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Homeschooling children of different ages can be a snap if you remember your resources, and build on them. Parents new to homeschooling often forget their largest resource is their older children. Having already learned what their younger siblings need to know, they can contribute to the teaching of the younger students as mentors, thereby reinforcing what they've learned and being placed in a leadership role.

The use of thematic unit studies is especially useful if you want to get your older children involved in mentoring their siblings. By designing a unit study on a topic like astronomy for the older level student, they can read aloud to the younger children, keeping them engaged while learning new facts themselves. Almost any thematic unit can be geared for various ages, allowing the parent to do one core lesson that is then expressed in additional hands on work and worksheets for the various age levels you are teaching.

Personally, I think the worst thing you can do is seperate out the children by age group. Rather, by teaching them together you are allowing an experience of community and sharing. What do a five year old and a seventeen year old have in common you might ask? Well, if nature prevails most likely that seventeen year old will eventually have their own little five year old to instruct in the ways of the world and by allowing your older sibling to be a mentor to the younger, you have prepared them in ways you may not quite want to think about yet as a parent!

Learn more about this author, Lauri Jean Crowe.
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