Teaching Tots- Setting Up Your Homeschool

Setting up a home school is not just about having activities, children need a routine.  There are a number of things to consider when building a homeschooling routine.  How much time do you have to devote to homeschooling?  How long is your kid’s attention span?  What are your (or your child’s) other obligations?

This post will go through strategies for you to be successful in your homeschooling endeavors regardless of how much time or money you have to devote to your child’s education.  Please remember, not all of these tips or suggestions will work for you and your family.  Take what you need and leave the rest.

These are unprecedented times.  If you are trying to homeschool while working full time, know that you are doing a good job, I’m just here trying to make it easier on you.  Feel free to contact me if you need help.

How Long is the Homeschool Day?

At school, teachers spend most of their time trying to direct attention and going over class rules.  They really only get to around 15 minutes of actual instruction in per hour.  

What does this mean for you?  Your child doesn’t need to homeschool for 6-8 hours a day to stay on track.  In fact, trying to teach a young child for that long at home can be damaging.

Your elementary-aged child only needs to work on school work for between 2 and 4 hours a day, and not all of it needs to be supervised by you.  Isn’t that great?  

You don’t need to sit down and work straight through for those 2-4 hours a day either.  In fact, you should break it up into 15-30 minute segments and move on to the next subject when the frustration gets too high.

I am for 2 hours of actual school work a day, broken into 15-minute segments spaced throughout the day.  Usually, we do more than that, but the extra time is always child-directed.  If we sit down to read for 15 minutes, and the kid gets really into the book and reads for an hour, that is their choice– we already did the 15 minutes I aimed for. 

The truth is children want to learn.  Usually, if you get them started on a task, they will work longer than anticipated.  But be careful, children of this age still need to play.  So if they approach 4 hours of work, consider starting with any remaining subjects the next day.

Should You Follow the School Calendar?

I am a huge advocate for year-round schooling.  Working all year prevents the summer slide and gives you flexibility.

When you follow the school schedule, you still have to keep pace with them and you are stuck taking vacations at the same time as the rest of the world.  There is no flexibility and no forgiveness.

But with a year-round schedule, you can take a day off because no one slept last night.  Or you can just decide Fridays are free days.  You can take vacations whenever you want, and you can actually stop and spend a week just recovering from the flu.  It takes the pressure off trying to keep up and it instills the idea that learning is an all the time thing, not just a “school year” thing.  

So I recommend schooling at least every workday.  Vacations should be something special the whole family plans or something necessary for health/ sanity reasons.  Make homeschooling part of the routine.

Routine vs. Schedule

So now you know how long you should be homeschooling each day, and you have decided what your school year looks like, so it’s time to make a schedule!  

Or is it?

I recommend not making a schedule.  Instead, cultivate a routine.  

Schedules are too rigid for most people to reliably follow.  Hitting activities at specific times is very difficult.  But going over the calendar and doing a writing drill while you are making breakfast is an easier goal to hit.  

Sit down and think about your day.  What are the times where you could work with your child for 15 minutes?  When can you give them 50% attention (like while you cook, clean, or have routine tasks for work)?  These are all times you could layer in school tasks.

Now that you have those times identified, count them.  Do you have enough 15-minute pockets of time?  You need 8.  If you don’t have them, add some on to meal and snack times.  Got them now?  Great!  Next, we need to figure out what you are going to teach when.

What should you teach when?

Okay, you now know when you are going to teach, but what should you teach thorough the day?  

There are a few things you should teach every day: reading, writing, basic pattern recognition/ math, and life skills.  Science and history can alternate days if you need to.  And then there are the electives that you want to teach.

There are 40 “class” times a week.  Assume 5 of them are just not going to happen for whatever reason (“MOM! Jason hit me!”).  No big deal, they will still get the learning in,  So now we are down to 35 classes.  

The first class every day should be a quick going over of the calendar.  The calendar involves reading a chart, counting to the day, learning the days of the week, talking about the weather (including temperature), talking about the letter/ word/ number of the day, and practicing writing the date out (Tuesday, September 1st, 2020).  You can spend 15 minutes in the morning every day on this.

So now we are down to 30 classes.  5 on reading, 5 on writing, 5 on math, and suddenly there are only 15 classes left.  You can get away with doing two or three on science and history a week, but let’s say you do 5 on science and 5 on history.  

Now you only have 5 classes a week left.  What should you do with those?  Whatever the child wants!  Still consider it structured time, but let your child choose what they want to practice more.  Are they into science?  Let them build something specific with legos or run an experiment.  Into history?  Throw on the history channel and then help them look up their favorite historical figures.  Want to learn music?  Consider that practice time.  Maybe keep a cup of popsicle sticks with fun activities on them and let the kid pick one.

Giving children a choice and some agency over their education is the easiest way to keep them engaged. Let them choose what they want to do each day.  You should not decide on daily tasks ahead of time.

You don’t have to do everything every day

There are certain classes you should do every day, and those points in the routine should be rigid.  You should go over the calendar in the morning, and you should read every day.  We read at dinner every day.  The first person finished eating starts the book, and it gets passed around as people finish.  Everyone reads at least a page, and most read a chapter or two.  But reading and the calendar are the only things you should aim to do every day.

I made a chart of everything that needs to get done in a week (Get yours here).  Then I laminated it and use it every week to cross off when we get each task done.  At the end of the week, everything needs to be crossed off.  Using this approach gives children more agency in controlling their education.  In turn that helps them get everything done without feeling like it is an obligation.  

This technique works particularly well for children with learning disabilities and very busy families.  Knowing you don’t have to hit history every day or do a writing task every day is relieving.

Just a note, if you start an activity and the kiddo keeps at it for 2 hours, you should offer the topic again, but not be concerned if they don’t work super hard on it the rest of the week.  This only applies to active learning.  Watching a documentary does not count.

Combine Domains to Keep Things Interesting

Not every “lesson” has to be about only one thing.  In fact, the best lessons combine multiple facets.  You could do a lesson on bees where you learn about how bees dance to communicate.  Then you could create a language where different dances mean different things and the children have to communicate or play a game through dance.  You could learn how bills become law and then write stories about bills becoming laws. 

A single lesson may involve reading, writing, and learning about a historical event or scientific concept.  By tying things together, children learn that all knowledge can be applied to any problem, while also practicing things they need to learn.

Remember to play to your children’s strengths

Children go through phases.  Sometimes they are really into jumping, other times they need to pour everything.  Maybe they want to count and order objects, or they are suddenly really into reading.

Whatever phase your child is in, encourage it by using those motions/ interests in as many activities as you can.  And always incorporate motion wherever possible.  Kids need to move.

Everything can be a game at this age.

Work Smart, Not Hard

Just about every lesson can be scaffolded to meet the needs of a child.  What does that mean?  You could use the same activity for your 1st grader and your 4-year-old.  Focus on activities they can both work on at the same time.

For example, your older child needs to practice writing, and your prewriting child needs to practice mimicking.  Set your older child up at the whiteboard/ window with a dry erase marker and have them write out a list of sight words.  Give them a minute head start.  Then hand your younger child a dry paintbrush and have them “paint” over their sibling’s lines.  The younger child is working on dexterity and learning to write, while the older one is learning sight words and practicing their handwriting. 

Teach to the older child and adjust for the younger ones.  This works for most activities, and it relieves some of your burden.  Just be sure you pay attention to what the younger child needs and make sure to provide it.

Preparation is the key to success

At the beginning of each week, you should take a moment to think about what strides you want to make in each class.  Write down goals and pat yourself on the back if you get anywhere close to them.  You should have monthly and yearly goals as well.  These goals help you know if you are on track and they let you monitor progress.  (Join my mailing list for the free planning bundle)

Once you know your goals, you can plan out some lessons for the week.  That way when those precious 15 minutes come around you aren’t wasting time scrambling for an idea.  Keep a list (or a box of cards/ popsicle sticks) of lessons that don’t require prep.  Keep another list of activities that do require prep and make sure you have a few of these activities on hand so you can pull them out when you need to.

For younger children, you may want to pre-decide what lessons you are specifically going to do each week and give them a choice of which ones they want to do each day.  You can keep these lessons on cards or popsicle sticks, and when the activity is done move it into a “done” box or cup so they can see how much guided work is left in the week. 

Also, consider having a few independent learning activities laid out with the toys.  Kids will gravitate towards these things and may work on them and play with them beyond homeschooling time.  Don’t lay out more than 3 activities at the same time, and make sure they all support your big weekly goal.  Rotate through such activities frequently so the kiddos don’t get bored.

Having a clean and organized play space will help your tot do the work they need to.  I know keeping a clean playspace is a monumental task, but if you include the little one in keeping it clean, it can become manageable.  Feel free to use one of their 15 minute lesson times to clean the space at the end of the day if you need to.  It will help teach responsibility and accountability. 

To Sum Up

You don’t actually need to, nor should you, try to mimic the standard school day.  A lot more can get done in small lessons spaced throughout the day then in a 2-hour block of straight schooling.  

Build schooling into a routine instead of a schedule and teach the way your child learns– through play.  Track your child’s learning through weekly and monthly goals.

You can do this!  

Let me know in the comments below what you are most nervous about teaching or the biggest struggle you are having setting up your home school.  Don’t forget to like and subscribe and join my email list for more.

Related Posts