we are. And right now, we're reading Gladys Alward. This is a missionary story. I'm reading it to all of our kids. And then I have some older kids that are often gone and I don't want them to miss the Gladys Alward book. So I'm reading Then There Were Five. It's part of the Melody series. And this is a book actually kind of for the middle kids. I didn't do it intentionally, but right now I just have older kids that are sometimes working. And so when they're gone, it's like, oh, what do I read? And then I'm reading Winnie the Pooh to my younger kids. So that's my three and five year old. We're often just working through a couple different books at a time. We also borrowed Anne of Green Gables from the library as an audio book. So whenever we're in the car, we're going through that. It just, it's a mix of things usually. Last question, I would like to know what kind of independent work non or beginning readers can do. I would like to have some things they can work on so that they're still making progress on their studies while I'm working with another child. There is not a lot that a non reader can do. At this stage, I am still working with them one-on-one for mostly everything. If they can't read, I'm assuming they can't write because usually those things go mostly hand-in-hand. As soon as a child can write, they can do copy work and they can do that on their own. It's simple and they learn so, so much from it. But a non reader, I am usually still working one-on-one with them through everything. Now there are some things they can do that people wouldn't consider schoolwork, but I consider them a part of their education and that is just doing basic chores and housework. When our kids, as soon as they're turn three, they have to get dressed, brush their teeth, make their bed, that is part of their morning every day. They get a chore, so we divide our house up into zones and as they go through different zones, they learn what's expected, what they have to do in each room. But just being able to pick up after themselves, they can help you when you're making meals. There's so much that kids can do at that stage, but as far as academic work, I am still usually working one-on-one with them for the most part until we can get them reading. And so that really is what I focus on with my youngest kids is to get them reading. So I'm doing a lot of reading aloud to them, listening to audio books, and then taking 10 to 15 minutes every day to work through their phonics and their reading lesson. All right, I hope this was helpful to you. Thank you for watching. If you're on YouTube, thank you for listening. If you're listening to this on a podcast, I'd love it if you'd take the time to comment. If you could leave a review on my podcast, that really helps get the word out to other people so that they can also get this homeschooling encouragement and these resources. Thanks for listening, and I'll see you next week on the Our Life Homeschooling podcast.