#6 Utilize your team (aka older kids) in 10 TRICKS OF THE TRADE when Teaching School with a crap ton of kids everywhere- lol:

This is the 6th in a series about teaching school with lots of kids, multiple ages and grades and little ones about.  These 10 things would have revolutionized my life, had I done them all from th beginning.  Enjoy and hopefully they help you a bit too!

#6 Utilize your team (aka older kids)


  From a very early age, older siblings can and should help out in the home.  This is their training time for when they are moms and dads!  Kids can help in so many ways and schooling is no exception!  This is especially true as children get bigger and the family gets bigger.

  This does not mean you are shirking your own responsibility as parent and educator.  Letting your children participate in teaching and helping with school IS PART of THEIR SCHOOL!  It's  a huge part of learning and one that has mutual benefits for you all!  Everyone must learn to be a disciple and to be discipled!

  From a very early age I partnered up kids to do some school together.  This is before I was working with block schedules and one room school house teaching.  I didn't pair kids up because I thought it would be a great teaching opportunity, in truth I did it out of survival.  I had just had baby #6 and... well there was a lot going on in that period of my life.  I needed help.  My 7 year old (2nd daughter) was a very good reader but my 6 year old daughter was not (partially due to age and partially because

H was 7, helping M then 6 with school

she just wasn't going to be until she was older) anyway, the 7 year old thought it was a brilliant idea when I told her she would buddy up with a younger sister and do science together.  They read an ABEKA science reading book together and answered the questions.  It was a beautiful thing.  Big sister and Little sister loved doing school together and I often found them "playing school" but actually doing real work.
  I will admit that there was a certain amount of guilt that came in the beginning.  Feelings of shame that I was "stealing their childhood" or that I was "not doing my own responsibilities".  Quickly the Lord showed me how much the kids enjoyed it, how it strengthened their relationships and that they were learning a skill!  I wasn't stealing anything I was enriching!  Thank you Jesus!

  Utilizing your team isn't just about schooling though.  Its also there with everyday chores and food as well.  It's a complete picture where kids are helping and pitching in as needed because we are all a team... we are a family- it's what family does!

 Now lets utilize these little people!

  There is no "schedule" really to having kids help in school or with day to day stuff.  It just happens as its needed- don't be afraid to call on them on the fly!  Here are some ways and times I utilize my team:

H reading to the little boys

• I have to leave the house for some reason.  my M12g LOVES science and loves to teach the boys!  She will step into my place and "do science" with them.  Still One room school house, but the teacher has changed.  A9b says he loves when M12 teaches science because "she makes it fun.  She gets very excited about what is being learned and that makes me more excited.  She also is very encouraging."  
• Twice a week, on the same day, I have to bring my oldest to work and my A9b to physical therapy.  H13g and M12g will finish up any one on one school still left with the little boys and H13g usually plans a craft with them.  She loves littles and really enjoys being a teacher.  She will do a circle time, sing songs with them and do a learning craft.  This is all by her own initiative but I still count it as school!
• Something in the house has to get done.  A little one needs attention, a baby needs dealing with, important phone call that can't be skipped.  Things happen!  Things come up!  Sometimes in these moments I might change the assignment a little in order to make it easier for the older one I am putting in charge but usually its pretty smooth.

  

  M and A doing a gardening
  assignment together

• I need people to sit with new readers and let them read out loud.  Littles are always very ready to help with the listening!  Some of those littles are learning to read though and they too need practice.  I can buddy up older kids with younger kids in order to hit more than one bird with one stone.  With 4 boys learning to read and on different reading levels, it is nice to be able to split up that 20 min reading time over myself and 3 other big kids.  If I didn't do this I would be sitting for an hour or more just in listening to kids read and I do not always have that time.
• "long assignments sometimes need 2 brains working it".  This could also be titled, "I only have so many computers/tablets and you need to share so work together".  I 'spose this isn't really teaching but still buddies up kids to streamline the learning.  Also when you buddy up an older with a younger, they help keep the younger on task and the younger kid feels a lot of pride with doing a "bigger assignment".
• play games.  they usually need more than one person anyway.
• when I was gone for 5 days.  I assigned teachers and students.  All the schooling still got done when I was away. 

  

  F15 doing real swimming
  lessons with D5

• food: While I am working with a set of kids an older child can make lunch.
• laundry:  hello!  someone please go flip the laundry (all my kids know how to do that!)
• "I need some help"  this is heard often enough and often enough its said by more than one child.  I have "mini teachers" all over the place.  If you are a big kid and a little one needs help and you are close.. help out =)
• little ones need to be distracted so I can work with someone on something.  Often enough we "rotated" old kid helpers and saved our big kid school for when babies were sleeping.  More on that in a later post about schooling with babies and toddlers.

  I know a lot of these idea are simple and " a given".  I think a big thing for us homeschooling moms is in actually utilizing the team we have.  So many things can get in the way of that.  Satan often tells us "we are failing, our kids aren't mature enough, they will all need

The "Reds" doing school
with the little boys, just because
they all thought it would be fun!

therapy!" and so much more.  The Lord tells us  to "find our strength in him, to train our children up, to teach them diligently".  As I said earlier... everyone is both a disciple and needs to be discipled. 

That concludes this blog post.   I hope you have enjoyed this overview on utilizing your team (aka older kids)!  Other topics to come in this series, in no particular order, are:

One Room School House Teaching

block scheduling/4 day school week

3 hour limit

schooling when they are ready- don't stress until then

sickness in the house and new babies

utilize your team (aka older kids)

schooling with toddlers and babies

FEED the people

Making an "unschedule" for your home

FREAK OUT!

#5 sickness in the house and new babies in 10 TRICKS OF THE TRADE when Teaching School with a crap ton of kids everywhere- lol:

 This is the fifth in a series about teaching school with lots kids, multiple ages and grades and little ones about. These 10 things would have revolutionized my life had I done all of them from the beginning.  Enjoy and hopefully they help you a bit too!

  We are currently battling a virus (or two) in our house right now.  With so many people in our home, one sickness can last forever!  We basically get sick every year around or just after Christmas and are sick until March.  In honor of having half the family down with a cold, I figured it would be a GREAT TIME to talk about how to homeschool through sicknesses and new babies (cause.... they kind have the same effect on the house right?)

     There is no "magic ticket" to getting through virus's and babies.  While being sick or having a new baby does not automatically mean you can't do school but it sure can make it nearly impossible!  So how do I survive?

"I QUIT!"

     Fancy advice huh?!  It is not an insane thing to admit the limitations of ones household.  Taking a step back is not failure- it's smarts!  Saying "I quit" for a while does not mean no one is learning, or that we will get behind or that I am negating my responsibilities.  It just means we are taking a break from the rigors of schooling norm.  Sickness we ride out as we never know how long they will be here.  A new baby I take at least the first 6-8 weeks off.
     Another thing to note is that these breaks often bring about so much learning.  Letting your kids have some time off will allow them to process all that new information and you will probably see it showing up in small and big ways!  You will be surprised on how much they continue to learn when on break.

  Now that we have a right spirit about our time off.  Lets look at what the breaks actually looks like and what can be done.  You will see that even though we are not doing the regularly scheduled schooling, we are still doing school stuff and still learning!

Technology

  Lets not roll our eyes and pretend like we don't use it, because we do.  I will say though that in my house,  it is used conservatively.  We do not have cable.  We do not have video games.  We limit time and types of activities on tablets and computers.  We do have computers and netflix ;)  This is because we believe too much of a good thing can be bad and we want to teach our kids how to view technology and make good choices with it.  When new babies and sickness are in the house though, we use technology more.
  I use it because sick kids can do a lot of review but may not be able to process new information plus, if they are not sleeping they are usually bored, especially the older ones.
  When a new baby comes I am not always available and this is a good way to give some teaching responsibility to "someone" else.  We will not judge eachother on that fact that that "someone" is a computer.  Heres what we use:

One of our FAVE history series
to watch!

• netflix and youtube history and science movies and documentaries.  Last year we were sick from Jan-feb!  We still did 2 months worth of history by watching documentaries and then talking about them, drawing pictures and that kind of stuff.  Don't worry that they didn't do a writing project, They do so many writing applications throughout the year that it really does not matter that they are not doing any while sick.  If they are not sick and its a new baby thing and you do have older kids- go ahead and assign a writing project or have them make a play or develop a puppet show about what they learned for the littles. (this is part of using your team; a future post).  Of course, if all your kids are say 6 and under most of what you will watch is stuff like... the magic school bus.  It's all good, don't worry!  And if the 6 and under crowd do not want to watch the doc on...lewis and clark that the older kids have too, thats alright too.  Its not really that big of a deal.  When that set is older they will learn about Lewis and Clark then.
• computer programs.  Math can be kept up if sickies are not too bad or if its a new baby thing and you have kids who can do math without you like with Teaching Textbooks or Khan academy. Reading/phonics can still be done on reading eggs
  
  
  
  
  
  or teach your monster to read as they are online or even abc mouse!  Again only if your kids are functioning well enough to do them without you. Learning sites such as always icecream and clever dragons, brainpop, and discovery ed, or animal jam are all great places where they can go and research or just play and still
  
  be learning.  I really like always icecream and clever dragons because they send me a progress report and tell what they were learning.

tablets.  There are so many great free to cheap apps.  Load up a file on your tablet with that childs name with the things they can do if you say "go do school on your tablet".  Put learning games you like on there only.  Looney tunes phonics, math lite (different grades), multiplication bubble are some of our faves! 

Living and learning

     There are many things you can do without technology.  A lot again depends on if you can be involved or not.  Are the kids and you sick?  Did you just have a baby?  Can you be involved?  Can you use your team and have an older child lead the group or part of the group?  Again a lot depends on the ages and stages of your children so glean what might work for you and toss the rest out ;)

an old picture of my girls reading after I had had baby #5

• reading books
• playing board games, card games, making their own games!
• letting older kids plan and make meals (with your approval)
• giving the kids a theme and have them build it (legos), act it (a play),  illustrate it (art), write about (writing), cook something (math skills); the sky is the limit with themes! (I do this a lot!
  

  

  The theme was
   little house on the prairie!

• Combine a theme with watching something.  Even little kids can watch some fun mini docs on youtube about things and then go and do something with that theme!)
• 
  
• ombine it with watching something.  Even little kids can watch some fun mini docs on youtube about things and then go and do something with that theme!)
• 
  
• send letters to friends and family
• go on walks and discover fun things, even if its in your own back yard
• find some fun science experiments you can do at home (pinterest and yourtube)
• everyday household chores and going ons are still learning things!

Thinking outside the box!

     This is more for new babies than sickies.  When we are really sick, about all we can do is drink tea and watch videos.  With new babies and kids say... 9 and under, they usually need a little more instruction as they are not as independent and I want to keep them motivated to want to learn.

• LET THEM PLAY!  novel idea huh!
• handwriting with shaving cream during bath time on the walls in the tub (I taught 2 of my boys their letters doing this when I had a baby in December)

  

  They wanted to do a tea party after my
  oldest two read about "high tea" in a book

• shaving cream plus food coloring makes for an art lesson and writing!
• painting in the tub period is awesome.  tape the pages to the shower walls, let them paint, give them a shower, clean your walls: you now have beautiful paintings and clean kids and tub!
• math can be done in the tub too- get out  your measuring cups!
• get a box.  give them crayons.  this is always great fun!
• get the comics out of a newspaper and let your kids white out the words and re create them!
• make a video message for a friend or relative
• tell them they are news reporters and they can make a news paper or...(wait for it) a tri-fold brochure! (so maybe you need to know me and my kids personally to see the humor in that one)
• have a costco?  go get some boxes.  they can color them, sit in them, build with them, make a train our of them.  put christmas lights in their- fun!  Tell them to do things like put them in a straight line or curved line, or two by two.
• play games like simon says and red light green light (crawling edition)
• buy cheap tp and let them make mummies out of their stuffed animals.  Watch prince of egypt and a doc about mummification.
• have a jar of money?  let them sort it and count it.  Give them a dollar, take them to $tree.  They adore you for at least a few days.
• take a regular coloring book and make it a color by number or letter!
• use your imaginations and google.

   Remember if you WILL be using technology or creative ideas to replace normal school for a while, YOU CAN MAKE IT MEANINGFUL!  Just know your game plan so that when those "times" hit, you know what you are doing!

What about when we are well or when baby is older and we jump back in?  Are we behind?

     Well that all depends on how you look at it.  If you have younger kids and curric and schooling in general is more of a fluid thing then don't stress keeping up with curric.  You can look through the math book and take out pages that were skills they did on the tablet.

  Were you going through a stufy on indians in your history curric but for the past month you did it all with videos- count it!  you passed that section move on to the next!

     

     With older kids if they are going through a set curric it can be a little more tricky depending on your curric.  All of the curric I have chosen to use are things that I can easily have my kids catch up on if they have to have a break eg: Queens LA has 180 lessons, one for each day of school for one school year.  If my older kids take 10 days off because of sickness, its pretty easy for them to double up and catch up!  My history program (mystery of history), I usually will look at the lessons for that week and find documentaries so that we are not missing.  One doc can sometimes cover 5-8 lessons (like when we were learning about British monarchy).  TT is easy to double up on and Khan I really don't worry at all since they can move up several levels with one mastery challenge

  So do I try and make up the work?  Well with my older kids I do.  With my younger kids, no I really don't.  I will have them "make up" on a math book but thats so easy its not really like making anything up.  I just make sure we finish the book before the next year.  Everything else is subjective.  I hope that made sense.

That concludes this blog post.   I hope you have enjoyed this overview sickness in the house and new babies!  Other topics to come in this series, in no particular order, are:

One Room School House Teaching

block scheduling/4 day school week

3 hour limit

schooling when they are ready- don't stress until then

sickness in the house and new babies

utilize your team (aka older kids)

schooling with toddlers and babies

FEED the people

Making an "unschedule" for your home

FREAK OUT!

In Memory of Athan #athansrainbow

     A family in our homeschooling community recently lost their son Athan, at the tender age of 2 months, from heart failure.
My heart breaks for them.
I can not imagine what they are going through.
No words seem right to comfort.
I do trust in the Lord to keep them in his perfect care.

In honor and memory of Athan, I would like you to join myself, my daughters (F15g has a crochet business, Styles by Faith,  and has donated lots of items), and my local homeschool community in making hats to send to "Little hats, big hearts" to help them meet their goal of 1,000 hats by January 21st!
     Athan will be forever loved and forever missed but he will also be forever remembered.

MAILING INFO:
Please include a note in your package "in memory of Athan #athansrainbow" and send to:

Anne Schullo
American Heart Association
208 S. LaSalle Street, Suite 1500
Chicago, IL 60604

If you share this post please hashtag #athanrainbow to show support to Athans family

Holidays and birthdays

These are all posts about holidays and birthdays.  Some may be just chatter and others have helpful hints, budgeting and ideas.  Have fun!

Christmas

• Did you survive Christmas?

#4 Schooling when they are ready in 10 TRICKS OF THE TRADE when Teaching School with a crap ton of kids everywhere- lol:

 This is the fourth in a series about teaching school with lots kids, multiple ages and grades and little ones about. These 10 things would have revolutionized my life had I done all of them from the beginning.  Enjoy and hopefully they help you a bit too!

#4, schooling when they are ready

 
"SOUND THE ALARM , GOOD FOLKS OF HOMESCHOOLVILLE!  Little Johnny is in the 4th grade and reading at a 1st grade level (insert: gasps all around).  How could such a travesty occur? (everyone looks around sheepishly).  The parents are FAILING little Johhny!  The mother obviously can not teach him!  The Father needs to send that child to public school.  Poor Little Johnny, he will need all sorts of help and therapy now!"  

     We have all heard the newsreel before.  Maybe not out loud but definitely in our heads. We start with good intentions, things don't go the way they want and then we fold under pressure.
      Everyone in the homeschool world says that one of the best things about homeschooling is that we can go slow and teach as the kids are ready.  The truth is though, that so many of us do not practice what we preach.  We stress out, stress our kids out and PANIC because "little Johnny can't read yet and he is 8" or "little Janey cries every time we get up to 2 digit numbers and she is in the 2nd grade already!"  You know I'm right guys!

     No one stresses out when kids are "ahead".  When children learn faster than atypical, everyone applauds the parents and their awesome abilities and the brilliance of the child.  When a child is behind though... well, people whisper in the corners (just loud enough for you to hear of course) about how the child is being "neglected,  maybe un-schooled to the point of abuse, sinning against their child " the parents are failing because... gulp...their child is behind!

     First of all- don't you, or anyone else, compare "normal learning" to the public schools!  (That is another post!)  There is a "norm" but, even in the PS system they have kids who are "ahead" and kids who are "behind".  The public school system is NOT something you should compare your child too.  What you should do is access what they ARE learning!

     In all my years homeschooling, I have had children who are atypical learners, some more ahead and some more behind.  None has taught me more about not freaking out about being "behind" than my 7th child, A9b or... ManBoyA.
     I could go on for days about ManBoyA.  Good, bad and ugly, this kid has it all!  What he taught me though was a valuable lesson about filling a childs life with learning and letting the rest work itself out.

     Learning is not about applicable abilities.  Meaning: the ability to read/write/and do math is not needed to LEARN.   Learning is about filling ones life with knowledge so that when you are ready you can pull from it. 

     There are some things that helped keep education pouring in.  First being that we homeschool with one room school house style teaching.  Science and history are done as a group and ManBoyA could DICTATE what he has learned and I could write it down.  He can color a picture, do a project and other things that still do not involve applicable abilities.
     Math was pretty easy and can be fun to tweak.  In his early years we played a lot of games and did fun math worksheets, though I still freaked out since it didn't seem like we were really doing anything and I still wanted him to "complete" a math curric.  I learned though.  I learned to back off when he started taking too long to do something because we really accomplished nothing but frustration "fighting" it out.  As he got older I could require more from him in this area.  Not only did he "catch up", but he is now a grade level ahead in math.
     Reading was something he was pretty sure he could live without and something I knew he needed to do to be able to live!  We spent many years going no where in this area.  I ignored so many cues.  He did not try writing, he did not try reading,  He did not ask me how to spell things.  He did not care.  I cared... but he could careless.  I tackled that by trying to make it fun and something he would more or less enjoy.
     We stopped doing regular "phonics" type lessons and I put him on the computer with Reading Eggs.  I was always perplexed on how he could move up in all the levels and still couldn't read a "BOB book".  I worried, I prayed, I vented to Tammy and Vanessa.  My husband and I were worried.  We kept on though.  Putting the TOOLS in front of him, letting it sink in and then giving him opportunity to use them.
  FINALLY , one day in the summer, just before his fourth grade year, he started asking about spelling words, making comics on his own, trying to read different things as we were out!  These were are clues that he WAS READY.  All that time on reading eggs had put the words in his head, the ability to read in his mouth and now that he was curious and he just needed practice.  He is not at a "fourth grade level" but he is READING and its more than BOB books!

     ManBoyA's personality and outlook on school FORCED us to re look at schooling and learning and to re-access what "progress" really was.  Comparing him to other children, regardless of how they were being schooled, was not the answer.  Counting each success he accomplished, number 1 in character and number 2 scholastics, was better.  What we began to see was a really smart kid, very active, who just needed time.

     If I had learned this lesson earlier things would have been much different for ManBoyA.  He taught us the lessons of schooling when they are ready.  If I had already learned this lessons, then his schooling life would have gone MUCH differently.  Thankfully I did learn and the three little boys that followed ManBoyA are reaping the benefits!  Their outlook on schooling is the best I have had,  They are eager, wanting and excited to learn.  I push them to try new things but I do not "push them" to the point of frustration and tears.  Homeschool Mom reading this- you know what I mean!  I encourage the learning and fill the homeschool time with learning.  I try and make it more fun and less "booky".  If we are not "feeling it" that day I back off.  Even if that person is me!  I look for the cues and clues and go with it!

     One of the most important lessons I learned from ManBoyA is that "behind" is really a non-word.  The child who is "behind" today in reading can quickly  be the child who is "ahead" tomorrow if you just wait until they are ready.  The child who can not get past long division today can take a break and do multiplication games for a month and then try long division again and blow through it like its nothing and test out of 4 chapters in math and fly ahead.   Its about progressing to the best of your ability- not the kid's next door.

     I do want to note that struggling learners can also have underlying issues like sight problems, dyslexia,and  dyscalculia.  It is important to keep an eye out for other clues that show there is a problem and not just a reluctance to "do school".

  In closing, relax homeschool Mom!  If your child does not seem ready for math and reading, DON'T PUSH THEM.  Read to them, play with them, still "do school".  Look for ways to put in that math or do some reading without it looking likt math, or looking like reading.  Fill their world with information and then watch as they process and replicate the things you teach!

 That concludes this blog post.   I hope you have enjoyed this overview on Schooling when they are ready!  Other topics to come in this series, in no particular order, are:

One Room School House Teaching

block scheduling/4 day school week

3 hour limit

schooling when they are ready- don't stress until then

sickness in the house and new babies

utilize your team (aka older kids)

schooling with toddlers and babies

FEED the people

Making an "unschedule" for your home

FREAK OUT!

• 
  

DID YOU SURVIVE CHRISTMAS???

     I have been quiet because I have been BUSY!!!  Christmas time for us is all about Jesus, birthdays and family!  I haven't forgotten about all of you though either!  Here are a few pictures of our Christmastime and be watching in the next day or so for the next blog entry "#4 school them when they are ready".  IN the mean time =) you can look at a snippet of our holiday season!


     Our living room is small so we rearranged the dining room, that backs up to the living room, and put the Tree in there!

     In our home, each child has 3 presents to open on Christmas day as well as their party bag (stockings).  We have a price limit for each child ($60).  We try and keep things smaller and manageable and keep our focus on Jesus.  The kids all still get really good presents, we are just thrifty, we wait for the sales and keep it minimal!

The kids all draw names and buy something for their "present buddy".  Price is set at $5.  We cover the little kids (under 7 this year) but all older kids have to use their funds!

CH9g became CH10g right before Christmas!  Double digits is a big deal and we do something special!  Boys get pocket knives and girls get their ears pierced!  CH10g was super excited to finally have pierced ears like her older sisters!
  A typical Birthday at our house is this:  You get to pick out a meal and a treat.  Grammy and Papa come over and you get to open your presents.
  We do not do individual big parties.






Christmas day is spent at Grammy and Papa's.  All of the in town family gathers here and sometimes friends too.
We exchange gifts with Grammy and Papa.  All teens to adults participate in the "gift game" and the younger cousins exchange a "cousins gift" (done by family not by child).

Papa prays over each person before handing them their gift.  Creating a Godly legacy is one thing I admire so much about my Father in Law.
  Of course we eat a ton and enjoy one anothers company!  That is pretty much our day =)




D5b became D6b just after Christmas.  Sometimes it can get tricky keeping things kind of even with all the little boys at Christmas with gifts and then turning around and still needing birthday gifts for this one!
 He is REALLY into super hero's so I made him 4 two sided capes and a plethora of super hero masks (or mask-skez, as the little boys say it).  He got other items too but a bag od super hero dress up stuff to share with his brothers and friends was definitely a HUGE hit!





     And here is a pic of Christmas morning.  Well actually this year it was Christmas Eve, late morning as it was not our year to have The Brownies (my brown hair children that we share with my husbands X).
     In this pic they are opening up their party bags.  We do this instead of stockings because its Jesus birthday and when you go to a party you get a party bag!  I spend roughly $20 (our of the $60) on party bags.  I shop all year and get killer deals!  the kids all had between 18 and 22 items in their party bags.  We do not load them up with candy either.

 Here is a typical 10ish year old girl party bag:

1. fave candy
2. gatorade or some kind of drink
3. cracker/cookie pack
4. 4 inch chocolate PB penguine
5. candy cane
6. journal
7. pen
8. drawing book
9. colored pencils
10. nail polish
11. hair tie
12. nail jewels
13. necklace
14. flashlight (so my kids have a thing about flashlights, they just like them!)
15. photo frame
16. book mark
17. earrings or some other type of jewelery 
18. socks
19. craft beads/yarn/whatever crafty thing they are into
20. book

And for a boy:

1. fave candy 
2. gatorade or some kind of drink
3. cracker/cookie pack
4. 4 inch chocolate PB penguine
5. candy cane
6. rope
7. pen
8. drawing book
9. colored pencils
10. flashlight (so my kids have a thing about flashlights, they just like them!)
11. key chain to put on their back pack or whatever
12. book mark
13. book
14. football cards
15. disc golf stuff
16. socks
17. flying airplane thing
18. playing cards
19. some kind of craft like thing: this year it was a detective drawing thing
20. something weird... like fake mustaches =)

  I hope your Christmas was fun, enjoyable and in full celebration of Jesus!  See you all in the New year!

#3 ---> 3 hour limit to teaching in 10 TRICKS OF THE TRADE when Teaching School with a crap ton of kids everywhere- lol:

 This is the Third in a series about teaching school with lots kids, multiple ages and grades and little ones about. These 10 things would have revolutionized my life had I done all of them from the beginning.  Enjoy and hopefully they help you a bit too!

3 hour limit!

     The 3 hour limit (3hl) has come to mean a few different things over the years.  All valid things but all different needs that fit into the 3hl.  The 3hl is this in a nut shell:

    "schooling/teaching should last no more than 3 hours.... period!"

  So this idea started back in the day when I though I was going to go insane!  How could I possibly teach ALL THOSE SUBJECTS to my Kindy girl with 2 babies hanging off me and prego?  Well, just shy of subjecting my children to a lifetime of counseling for the trauma they would endure from my homeschooling venture, I decided to survive I needed to nix things.  To get to the point of this post, you will need to learn a little about how I got to the 3hl.

     So back to the "nixing".  I started with everything but reading.  If I could only teach my kindy girl to read then she could teach herself anything because she could read the instructions!!!  What an amazing thought!!!!!  I still "mostly" believe this to be true.  Well, I do believe it is true BUT now I would not push a child to learn reading when they are not ready.  I am not sure that my Kindy girl was really ready but she learned anyway, despite me, but it was not a fun process.

    Now, we did not spend 3 hours on reading alone.  We spent 30 minutes.  That was reading and writing.  And I think I was dying from monotony and boredom by minute 7.  I am still so over it all by minute 7.  Kindy girl begrudgingly learned.  Her 3 year old sister though thought it was great!  She was reading like a champ by 3 1/2! (note she is the ONLY one of my kids who did that!).  This is all we really did.  We did do other learning things but it was mostly through play.

     The following year I focused in on Math.  Again 30 minutes. And 1st grade girl did it.  She also kept up on LA for 30. The rest of our day was just play.  Which wasn't bad but I always felt like a loser for not doing "enough".

     Our third year of homeschooling I tried to add in all the subjects.  I quite that after a month.  I got those "everything your kid should know in "such" grade" books from Costco, took out pages, stuck them in a folder and they had to complete a folder a week.  BORING!!  But I was trying to survive and not be the one homeschool Mom who couldn't teach everything!

Our 4th year (this is starting to sound like a Christmas song- lol) of homeschooling, I still focused on my own teaching time of math and reading only and assigned out sci and his as reading books to the older ones.   They read their stuff to the younger ones.  I nursed children and cooked and did laundry. I tried to do other subject but it didn't work.   See I could ONLY get in 3 HOURS of teaching in and I was not very organised with how I did it.  I used up my 3 hours of time not really accomplishing much through mismanagement!. No matter how I arranged my day I could not seem to get in more than 3 hours of teaching time or more than 3 hours of their attention!

   This is when the "amazing thing started to kick in.  I started to realize that "organized learning and teaching" was something that only worked for about 3 hours period.  I started looking at my day differently.  If LA was no more than 1 hour and math was no more than 1 hour (30 min each for the younger ones) and I facilitated it differently in order to get more than one kid done at the same time, then that left one more hour for sci and his.  (This was before block schedules.  I should have clued into that about here but I didn't).

3 hour limit: was needed for the following reasons:

• The childrens brains are fried after that.
• My brain is fried after that.
• I need to be done teaching in order to do everything else.
• The kids need time to play and learn on their own.
• We all need a break from structured learning.
• Because, some days we just don't feel like we can do anymore.
• Before the age of like 10, anything more than 3 hours may just kill all of us.
• They DO NOT NEED to study EVERY SUBJECT!  The public schools don't even do that!  
• When they are older they can do more!

      All the above reasons are still the same reasons today, they just apply a little differently than for pure survival.   Now that I have older children, I still only do 3 hours of schooling with me teaching.  I still have young ones that would die from homeschool over-exposure if I didn't pull the plug at 3 hours! However, the older kids can now self govern a lot of things and can wrap up any unfinished business on their own.  I am only used as a "check in" or "occasional help".

HOW THIS WORKS IN MY HOUSE TODAY:

  So, my oldest kids get up at 7 am and do an hourish of math before breakfast.  THATS 1 HOUR for them!  Little ones have 0 HOURS at this point
  After breakfast we do 2 hours of whatever block we are doing.  THATS 2 HOURS for little kids and 3 HOURS for olders.
     We eat Lunch.
     After lunch I spend about 40 minutes with the younger bunch doing LA and MATH.  THATS 3 HOURS TOTAL FOR LITTLES now; the k-4th kids.
    The 5th and up kids have about an hours more worth of work to do.  Some less, some more on some days.  BUT NONE OF IT requires me.  I can still do my chores, mind the littles, run errands, whatever.  This technically means the older kids do more like 4 hours (and more for the highschooler) but their brains can handle it now!

HOW WOULD IT WORK IF MY KIDS WERE ALL LITTLE:
   
     If my kids were all little, lets say I have 4 kids and the oldest is in 2nd grade.  I would do 30 minutes or so of reading/la and 30 minutes or so of math.  Then I would do a QUEENS science for the 3rd hour on sci days and prolly a Queens or MOH his on his days.  I may even not do any formal history yet.  I might just pick a theme like "the old west"  we would watch little house on the prairie episodes and read cowboy books together.  Hmmm... I think I actually did that back when my oldest was 8 and I had just had baby #6!

WRAPPING IT UP:

  This is not a big "AHA" type of thing.  No revolutionary idea.  Nothing I can even show you pictures of.  BUT it is something that if I had followed, I would have actually felt accomplished everyday and I wouldn't have felt like every day I failed my kids because we were not doing everything we should.  This is a stupid idea in and of itself and we will cover that later on in this series.

     I believe my older kids would have viewed schooling with less stress, much like my younger bunch does these days, if I had schooled them the same way.  My kids love learning but that is not the way it was when we started out.  I was bogging them down and myself!  If I could have started each school day knowing that I had 3 hours and then we were done, I think MY OUTLOOK ALONE would have really impacted my kids for the best.
    3hl freed my kids up to learn and me to teach.  It took away that ball and chain feeling that we had for each other and instead replaced it with a feeling of ease.  We all knew what to expect each day.  When we were having fun, we could extend it, and when it was a day of crying, we knew the end was coming before lunch even hit!  I also found that my children naturally were learning on their own and continuing things they were working on during school time in their free time.  It was just all so.... uncomplicated.

 That concludes this blog post.   I hope you have enjoyed this overview on ORSH teaching!  Other topics to come in this series, in no particular order, are:

One Room School House Teaching

block scheduling/4 day school week

3 hour limit

schooling when they are ready- don't stress until then

sickness in the house and new babies

utilize your team (aka older kids)

schooling with toddlers and babies

FEED the people

Making an "unschedule" for your home

FREAK OUT!