Chapter 4: The Daily Grind

Hi there homeschooling parents! As promised here is another chapter of 

I DON’T KNOW HOW YOU DO IT!

How to homeschool your young children without losing your mind

(And if you enjoy my writing, how about popping over to the "Books" page above? You might be interested in reading one of my novels for free! I'll be sharing the first few chapters of this book over the next while but the whole (short) book will be available on Amazon in September)

Chapter 3: Curriculum isn't quite ready so it will need to wait for another day. So here is 

Chapter 4: The Daily Grind

If homeschooling is going to work for you, you will have to be proactive about setting up your days to make that happen. I think the most important principle when it comes to what happens daily is this:

A little every day adds up to a lot.

Teaching young children to read or write is an amazing thing. You sit with them for ten minutes a day, sometimes more, sometimes less. One day you are showing them “a” and next thing they are spelling out words. Little by little, it starts to sink in. It’s incredible to watch and I feel so privileged to have witnessed that four times over.

My son just finished a phonics program. I remember when he began it at the start of his Grade 1 year. On the first day he wrote cat and pat and sat. I skipped to the back of the book and wondered if he would really be spelling skunk and twist and stick in a few short months. All it took was a few minutes a day and we got there. If you establish a routine where your children do just a little of something every day, or most days, they will amaze you with what they learn over the months and years.

Sometimes the “little” that ends up happening in a day feels like too little. There are not many areas of homeschooling where my teaching experience has helped me, but this is one of them. Let me tell you a secret: children at school do not sit at their little kid-sized desks for hours each day working, working, working. Maybe they did in Little House on the Prairie but those must have been a different kind of kids! It takes time for a teacher to get them settled, to get their books out, to check their homework. Then someone needs to go to the toilet and someone is pulling someone else’s hair. Finally the worksheet is handed out and they begin, and when some have finished someone is only just realising that he doesn’t have a pencil. Your ten minutes sitting with your child reading or doing sums might be as productive in terms of learning as an hour in a classroom – maybe even two or three!

Consider this list of things that in my experience can be learned in 5 – 10 minutes a day over a year or two:

• Reading
• Maths facts
• Handwriting - both the initial learning to write and cursive
• Spelling
• A second language
• Drawing skills

Homeschooling happens in a HOME. That means that there is laundry and cooking and postmen at the door happening at the same time as school. The dog will bark and the cat will puke on the floor. The baby will cry and the dishwasher will need to be unpacked. A totally fascinating truck will be resurfacing the road outside and there will be no way to drag your five-year-old son away from the window without causing a meltdown. For years the arrival of the rubbish truck outside our home caused an immediate halt to all educational activities that happened to be in progress at the time. Life is happening all the time; home is not, and by its very nature cannot be an environment dedicated to formal education. If I expect to have five hours of dedicated school time where I am not distracted by the other things that need to happen in my home, I will only be frustrated.

So should you make lists? Should you have weekly goals that take priority over everything else? When your sister is sick and needs you to take care of her baby do you turn her down because you must do schoolwork?

This is my advice: Plan your year, your term, your week and your days however you want to. Make lists and schedules if that is what makes you feel in control. But leave room. Leave LOTS of room. Expect interruptions and disruptions and don’t be put out by them. If you are using a boxed curriculum schedule, don’t let it rule you. You can leave some books for next year, or for the holidays.

An example of the (very) flexible schedule that works for me at the moment:

About 8.30 am: All three do Maths and one other workbook such as phonics, handwriting, Afrikaans or vocabulary. I do a spelling programme with my middle son which takes about ten minutes. Youngest needs breaks every five minutes so he is going from the desk to the garden and back again all the time. He is also constantly hungry (especially during Maths) so he is regularly fetching carrots and hunks of cucumber. My oldest child at home is reading a book about materials engineering so he reads a chapter, or practices his trumpet. If someone finishes early, he can play a Maths game or carry on learning the map of Europe using an online game.

10am: We watch a ten-minute Bible Project video and talk about it. Kids read aloud to Mom. Youngest reads his readers, middle one reads a bit of the Bible or our read-aloud. Oldest reads Afrikaans library books. (Sometimes!) Mom reads aloud, a chapter or two of a History or Science book and whatever novel we are reading. The youngest is free to go and play if he has by now lost his energy for keeping still and can’t follow. Afterwards we might search YouTube for a video about whatever we have been reading.

11.00: Everyone back at the table (after a snack break) for more formal work like Afrikaans, creative writing or Science. Or not. Sometimes we have gym or our homeschool group.

12.00: Let’s do some Art! Where are the paints? Okay, after you make yourself a sandwich. Yes, you may hammer some pieces of wood together instead.

1.00: We are done. Unless we are not, in which case we carry on or leave it for tomorrow. 

Afternoon: Chores, playdates with friends, visits to the Kids Gym we have joined, the occasional reluctant trip to do errands with Mom, walking the dog. And more playdates with friends.

Evening: Catch up whoever didn’t read aloud, maybe to Dad. Show Dad the Maths worksheet/story/picture of the day.

This is what is working for us at the moment. There were times when this would not have worked for me. When I had small babies, things were different. When I had a three-year-old who thought my sitting down to read to the others meant I was rejecting him, and chose that time to climb all over me and wail, things were different. When we were doing renovations to our house and there were angle grinders deafening us all morning, things were different.  Just as you figure out a way to do things, something will probably change. And that’s okay.

And don’t forget that your homeschool “schedule”, if you have one, is just one part of your “home” schedule. It is very important, but not more important than other things that will crop up. It may sound corny but it’s still true: the more flexible you are, the less likely it is that you break when something hits you.

Remember:

• A little every day adds up to a lot
• Work out a flexible schedule. Leave room in it. LOTS OF ROOM
• Expect to change it when life changes
• School is important but not always the most important thing in a day