Managing the Multiples: Home Schooling a Large Family of All Different Ages
By Contributing Writer, Jennifer Ross
We have 11 children, 2 have graduated, 6 are “doing school,” and 3 are just babies still. What’s a home educating Mother to do? Hint: Enlist help from the older ones.
Well actually, our oldest son is on his own now, but our oldest (and graduated) daughter is here at home, training to be a homemaker someday. She has volunteered to help out with her 5 and 6 year old brothers, which has been more than a blessing. She takes care of the day-to-day teaching, coming to me if problems or questions arise, and I am still just a few feet away to oversee all that goes on, ensuring they are still receiving a good education.
And let me tell you, she is quite the teacher! Now practically speaking, here is a bit how our day looks: we start our morning by getting everyone dressed and ready for the day, I get my husband off to work by making his breakfast and a lunch to take with him, prepare and eat breakfast with everyone else, then clean up and get the morning chores done.
After that we all sit in the living room and read 5 chapters of the Bible. We have 5 children that can read, so they each read one chapter. This is their “read aloud” time where I can correct mispronunciation of words, train on how to read aloud clearly so others can get something from it (“No need to rush, it’s not a contest boys!” I find myself saying to my sons), and even get in some Bible study!
When we’re done with that, we pray for our day, and then out come the baskets of school books. My oldest daughter takes her two ”students” up to our loft for their school work while the rest of us meet around our kitchen table in the dining room. I can see and hear her and my 2 young sons from where I am, and again, if she needs anything, I’m right there to help out.
The youngest in our family, the babies (ages 3 and under) play nearby in the same room. Sometimes we’ll give them crayons and paper, sometimes a few toys, but most of the time they are content to sit with the rest of us and watch what is going on.
When lunch time comes, we eat, clean up, do some more household chores and put the 4 youngest down for a nap. During nap time the other children finish up the rest of their school work and do their individual Bible reading.
It’s been working out well so far and having my oldest daughter teaching the 2 youngest school aged children is a blessing not only for me, but for her as well. She is learning what I never learned nor what she would ever learn in a public high school. She is experiencing the joy of teaching a child how to read and write, and basic math skills.
When the day comes that she has a family of her own, she will be prepared when her own children reach school age. Home educating with a large family can be challenging, but it is not impossible. Set up a simple routine and have the older children help out with the younger ones. It will bless the entire family!
Tags: home schooling, maidens, parenting
It was great to read that you all read out of the bible every day. We read from the children’s bible and I have been trying to firgure out if we are ready to sit for the New King James translations that we have. When we do our Advent reading it’s from the NKJ so they may be ready, but I know they enjoy the other one a lot. Do you have any ideas on how to transition? Maybe when we get through it again. It generally takes less than or about a year to do since we read a story every night. Any ways, I like the idea and have been considering ways to transition our family of four to that just rescently. Our kids know the stories and I think they are ready for more information in there. In fact a funny thing, just the other day we were talking about geneology and I had our son read the first chapter in Matthew. He, like anyone reading neams in the bible for the first time, seemed to be uninterested. My thought was to write the names down so they could see what we were doing. I told them, it’s a family tree. Who’s do you suppose it is? And we went on through all the names there and made special note of the ladies names as well. When we got to the end we talked about it a little more and then shared what we had learned. It was a good thing and I am thankful for God’s inspired word. Just trying to learn when it’s best to make our transition since the NKJ is not where we started. Have a blessed day and thank you for posting your rutine with us. Sincerely, Mommy of two growing blessings & so much more!
What a great idea to write the names in your own family!! As for transitioning, anytime is a good time. What are the ages of your children?
They do get a lot out of reading, even if it looks like some of it just goes over their heads. Recently (since I wrote this) we’ve been reading throught the same book everyday, over and over. 1John specifically, and with it being 5 chapters long, it works perfectly. But I can’t believe how much we’ve picked up! And when our Pastor pulled a few verses from it last Sunday, we were all well familiar with what he was reading!!
There’s lots of ways to incorporate the Bible into your day. Thanks for writing!! And for that great idea about the names!!
Our two are seven and five. How do your children do reading the same thing each day? I hadn’t thought of that, but I did finish up the book of Matthew today. They really enjoyed reading about when Jesus rose from the grave. *big smile* In their Rod and Staff books they are reading bible stories as well. It’s a blessing to have the work books to ask questions that I may not be asking to get them to learn to study stories they know, I like that. *smile* I may try being more consistant with my morning reading in the NKJ and then reading the picture bible at night. To ease the transition for us since we did start this way. *smile* Have a lovely day and thank you so very much for making time to reply to my comment. Sincerely, Mommy of two growing blessings & so much more!
Our family, children included, all enjoy reading the same thing each day. We learn so much! We just went form 1 John to James today, so we’ll be reading that for the next week or so. Great books!! You sound like you’re doing a wonderful job with your children! There are a lot of ways to teach the Bible to our children.
Keep up the good work for our LORD!!
Thank you for making the time to share your ideas and experience with another momma comming down the path. I really appriciate your encouraging words as well. Thank you for that. Have a lovely weekend. Sincerely, Mommy of two growing blessings & so much more!
Oh, I wanted to ask that you pray for us. In two weeks we will have a week long focus on Mission Mindedness that I got for free from Harvest Ministry dot org. It will be a good way to remind our children that mission work is done EVERYWHERE. *big smile* This particular study takes kids to Africa, Asia, Eroup, India, and Latin America so a bit of geography mixed in there and I hope to do some fun things with our menu as well. *smile* I thank you for your prayers as we prepare and work our way through mission work overseas. Sincerely, -me- *smile*
I think many smaller families miss out on the blessings that come with large families. They learn the focus isn’t always on them and they learn to share and to give. Still, with a large family comes the sometimes burden of older daughters becoming their mother’s helpers to the point that much of the household duties fall to them just to keep the family running smoothly. A friend of mine has seven children. She home schooled all of them. Her eldest, a girl, grew weary of her duties and of never having time for herself. She made a promise that she’d never have children of her own. She felt that she had raised six already. She married at the age of 18 and 15 years later, she and her husband still have no children. Don’t get me wrong. They’re happily married despite having married so young, however, moving from home and avoiding her domestic responsibilities was definitely an incentive for her to marry young.
My question to you is how do you know how much responsibility to place upon your older daughters? Where do you draw the line between asking for their help (because as a family unit, everyone should pitch in and do their share) and overburdening them with your motherly tasks? Does it depend on the personality of each girl? For example, from the way you’ve described your eldest daughter, it sounds like she derives a great deal of happiness and joy teaching her younger brothers and sisters yet what if her younger sisters felt differently and didn’t seek as much responsibility? What approach would you take with them? Please understand I’m not being judgmental. I’m simply curious because I’ve seen what has transpired with my friend’s daughter and wondered how other young girls feel in similar situations.
Have a blessed day.
Hi Ellie!
GREAT question! And I thought I would just ask my oldest daughter how she would answer this, so I’ll just let her have at the keyboard
“Mom sees homeschooling/homemaking as her responsibility, and doesn’t push it on us like I’ve seen other moms do. She never asks for our help unless she really needs it. We take turns cooking meals, and she assigns chores to each of us, and rotates them often so that we can learn how to do all kinds of housework properly, but doesn’t overwhelm us with a huge list of chores that we have to do constantly. She cares for the babies herself, unless we want to help. She didn’t want to be like the many moms we know who have their daughters always changing diapers, and watching the baby,etc, as if it where theirs, while she did whatever she wanted.
After I graduated I asked her if I could teach my younger brother. It was originally her idea, but it was something I wanted to do to help her, and wasn’t forced on me in any way. If my younger sisters were finished with school, and didn’t want to help teach the younger children, Mom would be completely fine with that.
Right now, I can run the house as well as Mom, I can cook anything, I can teach, and can take care of children. And I *enjoy* doing all of that. If I had been raised to have to take care of my Mom’s babies, do lots of chores, and teach younger siblings, as if I were their mom, I would have been overwhelmed, and I wouldn’t have enjoyed doing any of that, even though I would have known how.”
Wow!! She said it *much* better than I ever would. I would elaborate, but she answered so well, there’s nothing she didn’t cover (Thanks Krissy!!)
Ellie, you addressed an issue that isn’t discussed much, so thank you for asking!!!
Jennifer
THANK YOU for sharing this!! It is so helpful to get a picture of how this works in a “healthy” home.
Jennifer, thanks to you and your daughter for taking the time to answer my questions. I was afraid that my comments would be perceived as offensive and they were not intended that way at all!
It’s just that I’ve honestly wondered if my friend’s child is truly happy with her decision not to have children. I don’t want her to have regrets one day. Still, she seems pretty happy. Guess she’s just wired differently.
Thanks again!
What a blessing to have a daughter that has as helpful heart. I hope our daughter has the desire to help out in any way she can as she does now, when she is older and knows how to run a household. It’s something I delicately try to guide so she knows she can play as well as help Daddy and Mommy. I try to do the same thing with our son. Sometimes there are chores that must be done and we need their help so we also tell them that we don’t always like what we need to do but it still needs to be done. If they don’t want to help it’s usually because they are just a bit grumpy that moment or they are involved in something else. They are seven and five and the only chore I have heard them complain about is feeding the indoor cat and dog. They willingly vaccume their rooms, take out the bathroom garbages, feed and take care of the chickens and even pull weeds from time to time. *smile* Thus I say I hope they continue to have helpful hearts. *big smile* Have a lovely day and thank you for giving your daughter the keyboard for a moment, it was a blessing to read. Sincerely, Mommy of two growing blessings & so much more!
I love the picture I have in my mind after having read this post. I wish it could have been my family… even though I only had 3 daughters. I loved having children and every Fall I experienced a couple weeks of the blues after they left for the Government School. I finally realized it was because they weren’t in the home w/me. You homeschooling Moms are so fortunate. I do know how frustrating it can be at times and I do know that all the children do not embrace the experience. However; you know you are doing the best you can w/what God has entrusted you with and there are hundreds of children in the Gov. schools who wish they could be homeschooled.
Great Post, and so encouraging to read how you are making this work. The word that came to mind when I read your post was “peaceful”. I think it is really important to take time to read the Bible together and to sit down together for meals during the day.
Thanks Molly, it is peaceful. However, we are also using this time to remind our little ones how to sit still (church training)
So, mostly it’s peaceful, sometimes the toddlers want to hop up and be noisy though, so there is usually someone getting up and bringing them back again
Blessings!!
Thank you, Jennifer’s Daughter! Outstanding! This fits so well with Stephani’s post today too.
I am trying something similar this year. My 17 yr old daughter, who is a senior this year, is teaching Apologia General Science to her 8th grade sister and brother. They listen to the book on CD, she pauses it periodically to go over what it is saying, and they do the study guides and tests together.
Her relationship with this brother needed some work and while I wasn’t sure if this would work, it has gone just beautifully. They are all enjoying it so much!