Homeschooling a Wide Age Range

© Ruth Marshall, 2006

The following article is the first part of a workshop my daughter and I presented at the Big Picture Christian Home Education Conference in Sydney, March 2006. It deals with some general principles to do with homeschooling – and particularly to do with homeschooling children across a wide range of ages. The second part of the workshop looked at the question “How do you do it?” and we have chosen not to reproduce it here, as much of the same information can be found on the “2006 Timetable” page of our website: http://wonder.riverwillow.com.au/home_education/2006.htm

I would like to begin by introducing my family…

My husband and I have 10 children, and we are currently expecting our 11^th. We have been homeschooling for about 16 years now, and every year has involved homeschooling with babies and toddlers, as well as the school-aged children.

We have some children who have taken to academic work like ducks to water – and others who try to avoid it like the plague! Some of our children are happy to work independently, while others don’t seem to be able to accomplish anything without talking to me all about it – usually while I am in the middle of teaching one of their younger brothers.

Iain, our oldest son, is 20. He is a hands-on learner rather than an academic: which is quite different from my own learning and teaching styles. As a result, his high school years were a bit of a trial to both him and me. He seemed to be allergic to anything remotely resembling school-work – and if he could possibly get out of doing something, he would! Now he is in his third year as an apprentice cabinetmaker, working for a company that makes hand-crafted timber furniture, and he is doing very well indeed. He takes great pride in his work, and recently gave us tremendous encouragement when he told us that when he first began his TAFE course, he was better prepared for the academic work than just about any other student in his class.

…So be encouraged: home schooling works, even when you think that it isn’t doing so!

Jennifer, aged 18, is next in line. Since completing her formal homeschooling, just over a year ago, she has continued to study independently at home. She studies New Testament Greek, Hebrew, German, and history, and keeps up her Latin studies informally. She is an invaluable help around the house, and has also been very much involved in teaching her two youngest brothers.

This year, we are officially homeschooling the next seven of our children. All three of our teenagers are pretty independent in following through their course of studies; our 10- and 12-year-olds are able to work independently in some areas but not others, while the 8- and 5-year-olds require far more face-to-face teaching.

Our 3-year-old is not officially “doing school”, though he thinks he is perfectly capable of doing just as well (if not better) than his 5-year-old brother. I would not generally consider teaching a 3-year-old to read; but with this one, it is easier to have him join in his brother’s kindergarten lessons than not!

When our older children were small, we tried various approaches to academic learning. Initially we used textbooks and workbooks, but for our family these proved to be dismal failures. We then settled happily into learning with living books, and had a marvellous time as we learned together as a family. However, things have changed over the years as our family logistics have changed.

Family-style learning is wonderful, for those who can do it, but for those of us with a wide range of ages, it can sometimes be impracticable. Not only are we dealing with several quite different personalities and learning styles, but we can be teaching children who are learning everything from higher level maths to those who are learning to count; and those who are writing serious essays, down to those who are sounding out their first words. Quite apart from the constant switching of gears, there are simply not enough hours in the day to be able to do it all – especially if we are also caring for nursing babies, or if we are potty-training, or having to cope with toddler joys and woes.

So what do we do, and how do we go about it?

Before getting into the practical, day-to-day suggestions, I think there are a few things we need to bear in mind. We will look at these in more detail as we go on, but some of the key things I would like to focus on are:

1. Remembering our goal
2. The need for flexibility
3. The need to keep things simple
4. Some of the problems and challenges that face us

1. Remembering our goal

What is your goal in educating your children at home?

The reason I ask is that sometimes we get so bogged down in everyday life – and everyday homeschooling – that we forget what we are trying to do, and stumble along in the dark for a while, completely uncertain as to which is the right way ahead.

If I asked you, personally, the question about goals, you might have to think about it for a little while, or you might come up with a list of several things. Some of these might be quite different from my goals, or from those of other homeschooling families you may know…

Ultimately though, I believe that all of us have the same basic goal: we are training our children for adulthood: and if we are Christian parents, our greatest desire is that our children will grow up to be adults who love and serve the Lord with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength.

This, perhaps, helps to put some of the other questions into perspective. How much independent work should we expect of our teenagers? What about reading aloud to our children, or having them read their own work? What kinds of extra-curricular activities should our children be involved in? These are just some of the questions we are faced with as our children mature, but if we remember that we are training our children for adulthood, this will go half-way to answering them.

We need to be careful that we don’t push our children into growing up too quickly; but at the same time that we don’t hold them back. It can be a bit of a fine line and require some discernment at times to know what is best to do; but with God’s help, our children will grow up strong and straight. I rather like Psalm 144:12, which talks of our sons being like “plants grown up in their youth” – and this is the picture I see here: young people who have been able to grow up without being twisted and bent by outside influences that they were once not mature enough to cope with – but who are now strong to face the world.

Also in connection with training our children for adulthood, I would like to remind us all that God is even more vitally interested in our children and their education than we are. He made them, and He has a purpose for each one of them – and He will see that that purpose is fulfilled, in spite of our own limitations.

When we first began teaching our children at home, one Bible passage I found particularly encouraging was from the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 6:31-33, where Jesus says,

Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed?
… for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.
But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.            [Emphasis mine]

Think about it for a moment: This verse is not just talking about food on our tables, or shirts and socks. It applies equally to things like physics or music lessons, or to work experience and career opportunities for our children. I am not saying here that we just sit back and let life take its course… We have a responsibility before God to provide for our families: and if we are homeschooling our children, that means seeking out the best resources available to us for the job. But it is a great comfort to realise that the education of our children never relies solely on us and on the resources we have available. If we seek God’s wisdom, and trust Him with the outcome, He will be faithful and supply all of our needs – physical, spiritual, and academic!

To give a personal example: in our family we did not have the resources to teach our oldest son woodwork: I was totally incapable of anything like that, and at the time, my husband was working in one of those 16-hour-a-day, 6-days-a-week jobs. But God knew the need, and He sent someone into our lives who worked as a carpenter and urgently needed assistance to finish a job. Iain was not his first choice, but the person he had asked was unavailable. Now, God knew all of this, and He had it perfectly planned. Iain was asked if he could help out for a day or two, and that led to a part-time job where he spent many hours over the next couple of years, gaining experience in the field in which he is now working.

2. The need for flexibility

This need for flexibility is something that applies to all homeschooling families, but perhaps more to those with a number of children.

A new baby will always affect your family schedule, no matter how well the schedule has worked before. I generally reckon that it takes a good twelve months after a baby is born to be able to get back into a normal routine. Some babies seem to settle into the family routine with no trouble. Other babies dictate the new schedule. (We have had both; our youngest son was a very high needs baby, and it was two years before I could even think of getting back on track! This, despite the fact that he was baby number 10, and we had already been homeschooling for 12 or 13 years, so I knew reasonably well what we were supposed to be doing!)… Amazingly enough, children seem to continue to learn despite the lack of routine!

Other things which may affect our homeschooling routines include adding a new student to the mix, sickness in the family, or a husband losing his job. If you happen to have more than one of these things happening at any one time, it can be particularly difficult. Preschoolers and toddlers, of course, are a fact of life for many of us, and will have times when their needs take priority over maths or Latin lessons, or whatever it happens to be.

No doubt we all see the need to be flexible – but here are some practical suggestions.

First: Remember, above all, that you are a family.

The needs of your family come before the need for your 12-year-old to learn about Hannibal in Roman history this week. If this means putting the history lesson to one side, while the 12-year-old looks after the baby so you can get some sleep, fine. The history lesson will wait!

If it means you have to drop all lessons for a time, following a family bereavement, do that. Your children need to be with you, and they need to be able to pray with you and talk with you.

If you are faced with long-term difficulties or disruptions for whatever reason – again, family comes first. But after the initial days or weeks, you will most likely find there is a need for something more – though you may not be capable of thinking clearly enough to know exactly what…

Following Hurricane Katrina, Ambleside Online (http://www.amblesideonline.org/), put together a free emergency learning plan for families in just these kinds of circumstances. This is what the authors of this plan have to say:

We know that there are more important things than missed schooling during a crisis. But sometimes in the midst of disasters, creating a small oasis of normalcy and continuity is very important. In the midst of such a disaster, grown ups with many urgent details on their minds cannot focus on thinking up things for children to do.”

Their plan may be found at http://www.amblesideonline.org/HELP.shtml. I believe it is good to be aware of it, as it – or something similar – could be a life-saver if you are faced with difficulties at some stage in the future.

Second – What about preschoolers and toddlers?

Sometimes our little ones can be in danger of being neglected while we are engrossed in the academic needs of their older brothers and sisters. This should not be the case, but sadly, it sometimes is. In our family, we have found various things to work at different times.

One of the solutions which worked for us for quite a while was to have the older children each take one full morning a week off their regular lessons to spend time with their younger siblings. I provided them with a list of activities, and they simply worked through the list while I was busy with the other children. If this sounds like something that would work for you, I have the plan of what we did on my preschool page: http://wonder.riverwillow.com.au/home_education/preschool.htm

At other times, the older children have taken it in turns to spend half an hour or so each day with the little ones. Again, they would generally have a specific focus for this time – and I would try to have this fit in with the older child’s own interests. One would spend the time playing alphabet games; another would read stories, or do counting activities. Others would spend their half hour playing in the garden with them, burning off some of their own excess energy in the process.

There is so much that our older children have taught their younger brothers over the years: the alphabet, colours, numbers (in several different languages!), and I don’t know how many nursery rhymes. They have had a marvellous time reminiscing over their own preschool and kindergarten days as they have explained the instructions for the little boys’ Rod and Staff preschool workbook pages. They have built Cuisenaire towers and made designs with pattern blocks. They have taught little brothers to play chess. They have spent hours on end reading to them, or playing classical music or bagpipe CDs for them, as well as more traditional children’s songs.

Remember that if you include your older children in the teaching, you are not wasting their time by taking them away from their own study. Instead, you are providing them with invaluable opportunities to reinforce their own learning, as well as to practice the teaching skills they will need as tomorrow’s parents, teachers, business managers, parliamentarians, or in whatever sphere the Lord plans for them to work.

Another suggestion is to make sure you include your preschoolers in your own teaching of their older siblings. If you are reading aloud, include the toddler. If you happen to be studying astronomy or Greek history, let him listen in, if he wants – and encourage him to join in the activities. Some children will not be interested. Others will lap it up. Others again will seem disinterested, but you discover weeks later that they have taken in far more than you ever realised. Not only do they feel very much part of the family this way, but they are absorbing an attitude to learning that will stand them in good stead for the rest of their lives.

Third, be flexible in your requirements.

Do not be bound by the curriculum – even if it happens to be one you wrote yourself!

Written assignments do not always have to be written – they can be done orally.

Acting out the events learned about in a history chapter may take the place of answering questions or giving narrations. (A narration is simply having your child tell back to you what his or her lesson was about). We do not use a lot of acting in our home school, but on a couple of recent occasions when our younger boys have performed plays of this sort, I have been amazed at the wealth of detail they have gone into, to recreate the costumes of the period…something we would never have got with just a straight narration, or even with drawings they may have made!

Second-hand narrations.
One of my favourite homeschooling memories relates to an assignment I gave my 13-year-old son. He was reading a book which he was supposed to narrate to me after each chapter. For some reason there did not appear to have been many of these narrations, though I knew he was a fair way on in the book. Anyway, one meal time, one of his younger brothers made a comment about the book. When I asked the younger boy about it, he proceeded to tell me all about the events that took place. It turned out that my older son had entertained his younger brothers with an ongoing narrative of the story in bed at nights, when they were all supposed to be going to sleep!
…At that point, I decided that if my younger son’s account was so vivid, his brother’s telling of the story must have been riveting; and though I was sorry to have missed it, on this occasion I was happy to accept the second-hand narration as a fulfilment of my original requirement.

3. The need to keep things simple

I am not sure about you, but if I try to do too much, I go into overload, and then everything collapses in a heap around me! This applies to the number of activities we are involved in, the number of books I am reading aloud at any one time, the number of subjects I am trying to teach each day, and various other things.

For me, if something is not as simple as possible, then it often doesn’t work! There seems to be a constant need to simplify. Here are some areas where simplifying may help:

Simplify your schedule. You may find you need to cut back on some of your extra-curricular activities, or cut out one of the languages you are trying to study. You may need to put music or art lessons to one side for the time being. Some of these things you will be able to pick up again later if they are important – and if they are not, you will come to see that over time.

Simplify your meal planning and your chore roster. In our house we find it works best to have the children do things in age order wherever possible. This applies to everything from which one is rostered to cook the evening meal, to which of the boys checks the letter-box on any given day of the week.

Simplify your approach to academics. There are various different ways you can do this: each approach has its own advantages and disadvantages, and each family must decide for themselves which approach to take. You may find that one of these approaches works for you one year but not the next, and that’s fine, too.

What are some of these approaches?

Along the same lines, if a child is capable of doing something for himself, do not do it for him. This applies to everything from dressing himself or picking up his own toys, to reading his own lesson-books and drawing his own maps. It may take longer, but it’s for his own benefit!

Remember: this is all about our children’s education and training – not our own, however much some of us might enjoy it!

One of the best homeschooling articles I have ever read is by a lady called Colette Longo, and is called “Ten Ways to Simplify Homeschooling”. Colette has a wonderful gift of being able to explain clearly and concisely what other people take whole books to say! Her article may be found here: [http://wonder.riverwillow.com.au/home_education/ten_ways_to_simplify.htm]

4. Problems & Challenges

I am sure we each face our own challenges in homeschooling our children, but there are just three I would like to look at briefly. Whether my solutions are likely to fit your family, I cannot say; but at least you can have the comfort of knowing that if you face these things, you are not alone!

1. Perhaps one that is more likely to occur in larger families is that of children who fall through the cracks.

Sadly, we have had this happen on a couple of occasions, usually when I have been preoccupied with a new baby. A couple of my children are world masters in the art of wriggling out from under my nose – and calculate on the fact that once they are out of my sight, they will most likely be out of mind, as well!

The comforting thing is that if this happens, it is generally not the end of the world, and you will more likely than not get a second chance.

This year, for instance, I made the rather startling discovery that my 8-year-old was really struggling with his reading. It was startling because I had taught him to read with phonics, and I thought he had been reading reasonably well for the past year or so. However, this son was one who “missed out” at the age when I would normally make reading instruction and practice a priority. At the time we had a young baby who required much more of my time and attention than some of his siblings, and my not-so-eager phonics student would take advantage of the fact that I was preoccupied. Now we are doing some necessary back-tracking, and his reading has picked up tremendously in a matter of weeks. He still rarely reads for pleasure, but he is beginning to show signs of enjoying books much more than only a few weeks ago.

2. Another challenge – Perhaps you are faced with your very first home-grown teenager – or the prospect of having one very soon? We have all heard horror stories of what teenagers can be like, and the prospect of having one of our own terrifies us. Will our own teenager turn out like that? How will we cope with the higher academic expectations? …And then there is the whole realisation that time is running out: how will we ever teach our son or daughter everything they need to learn before they leave home?

Having had five teenagers in our family very recently, please let me assure you that there is really no need to panic!

When your oldest son or daughter reaches the age of 13, they don’t suddenly develop horns or an extra head – they are still Jessica…or Daniel…or Martin…or Kate…or whatever the names of your or my children happen to be. You know your own child, and he or she isn’t going to become a stranger overnight.

Even the academic needs of young teenagers don’t change a lot to begin with – you can just go on and do the next thing – and if you have trained them well, and choose the right materials, they will be able to cope with high school education reasonably independently, without you needing to worry too much about the courses you never understood at school! (If those courses do prove to be necessary and they become a problem for either of you, remember Matthew 6:31-33. Your heavenly Father knows all of your needs: and if you place them in His hands, He will show you the solution – whether it be a different textbook, or a human resource, or some other answer altogether.)

Perhaps my one biggest challenge as a homeschooling mother is to teach my children to teach themselves, and then to get out of their way.

The teen years are the time when our children need to take on ownership of their own education – if they’ve not already done so.

What do I mean by that?

Taking ownership of their own education involves them becoming responsible for their own learning, for learning how to use their time wisely and well, and for doing their work to the very best of their ability – without you being the driving force behind this. It is not something that you would necessarily expect to happen overnight, and with some students it happens much later than with others; but it will happen sooner or later: it is all a part of growing up.

It also involves giving our teenagers much more say in what and how they study. If it is possible for you to do so, allow them some choice in the textbooks they will be using.
If your son finds English grammar rules stupid – have him learn Latin or New Testament Greek instead: he will learn the rules in a context where they make far more sense, and he’ll have the added bonus of broadening his English vocabulary – and perhaps even be able to read the New Testament for himself in its original language!
If your daughter baulks at the English literature selection you have made for her, discuss it together, and if her reasons are valid ones, allow her to make an alternative suggestion.
If your 15-year-old is itching to learn Maori or Russian – try and find resources so he can study it independently.

The other thing to remember with teenagers is that they need you just as much as your two-year-old does. If you don’t spend the time with them and talk to them, they are likely to go looking elsewhere for people who will – and that can be the beginning of difficult times and heartaches. But if you do, your teenage children can be some of the most delightful people of your acquaintance.

3. Finally, what do you do when you are at the end of your tether? The baby is screaming, the preschoolers are making soup with the laundry detergent, the 6-year-old has forgotten every phonics rule you ever taught him, the 10-year-old swears he has never learned the first thing about multiplying two-digit numbers – and somebody knocks at the door trying to sell something and won’t take no for an answer. Everyone is out of sorts, and your dearest wish is to put your children into school today.

I suggest that first of all, you pray about it, and secondly you might follow the advice my husband used to give me years ago – Have a “Children Day”. In other words, skip the rest of the schedule and do something quite different – but do it together. Take a picnic to the park; or if it’s raining, sit down and sing silly songs together; have a Dr Seuss recital and make green eggs and ham – or just find a new story book that you have somehow managed to keep out of the clutches of your children, and begin reading to everyone. Just enjoy being together, and before long, you will be in a much better mood, and so will your children!

Of course, if being at the end of your tether is a constant state, rather than just the occasional day – then I think something more is required than taking an occasional day off.

Remember that God commanded parents to train their children – and He would never have commanded you to do something that was totally impossible – nor did He intend it to be the hugest burden you have ever had to carry.

If this is where you are at the moment, I pray that this article might be an encouragement to you; and that God would show you very clearly His will for you and for your family.

[With many thanks to my daughter Jennifer for her help with the workshop, and for her editorial assistance!]

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