How do you do it all?

You’ve gotten good advice! I have not adopted but we have 7 children ages 10 ,7, 6, 4, 3, 1, and 4 months old. The 4 month old has medical things we deal with daily that take time (cathing, physical therapy, occupational therapy, skin maintenance, etc) plus lots of doctors we deal with. We’ve always homeschooled and the upcoming year finds us with a 5th, 2nd, 1st, K, PreK, plus the younger two. Here are some of the things helping me keep my sanity:

– Routine routine routine! Start with the basics and build a routine that fits your family. Our anchor points in the day are food related (meals and snacks). In the morning we have academics or chores triggered by those anchor points. We know that after breakfast is chore time and then school. After snack is more school. There is no electronic media during the morning (games, dvds, computers). We stay much more productive that way.

– Table time. Everyone old enough to sit on their own is at the table with something to do. School ages are doing math while younger ones have puzzles, math manipulatives, or coloring materials. We use booster seats with seatbelts and begin training from very young that they can sit for table time but if they toss their activity they’re going to have to sit with nothing until we’re done. We started with 10 minutes and worked our way up. You might gather a box of things for the 3yo that you pull from and every 10 minutes switch the activity/toy.

– Simple curriculum – don’t complicate things! We read living books for history and writing happens as we notebook our narrations. We do science twice a week, not every day, art usually happens for a few weeks and then we take a break from it, then pick it up later for a change of pace. We don’t do spelling until a child is interested. We play games together. Sometimes we buy materials I could have pulled together myself but didn’t have time to organize.

– Don’t feel you must do every subject every day, week, or month! We’ve had years where we only did history half the year (and NO science) and the other half was science with no history. Writing, phonics, music – so many things just need short regular practice. If you’re spending more than 20 minutes on something and it’s not working for the family then try 10 or 15! We do copywork for 5 minutes. Progress happens over time.

– “Behind” is a public school mentality. Your children are where they are. Accept that, work from where they are, and don’t worry about some artificial timeline of learning X by a certain age. Aim for progress, not perfection.

– Pray a lot and have fun together. Enjoy living. Academics are not the most important thing in life, relationships are. If you’re relationships are good then learning will happen. ((HUGS))

Congratulations on your daughter’s arrival! How wonderful and exciting! I suppose the easy answer to your question is that you don’t do it all – at least I don’t! 🙂 You choose the parts you absolutely must do, the parts you really, really want to do, and then the extras you hope to do. I can share a few things that have helped here, though, as we’ve adjusted to new arrivals and a seemingly constant stream of medical appointments over the past years. One of our guys arrived at two, ten years ago (oh my goodness, how did that much time go by?) and the next arrived a year later at three, so we had instant three-year-old twins. At the time, I was schooling a first grader and 7th grader, and those little guys made so much mischief while we were trying to do school! A few years later, another little guy came home at 3, and those years were full of appointments, surgery, PT, etc. Here are a few things that helped:

– A schedule for history and reading materials for the OLDER kids. I am organizationally challenged and get overwhelmed with too much looming ahead of me to do. Either purchasing a curriculum guide (we’ve used BF Primary, Biblioplan, Sonlight, HOD, and I love the looks of SCM) or writing my own, tweaking any as need be, keeps me on track, knowing that I have the freedom to depart from it if I want to. This year we ended up with numerous appointments for one child, and I was very thankful we’d chosen to try Heart of Dakota’s CTC year for some of the boys – they liked being able to see what they had to do and get started, regardless of what was going on that day.

– Choose “do the next thing” resources for the younger kids – lessons you can pick up each day and just keep moving forward, even if you have to take a break. We liked Pathway Readers, Explode the Code, simple copywork. They loved Draw Write Now as something to keep them busy while I worked with bigger kids.

– Books on the shelf. Using the library for most of their resources is a great option for people who have organizational skills and time. I possess neither LOL, so I’ve found it really important to keep most of what we’ll need for the year on the shelf. It has cost a bit more but saved sanity, and allowed the kids to stay on track, without having to wait for a library trip.

– Evenings for big kids. During those very busy years with little people about, I spent about an hour after younger kids were in bed working with my middle-school-aged daughter. We’d curl up and read history and lit together, undistracted, and we both really enjoyed that time.

– Remember that you don’t need to finish everything. Classroom teachers don’t use every bit of every resource; they pick and choose pages. You are in charge and get to choose. I believe in our state we’re required to complete 2/3 of the material we declared on our IHIP’s.

– Schedule – Tristan said it well already.

– Toys for littles only to be used at school time – playdough, big wooden stringing beads, cotton balls to be transferred with hotdog tongs from one bowl to another, etc.

– Alternating playtime for little with bigger kids – the kids loved to have a turn playing with the younger children, whether it was a game, toy food, a big floor puzzle, and this gave me time with the others. We invested in lots of those great Melissa and Doug learning toys and pulled those out at schooltime.

Most of all, have fun, and remember how quickly this time will go by. When I felt particularly scattered and concerned about the schooling issues, I’d reread this great article I stumbled across years ago, which reminded me that the new little one, in many ways, was the lesson:

http://schoolofabraham.com/babylesson.htm

Recently, my 14-year-old came to me with a large sum of money he’d earned, and asked to donate it to Love Without Boundaries, for orphancare in China. When they’d heard what he’d done, the two 11-year-olds followed suit, donating to two different agencies that care for orphans. I realized then, that they’d learned something really important I couldn’t have taught from a book – each new brother had been the lesson they’d carried with them.

Blessings,

Aimee

This is true!  I never really thought of it like that.  We would love to adopt again and have been talking about it.  We’re nearly 49 and 51 and the last adoption took 4 years (and money is a huge issue this time) so we’ll see if God works it out.

jeaninpa, I want to come sit at your feet! I’d love to hear more about how you do school every day and juggle all those age groups!

jeaninpa,

ROFL!!!

Then again, at about the one year mark there was another leap forward (that was usually the point where we decided, ‘hey we could do this again!’)

That is what happened with us and how we ended up in China 3 times within 3 1/2 years!

We brought home DD1 in Sept. 2008.

21 months later, we were in China in June 2010 bringing home TWO sons! Didn’t set out to, but we found our little guy or maybe he found us. No matter, couldn’t imagine life without him.

Feb. 2012, 20 months after bringing home sons 3 and 4 (though 2 and 4 in birth order), we brought home DD2.

She IS our caboose I am sure … unless God delivers a COMPLETED dossier to our doorstep LOL! Then I guess He would have our attention again.

To the OP, we are completing our 3rd year of homeschooling (and at times I feel like it has been a complete failure with starting adoption #4 right when the school year had started and then the dossier and referral and travel … )

BUT we took our whole family to China for 15 DAYS! Talk about a field trip! So I look at the big picture and think, this has been a great year.

Our children often go with me to the Children’s Hospital for appts. and we travel with books and things … and there is no greater joy than when the receptionist will say, “Mrs. X, your children are welcome to stay in our waiting area if you’d like. They are always so well-behaved and respectful. I will bring them to you if they need you.”

I mean, really, what a lesson for them and me … to hear such a compliment. Our children have even been able to see echos being performed on a beating heart … of their siblings! How COOL!

Science for the week … CHECK! At one cardio appt., our children asked the cardiologist all kinds of questions and he was so willing to share. He knew ahead of time and planned for it, but again, this is not something you can learn from a book or in a regular classroom.

All in all, I’d say your children are in for a great year of learning, and it just might be in ways you never expected!

I am so excited to see how many people have adopted!  We’re in Canada, does anyone know how difficult/expensive it is to adopt?  My oldest child had special needs, and I used to be a paramedic, so that doesn’t scare me to badly.  Also I was adopted and it was a wonderful gift from God into my life!  Children are such  blessings.