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When trying to juggle several children of varying ages, it can be great to find subjects where we combine teaching time, but still maintain a high quality education for our children. Here is how we have done Science in our house. Our children are ages 16, 8, 6 and 1. To keep them on appropriate grade levels, we use the Apologia curriculum (Jay Wile) for our oldest daughter. For the past three years she has covered: Physical Science, Biology, and Chemistry. Every other week she does all the reading, studying and writing required on the High school level for her course. Then, once every two weeks, we host a co-op here in our home where teens get together just for the experiments. The younger girls watch and enjoy the experiments, but are not expected to do any other work from that curriculum.

For our 8 year old and 6 year old, we are using the Botany book, now being published through Apologia. I read the text book out loud with them. As we are reading, I pause and make notebook entries for my 6 year old, allowing the 8 year old to make her own notebook notes. This teaches note taking skills and allows brief pauses for the information to be absorbed. They each make any required sketches in their notebooks. This is an aggressive science for their ages, therefore all the review questions are given orally. Once every 2 weeks we get together with two other families and we do all the experiments from the Botany book. We also play some type of quiz game. Some of the games have been similar to Jeopardy or Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. We play these in teams, mixing older and younger kids in each team to keep it fair. Our children range in ages from 3 months to 11 years for the co-op. The younger children play with toys and all other kids join us for any activities they are able. We have occasionally brought quiz cards to the dinner table to reinforce new ideas and make a game of it over dinner. The younger children love to "show off: what they have learned!

Think creatively when you have several ages and you can combine many subjects. Other great subjects for combining include: History, Grammar, Bible Memory, Phonics review, Art and Music.

Learn more about this author, Malia Russell.
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