Benefits & Challenges of Teaching Mixed Ages Together

5 Days Of The Benefits & Challenges of Teaching Mixed Ages Together – Day 5: Tips For Homeschooling Multiple Grades

October 16, 2013 | 2 Comments
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This is fay 5, tips for homeschooling multiple grades. Also, look at my page The Dynamics of How to Homeschool Easily and Smarter for more tips.

I love sharing nitty gritty blog posts with you.

I know thee practical know how can help you to smooth out one day. Or if helps you to leap into trying something new, it is worth it to me.

5 Days Of The Benefits & Challenges of Teaching Mixed Ages Together – Day 5: Tips For Homeschooling Multiple Grades

We do need to learn to let go of the thinking that children need to be segregated by age.

Its not easy and by nature we fight it.

We are so very aware of the fact that the educational future of our children is in our direct hands.

However, I think knowing we are not trekking alone empowers us.

So the nitty gritty of homeschooling multiple grade levels can be reduced to 3 practical and lasting tips.

Nuts and Bolts Of How To Homeschool Multiple Grades – Read Aloud First

Reading aloud is my number one help mate. Yep, it’s not laid out curriculum, well initially anyway.

Building back ground information on the subject gives you a direction.

From there, you can decide a subject.

Not only that, the whole purpose in teaching together is so that each of your children can delight in what interests them.

So I look for a book on a topic

that spans many grades or ages.
that covers just that topic. It’s unlike a text book which can veer off the main topic you are trying to teach.
that includes some hands-on activities.
that teaches a content subject.

Homeschooling Multiple Children Secret Planning Sheet Tinas Dynamic Homeschool Plus Copy thum 5 Days Of The Benefits & Challenges of Teaching Mixed Ages Together – Day 4: Embrace Homeschooling Multiple Grades

Remember from my form above, right away you can see which subjects you can teach together.

How to Get the Free Homeschooling Multiple Children Secret Planning Sheet

Now, how to grab the free form. This is a subscriber freebie.

1) Sign up on my list.
2) Grab the freebie now.
3) Last, look for all my emails in your inbox. Glad to have you following me!

For example, look at his book I used for teaching the rainforest.

The title is Discover the Amazon.

It spanned many ages, had lots of sub-topics, vocabulary was marked throughout the book AND it had 20 activities to choose from. You can look at it here.

Too, living books are some of the best books to encourage a love of learning and to get excited about teaching a subject together.

You can take a look at my boards on Pinterest too for living books, but really just putting your hands on them and viewing them is the best way to see if they will work for you.

Reading – Then to Grade Level Lesson Plan

After reading, you want to actually turn that material or background information into workable lesson plans.

This may seem scary at first, but remember the insider’s tip to homeschooling multiple children is that we are focusing on just the content subjects.

Does it matter if your lesson plan ends up being too easy or too much? Try again until you get it right on target for your children’s age.

You can NOT mess up content subjects AND you always can revise your lesson plans the next month, the next year or even the next day.

More Homeschooling Multiple Ages Tips

I get my ideas from many sources, but my main source of inspiration is my children.

As we are reading, I am noting or highlighting (yep I highlight my books, probably a bad habit, but it works for me) in the book what they find interesting or are talking about with me.

For a library book, having a pad of sticky notes works too.

Also, look at the chapters on the book because they are your main ideas or objectives. Too, the index of words gives you an idea of where to head on your lesson plan if your children are too small to mouth their choice. You CAN do this!

A specific example of how I have done this is on Chapter 1: What is the Amazon? For my youngest children, I just explained from the book what is a rain forest and they did a minibook.

For my oldest, I had him compare/contrast to a temperate rain forest and turned that into a table.

To me, that is very basic information of studying the rain forest because we have to know what it is.

It doesn’t matter their grades if you have never learned about it. So go in as much depth as your children want to.

More Homeschooling Multiple Ages Tips

Skill Subject Laid Out Lesson Plans Equals Simplified Homeschooling

I can remember the time when I started homeschooling and it wasn’t really called doing your own teaching unless you prepared every single subject.

I am hoping never to return to those insane days because life is very different now.

Too, we just have many wonderful curriculum providers to choose from that there should be very little stress because we do have choices for math and language arts.

Using something out laid to cover the skill subjects is the trick and secret to honing your teaching and making the time count when homeschooling multiple grades.

Don’t get me wrong, I still feel like learning math, vocabulary words or spelling in the context of what you’re learning about is not disjointed teaching and has long term practical value.

I do tend to assign copy work and vocabulary words for what we are learning about because I want my children immersed in the subject, but that is not the only way to do it.

Reading aloud, making lesson plans on content subject eases the teaching time and using laid out curriculum for skill subjects are the top 3 survival tools of homeschooling multiple grades.

As you can see sometimes we are together when we are covering content subjects and maybe not so much when covering skill subjects. Too, some separation is needed so that the younger children do not get overshadowed by the work of the older children.

It is natural for our kids to compare themselves to each other, but it is our job to be sure we nurture them in their own unique talents.

This means separate time for the little ones so they can shine and not be overshadowed.

The one room school house is still alive and well in homeschooling today though it has its challenges, the rewards are well worth it.

You know I love you much and hope you enjoyed this series.

What do you struggle with when teaching your children together?

Read the other posts in this series:

5 Days Of The Benefits & Challenges of Teaching Mixed Ages Together – Day 4: Embrace Homeschooling Multiple Grades

October 10, 2013 | 5 Comments
This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

Today, I have day 4 embrace homeschooling multiple grades. Also, grab more ideas on my page How to Homeschool.

Would you think I was insane if I told you that the word excited is a pretty poor adjective to describe how I really feel about homeschooling my children together?

I promise I have no “keep me on a homeschooling high” vitamin, but I feel at times that the unequaled joy and sheer satisfaction of seeing the blessing of your hard work gets overshadowed by the process.

5 Days Of The Benefits & Challenges of Teaching Mixed Ages Together – Day 4: Embrace Homeschooling Multiple Grades

Because homeschooling multiple children can be hard work, I think about this quote; something worth having or in our case worth doing is worth waiting for.

It reminds me of labor in a way (sorry guys I have to go there today). There is a reason it is called labor regardless of how long you were actually laboring.

For me, none of my sons were born easy or in a few short hours.

The Mr. and I spent more time reading books about the how to process and taking all those breathing classes and relaxation classes than we did visualizing what the actual moment was going to feel like when we held our firstborn in our arms.

As I share these tips today and on Day 5 on the how to of homeschooling multiple grades, I want you to “go there” and spend time imagining what you want from the end of your journey for each of your children.

Teaching Children At the Same Time – Insane?

It doesn’t mean it won’t be hard.

One of the most common mistakes or misunderstandings about teaching multiple grades is thinking that we have to sit all of our kids down together in front of us and teach them at the same time.

While it’s easier to do this when they are very young, it gets harder to do as they get older.

An insider’s tip to teaching multiple grades is to remember that you are teaching multiple lesson plans on one topic.

A big difference.

So this means you have to know when to teach together at the same time and know when to teach separately.

Your time as the teacher is better spent because you are studying, focusing or gathering facts and resources for one topic, i.e: American Civil War, Inventions or Authors, but creating multiple lesson plans for each grade. Do you see the difference?

Can you see where you may become an expert along with your children on a topic because you have spanned several grade levels teaching one theme?

Give yourself some credit because a public school teacher may only teach one to maybe 3 grades during his or her career, but NOT you.

Master the School Subjects

When helping new and some not so new homeschoolers, I see scrolling huge lists of subjects they want to cover.

I am going to tell you about how to master the school subjects when teaching children together and some tips on how to know when to teach at the same time and when not to.

But before I can do that you need to understand how to categorize school subjects.

Math	Language Arts	Bible	Everything Else
	Grammar		History
	Reading		Science
	Writing		Art
	Spelling

Above is the secret formula. EVERYTHING you want to teach should fit into one of these general categories on this list.

Math and language arts are considered skill subjects and this means that its very important to understand how you teach these subjects or rather how you build on each concept.

For example, along with reading to your child, it is important to teach phonics. It is hard to learn to spell unless you have a systematic way of teaching phonemic awareness which is a fancy way of saying that your child needs to associate letters with sounds.

Too, do you skip right to algebra without learning addition? Teaching these subjects in a systematic order will avoid some of the gaps we all fear.

Content subjects like history or science won’t hamper your child’s future reading ability if he understands the parts of a cell in 5th or 7th grade.

It doesn’t matter if he covers the American Civil War in 6th grade or 9th grade. Content subjects don’t really need grade levels. You just cover them to your child’s delight and interest.

More Homeschooling Multiple Ages Tips

Grade levels were assigned back in the day to equal work load and the depth of information to cover. Unless, it’s high school, you can cover as lightly or as in-depth as you want to.

Even in high school you have some leeway but that is another topic we can talk about later.

I have added in Bible too because most of us are homeschooling for Bible based reasons and it is part of our critical foundation so it deserves a separate column.

Now, take ALL of your resources and fit them into one of the columns. I have made it easy for you.

I have created a form for what I visualize in my mind when organizing subjects.

Like the track your week form, this too is a working form. In other words, it is a way of seeing all of your curriculum resources that you have or want to use, what it covers and what subject area it falls under.

You can’t embrace homeschooling multiple children when covering all of the subjects may be a fog.

Here is a sample of how to fill it out. Just add ALL of your resources, and pencil in your child’s name if you want to and check the box that applies to that subject.

How to Get the Free Homeschooling Multiple Children Secret Planning Sheet

Now, how to grab the free form. This is a subscriber freebie.

Just follow the steps below.

1) Sign up on my list.

2) Grab the freebie now.

3) Last, look for all my emails in your inbox. Glad to have you following me!

Let’s look realistically at how to do this. If you are not sure where a subject goes, give me a holler because ALL of the subjects fit into these categories.

You know me, I always give you time to mull over my blog posts so take your time.

Switching subjects on you, I will be thinking about you this weekend but we are expecting family from out of town for our Texas Hoe Down Graduation. Even though we had to wait until now to celebrate, it is so much more special since the Mr. is feeling back to his old self.

Here is a quote I am inspired by today as I am thinking about the process of refining how to teach our children.

“You must have long range goals to keep you from being frustrated by short range failures.”

~ Charles C. Noble ~

Hugs and you know I love ya,

Read the other posts in this series:

5 Days Of The Benefits & Challenges of Teaching Mixed Ages Together – Day 3: Challenges of Teaching Kids Together

October 2, 2013 | Leave a Comment
This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

Today, I have teaching kids together tips.

I would love to craft each blog post so that you come away more energized than the previous one, but there are times I have to tell it like it is when it comes to homeschooling.

I guess thinking about it though, saving you stress and plain downright frustration is a way of breathing life into your day.

Perfect Homeschool Approaches

The challenges of teaching kids together is not imaginary and it does have its drawbacks. When it comes down to the nitty-gritty of homeschooling, any approach will have a negative.

There is simply NOT ONE approach that will fit every family perfectly.

Too, sometimes we just don’t have a lot of wiggle room to experiment with new approaches because of the age of our children, our limited time for a learning curve on a new approach and our age. (okay, okay maybe not our age unless you feel really old. Not me.)

Knowledge is power in understanding the downside to teaching multiple children so that we avoid wasted time and for goodness sake ALL that energy it takes as both a teacher and a child.

Here are the things that we need to be on guard for when we are homeschooling our children together.

It is not easy to accommodate ALL your children’s learning styles.

It is a known fact that among homeschoolers we have a lot of gifted children and this is not something just perceived by us as parents.

For me, taking Mr. Senior 2013 out of school was partly due to the fact that he was so above grade level academically than his peers.

Homeschooling Multiple Children Diversions

Too, though we also have children that may seem delayed to the public school standards. Along came wonderful Mr. Awesome who just did not race to learning academically.

He was more comfortable doing hands-on things as he learned. He was just way more wiggly than Mr. Senior 2013 so I had to adjust my view of what is normal because by all rights he is brilliant using a different part of his brain.

Preschoolers and Toddlers Unite in their Mayhem.

It’s true or at least it seems like they unite in their efforts to sabotage your day with all your beautiful lesson plans written out so nicely. For being the sweetest and the littlest things in the house, they wield such power.

It gets quite the juggling act and your day may look more like a three ring circus as you try to manage the older children while keeping one eye on the toddler turmoil.

The young child may get out shined by the older child.

Because of the fact they are working together or side by side in some cases, a younger child may compare his work to his older sibling. Right away, he sees that his penmanship, drawing skills or art skills are different. As moms, we accept this and are so proud of all of our children’s work.

More Homeschooling Multiple Ages Tips

But, for younger children it can start to affect their confidence and sadly some withdraw emotionally.

They are always trying to measure up to some standard that you have not set, but have you unintentionally? Yikes. I made this mistake and I had tears (my tears) before I figured it out.

Now that we covered some of these things to earmark and watch for, how can we overcome some of those challenges? I will share some tips on Day 4.

Have you noticed any of these things creeping up in your school day repeatedly?

Read the other posts in this series:

5 Days Of The Benefits & Challenges of Teaching Mixed Ages Together – Day 2: Benefits Of Homeschooling Together

September 24, 2013 | Leave a Comment
This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

Today, I am excited to share about the benefits of teaching your children together. I think just about everybody starts off getting full grade levels of curriculum for each child.

5 Days Of The Benefits & Challenges of Teaching Mixed Ages Together – Day 2: Benefits Of Homeschooling Together

Moreover, I think we have curriculum comfort padding and it just makes us feel good knowing that we have it around.

Then a few weeks if not months into our school year, we get subject and curriculum overload.

However, there are many benefits to teaching children together besides streamlining your curriculum which obviously is good on the budget too.

Teaching kids today is very similar to the one room school house where they had younger children sit in the front and older children sit in the back.

Of course, on our field trip we tried to follow that model, but you can see how small the room was and its obvious how the different ages were going to learn from each other.

So that is another key to teaching kids together: scoop up the younger ones and have them sit closer to you so you can give them the attention first.

Of course no unique method is without its challenges. On Day 3, I will share some of the challenges that we face in homeschooling multiple children.

Are you up for the challenging of teaching multiple children together?

Read the other posts in this series:

5 Days Of The Benefits & Challenges of Teaching Mixed Ages Together – Day 1: One Room Schools – A Thing of the Past?

September 18, 2013 | 2 Comments
This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

Today, I have tips on teaching mixed ages together.

Last year, we went on a field trip to a one room school house. They are suppose to be a thing of the past so we just had to go.

More Homeschooling Multiple Ages Tips

With our highschoolers standing in the back and younger kids standing in the front of our group picture, I think our group must be pretty typical of the age range that one teacher had in one class about 100 years ago.

Too, I think we have a huge advantage over one room teachers of the past because we don’t have 20 kids, but I also think we can reach back to the past for some lessons on teaching mixed ages.

Homeschooling Multiple Levels of Children Confusion

However, I have a bit of a confession.

The first day I officially added Mr. Awesome to my new school year after teaching Mr. Senior 2013 for a few years, I had a complete meltdown.

Besides, I admit that all the planning and organization didn’t help one bit in knowing how to teach more than one child at a time.

Looking back now, I realized that a much more comprehensive definition would have been of great help instead of thinking I had a grasp on what I thought was apparently so simple to understand.

Look at how I broke down the definition.

It means . . .	It could mean . . .	It doesn’t mean . . .
Teaching all of your children together.	Some children are doing another activity independently.	You have to teach them at the same time.
Creating unique assignments based on each child’s level.	That the whole family is involved.	You have to do all the teaching.
Learning from others and not segregating our children by ages.	Creating one unique project that everybody works on instead of several projects going on.	You have to teach one topic. That children that are even the same age, like twins, have the same ability. They do not. So why do we keep trying to segregate our children by grade?

Teaching Mixed Ages

Fascinated by the way teachers of the past so effortlessly and gracefully taught a one room school house, I have learned along the way that a clear understanding of what teaching mixed ages is determines what will and will not work for my family.

If you were to ask a seasoned homeschooling veteran if a one room schoolhouse is a thing of the past, they would probably have to say no. The building may be long gone but the idea of teaching mixed ages together is alive and strong in the homeschool world.

Benefits and challenges are equally important to understand. Next, I will share some of the benefits of teaching mixed ages together.

It is a sanity preserver because you are only preparing/reviewing one lesson plan for several children.	Streamlines the teacher’s time.
Whole family can be involved together which is more natural than segregating a teen or a tot.	Easier to do one hands-on project or one lapbook and have all your children contribute something. I can’t imagine doing 7 lapbooks or growing 7 beans in a jar at one time.
Younger children benefit from the modeling of an older children.	Older children learn to mentor their younger siblings which is a valuable life skill for leadership.
If an older child is struggling with some of the basics, he benefits from your explanation to the youngest children.	Family ties and sibling bonds are strengthened which is what we all want.

Benefits & Challenges of Teaching Mixed Ages Together

5 Days Of The Benefits & Challenges of Teaching Mixed Ages Together – Day 5: Tips For Homeschooling Multiple Grades

Nuts and Bolts Of How To Homeschool Multiple Grades – Read Aloud First

How to Get the Free Homeschooling Multiple Children Secret Planning Sheet

Reading – Then to Grade Level Lesson Plan

More Homeschooling Multiple Ages Tips

More Homeschooling Multiple Ages Tips

Skill Subject Laid Out Lesson Plans Equals Simplified Homeschooling

Read the other posts in this series:

5 Days Of The Benefits & Challenges of Teaching Mixed Ages Together – Day 4: Embrace Homeschooling Multiple Grades

Teaching Children At the Same Time – Insane?

Master the School Subjects

More Homeschooling Multiple Ages Tips

How to Get the Free Homeschooling Multiple Children Secret Planning Sheet

Read the other posts in this series:

5 Days Of The Benefits & Challenges of Teaching Mixed Ages Together – Day 3: Challenges of Teaching Kids Together

Perfect Homeschool Approaches

Homeschooling Multiple Children Diversions

More Homeschooling Multiple Ages Tips

Read the other posts in this series:

5 Days Of The Benefits & Challenges of Teaching Mixed Ages Together – Day 2: Benefits Of Homeschooling Together

Read the other posts in this series:

5 Days Of The Benefits & Challenges of Teaching Mixed Ages Together – Day 1: One Room Schools – A Thing of the Past?

More Homeschooling Multiple Ages Tips

Homeschooling Multiple Levels of Children Confusion

Teaching Mixed Ages

Read the other posts in this series:

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Benefits & Challenges of Teaching Mixed Ages Together

Nuts and Bolts Of How To Homeschool Multiple Grades – Read Aloud First

How to Get the Free Homeschooling Multiple Children Secret Planning Sheet

Reading – Then to Grade Level Lesson Plan

More Homeschooling Multiple Ages Tips

More Homeschooling Multiple Ages Tips

Skill Subject Laid Out Lesson Plans Equals Simplified Homeschooling

Read the other posts in this series:

Teaching Children At the Same Time – Insane?

Master the School Subjects

More Homeschooling Multiple Ages Tips

How to Get the Free Homeschooling Multiple Children Secret Planning Sheet

Read the other posts in this series:

Perfect Homeschool Approaches

Homeschooling Multiple Children Diversions

More Homeschooling Multiple Ages Tips

Read the other posts in this series:

Read the other posts in this series:

More Homeschooling Multiple Ages Tips

Homeschooling Multiple Levels of Children Confusion

Teaching Mixed Ages

Read the other posts in this series:

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