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Moms with lots of littles- advice!
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So I am doing K this year with my oldest. We’re doing FIAR as core. BUT I have a 3 and 1 year old and hopefully the Lord bleses us with more. My question is: is it even possible for me to teach using the SCM planners/kits/whole books and care for my littlest children and keep my house in order? I love how the history, music, art, poetry, LA from SCM look. If I go this route and do Math U See Alpha next year for 1st grade how much of my day is going to be spent giving instruction/reading aloud? I was homeschooled, but not like this. I had the read the lessons now do the work on my own type school. This is not what I want for my children. Can I do this CM thing or do I need to find a midleground? Feeling so overwhelmed and not wanting to let me son down with his education. TIA!
Hi!
I think you definitely CAN do CM with your family, it will just be up to you exactly what that looks like in your family. This is our second year of using SCM curriculum for school with my dd9, ds7, and my dd 5 (who is doing FIAR as well). Their sister (2) likes to sit in and do “school” with everyone else, which sometimes works and sometimes doesn’t.
One of the things that I love most about CM style schooling is that you really do have so much control in deciding what fits for your family, and your schedule. Artist study, for us, is generally a few minutes discussing a painting. Music can be on in the background, throughout the week. Memory can be around the table together at breakfast, lunch or dinner.
Our schedule has been very strange lately, with a lot of traveling, and it’s not uncommon for us to be doing history/science/literature/poetry/memory or all of them, in the car on our way to wherever.
As for the others, setting a timer for 15-20 minutes could ensure that you are finishing school up in two to three hours, at most, out of your day.
Obviously you know your family, and what you are comfortable with best, but I just wanted to share that it IS possible, even with a lot of littles, strange schedules etc.
For what it’s worth, I think the fact that you are taking the time to consider your options and branch out from the way you were taught, shows that your son’s education is in good hands!
Welcome to the little years! It’s a time when nothing is done perfectly but you can do something in every area. I’ve had little ones my entire homeschool career. When I started homeschooling preschool with my oldest, who is now homeschooling high school and is 14 years old, I gave birth to her little brother during the school year. Since that time I’ve had lots more babies close together (currently pregnant with #9 and due in less than 10 weeks, also fit 3 miscarriages and a tubal pregnancy in so this is my 13th pregnancy in 15 years).
When you only have young ones (no independently reading children) be sure you’re using things that keep you all in the same books, like FIAR or a read aloud from SCM. We use Math U See and the nice thing is that you only teach new material approx. once a week. The rest of the time they’re practicing. So it really takes less of your time than many math curricula (for ex. Saxon has more than 140 new lessons in the Kindergarten level, and each year is similar, hundreds of new lessons that involve teacher, instead of the 30 in MUS that are spread over the whole year).
A few things to help you with the other kids when working with the oldest:
1. Don’t have a lot of toys/things they can get into. Store it in locked closets, attic, basement, wherever you can. You want no more toys available for them to dump and play with than they can pick up in 5 minutes. This one thing prevents so much work for you.
2. Create some bins of puzzles, preschool manipulatives, playdoh, etc. These are only given to the younger kids (or oldest too) during ‘table time’. You can be working with one child while the younger ones are in booster seats with seatbelts at the table, enjoying a tub of activities. Start small (10 minutes with one activity, if they drop it/toss it to the floor they sit in the seat and watch but you don’t get the activity back for them). They will quickly learn to play with what you give them instead of tossing it. Once they do that you can stretch out the time, have them at table time for 20 minutes, 30 minutes, 45 minutes (with 2-3 activity changes from the bin). This gives you a block of time virtually uninterrupted to work 1 on 1 with a child while the others are safely contained, enjoying themselves, and not destroying the house.
3. Trust the process. I love that SCM is so grounded in basics. Grammar for 1st grade? Nope. Spelling for a kindergartener? Nope. Scads of writing papers for a 2nd or 3rd grader? Nope. Just good books, hands on learning, time to play and enjoy nature.
4. For the reading aloud – break it up. Read half a chapter or a single chapter at breakfast, snack, lunch, and nap time. I still do this! Right now our meal time read aloud is Peter Pan (1 chapter per day), with a science topic related picture book over a snack time for my 5th and under crowd, and then we do history read aloud during the morning, often sandwiched between music/wiggle time and something unrelated like science or math.
Remember that they are always growing and changing. What seems impossible today will be easy to manage in 3 or 6 months. What works today will need tweaked next year. It’s ok. And in fact it is a very beautiful thing to watch them grow and develop.
I have 5 DC and struggle with getting it all done. 🙂 However, of all the homeschool methods and programs we’ve used, CM methods have been the easiest for me to keep up with. SCM’s curriculum guide is great because it combines your DC for as many subjects as possible. This saves us lots of time.
My older DC do some lessons on their own…I try to discuss independent readings with them or do some parts of their LA lesson together, but they have their own readings and math pages. Like Homeschooltraveler mentioned, the fine arts part of CM methods are so easy! It’s just 5-10 minutes per week for poetry, music, picture study, etc. I think a CM education is very balanced and time-efficient. There is no busy work and no one subject takes the main focus.
MUS is very easy to teach. We generally watch the videos together (most lessons are about 5 minutes). I do the problems orally with my DC for Alpha and my older DC mostly do the lessons on their own. We usually get math done in 30 minutes including all the interruptions (my younger DC can easily finish in 15 minutes).
We spend about 3 hours with school in the morning…that’s with 4 school aged DC and a constantly interrupting toddler! I usually spend another hour in the afternoons on school–This is mostly our enrichment type subjects, foreign languages, piano, and phonics. My older DC have independent readings and piano practice while I’m working on phonics with the middle DC. Sometimes we finish up with some handicrafts that take the rest of the afternoon. Other days we just do our morning studies and spend the afternoon at appointments, piano lessons, grocery shopping, etc. We try to get to our chores around meal times and on the weekends. I have 2 DC clean the kitchen and 2 DC clean the living & dining rooms after each meal. I try to keep the laundry going while they are doing this. I like to have our basement picked up at the end of the school day (it’s our schoolroom/family room/toy room). If we keep up with our mealtime chores, our house looks pretty decent.
Thank you all for the encouragement and advice! It really means so much! Everything is new and overwhelming starting out on this journey. I don’t know anyone else who uses CM style schooling so your responses are so appreciated!
I have 4, ages 2-8. I have found the CM method to fit well here. But, not everything gets done no matter how you homeschool little ones. 🙂
Thank you all! I have 3. 6yo first grader and two younger sibs (3.5 and 1.5yo) that require attn. during school time. My 3 yo is pretty cool. She joins for some of the family stuff (bible study, scripture memory, hymns, stories), but can play independently during the other subjects. However, my baby boy is very clingy and needy (obviously). I am finding it very hard to keep him occupied. Any ideas of specific activities/distractions for a 1.5 yo?
Akeana, I have a 1.5 YO as well. I’ve found that age to be very difficult to homeschool around! In my experience, once they get to be 2.5 or so, they start to be a bit more independent.
Some things we do are to have a high chair/booster seat for him. I give him something to play with…wooden puzzle, cars, other small toys, or an occasional snack/sippy cup. The booster seat usually gets a through a subject or two. After that, he plays on the floor with Little People or other toddler toys. Often I have my 5yo play with him since she doesn’t listen very well to read alouds anyway. 😉 If someone is done with their work, they are usually assigned to playing with him a.k.a. keeping him out of trouble.
Does he still nap? It seems like when I just had younger DC, we got so much accomplished during nap time! Now that I have 5 DC, we really need to take more time than that for school, but with just a 6yo, you shouldn’t need nearly as much time.
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