by Sherry Horton Blake

Created on: January 08, 2009

As the mother of six children, I have at times elected to home school my children due to the unavailability of a public school that I felt would give them the best possible education. My husband left shortly after the birth of my sixth child (it seems he had changed his mind about wanting a large family), and I was therefore left to determine the best solution for their education.

I was fortunate during the time I homeschooled that I was able to work from my home. However, it is possible to homeschool if you work outside the home provided you have someone to stay with the children during the day (your mother perhaps or another trusted caregiver). You can make the lesson plans, etc., and then have the caregiver supervise and assist the children with their lessons. You can then look over them in the evening and give additional instruction. However, it is much better if you yourself can be there to do the homeschooling.

When homeschooling multiple kids, organization is the key. Buy a grade book (or make one from a spiral notebook) for each child. You do not necessarily need to use this book for grades, but you will need this book to keep track of assignments, progress, etc. To help me stay organized, I purchased one of the accordion type files for each child (I kept the grade book in the first pocket), and marked the outside of the file clearly with the child's name. This file is great for keeping papers, resources, etc.

Decide on a curriculum for each child according to their age. There are expensive curriculums that come complete with books, workbooks, tests, etc. If you want to use these, they will reduce your preparation time. However, I could not afford these and opted instead to develop my own curriculum from internet sites, books I already had on hand, library books, educational PBS television shows, etc. I also collected items such as magnets, microscopes, etc. (many I found at garage sales). I think this curriculum was superior to those that could be bought.

I found that combining the curriculums for the children where possible was helpful. For example, I could often use the same book (read aloud by me) and then give the children age-appropriate assignments. I based the curriculum on unit subjects and then looked for ways to teach the unit to different ages.

I made sure that I also spent individual time with each child while the other children were working on assignments. I also asked for input from the children so that they could help design their own lesson plans. They were more excited about the material when they had helped to plan the units.

I constantly looked for low cost or free places to take them to correspond with the units, i.e. museums, historic sites, zoos, libraries. Each time I planned a unit, I would research what places in the community could further my teaching of this subject. We had a lot of enjoyable field trips in conjunction with home schooling.

I found that homeschooling my children together helped to build a closeness between them. The older ones helped the younger ones and thus increased their own learning, and the younger ones had someone to assist them even when I was busy with another child.

Homeschooling multiple kids is not for the faint hearted, but the rewards are great. I thoroughly recommend it.

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