Organized Chaos: Homeschooling with Babies & Toddlers

Yes, I'm going to go ahead and share three posts in one day! I'm anxious to get all my posts moved over and start adding fresh stuff, so here's another one I wrote over at Modern Mommy Mentor. And hey y'all this one also includes my first freebie for over here at Country Mama to Many!

Homeschooling can pose many of it's own challenges in the best of circumstances; add a baby, a toddler, or both and it can quickly become a complete nightmare. Don't fret, mamas, you're not alone and there are ways to minimize the distractions. Yes, it does take a bit of juggling, and adapting; but by this point in the game I'm sure you're quite experienced in those departments! Take heart and keep reading to help get some ideas to make your days less stressful and more productive. Especially make a point to scroll to the end of the post and get your FREE Mama's Homeschooling checklist!!

We're in our 13th year of homeschooling and we have run the gamut of distractions, disorder, and pure upheaval during our homeschool days. Enough to make me romanticize about the glorious yellow cheese wagon that passes my house twice a day, and how easily it could whisk my crazy kids off to a day of someone else teaching and training them. And with that fantasy includes my toddlers going to daycare for someone else to potty train, clean up after, and corral all day long. My house would be clean and organize and my stress level would be drastically reduced. But, nope that's not what God has called me to, that's simply not the path for our family.

God called me to homeschool a long time ago. I fought it for some time, but literally had no peace and became vehemently ill after putting our oldest into public school for kindergarten. After three weeks we un-enrolled him and never looked back. Oh, I can assure you, I've threatened to send them all back, but they were always just empty threats. The days are long but the years are short. It sounds so cliché, but I can't believe we're about to graduate our first-born child! Has it been an easy road, absolutely NOT, but it has been 100% worthwhile and exactly what we were suppose to do.

Over the years we have developed a system which works to help keep the chaos to a minimum during our homeschool days. The more children we have had, the more we've had to adapt and adjust our homeschooling to accommodate the range in ages and the myriad of needs each child 'brings to the table'. While there are many facets to our system, today I'm particularly addressing how we handle the babies and toddlers of our crazy crew. Trying to educate older children while entertaining and containing the youngest members of the family can be mighty difficult, but with these few tips I can assure you homeschooling can be done with babies and toddlers.

Homeschooling With Babies & Toddlers

1. Give your day over to the Lord. Pray for your homeschool day and trust the Lord to orchestrate it the way that He sees fit. Get done what you can get done and don't worry about the rest.
2. Recognize and accept that you will have distractions. Plan accordingly for phone calls, visitors, minor accidents, and discipline needs. There are a multitude of interruptions that can occur in a day, simply acknowledge this and plan to adjust your day.
3. Minimize scheduling events such as doctors appointments and extra curricular activities during your typical school time. Creating a consistent school schedule that children can depend on is beneficial for all ages.
4. Don't compare yourself to the public/private school system or other homeschooling families. What works for one family will most likely not work for another family. Evaluate your family and determine the best schedule, system, and plans which allow YOUR family to thrive.
5. Group as much academic lessons as possible. Our family combines bible, history, science, writing, projects, art and all field trips. We start our day doing 'table time' which alternates these subjects throughout the week. I add more advanced material for the older ones and make adjustments for the younger ones as needed.
6. Utilize all 'restraining' devices (lol). Such as high chairs, booster seats, play pins, bouncy chairs, swings, etc. We take advantage of these  baby items often, especially during table time. The younger ones can typically be entertained for quite some time in a highchair with some toys or baby snacks.
7. Take advantage of nap times. Schedule lessons, especially one-on-one time during baby's nap time.
8. Assign sibling play time. We schedule each of the older children to take turns playing or reading with the younger kiddos, while I'm doing one-on-one with other children. This allows the older ones a small break from school and it encourages a special connection between siblings.
9. Set the toddlers to play close by you with quiet toys such as blocks, sensory boxes, and other educational toys which do not make noises. I require my toddlers and preschoolers to play quietly near my feet while I am doing one-on-one with other children. This allows me to keep a close watch on them and helps them to learn to play by themselves.
10. Consider homeschooling year round. A year round homeschool schedule has been a major blessing to our family. With this type of system we are able to reduce our workload through high stress seasons and pick it back up after life settles back down. We can easily keep our daily school time to 3-4 hours, which gives us plenty of flexibility and reduces the stress of trying to get so much done in a day. I love that I can plan for a few hours of school, a few hours of home management, and then still have plenty of time leftover to devote to the little ones.

Homeschooling is truly a gift from the Lord, even when your family dynamics create challenges. Learning to ebb and flow with those challenges is perhaps the greatest lessons of the day. Teaching your children to be involve with and help with the babies and toddlers is a life lesson that will stay with them for a lifetime. Building a strong family unit through a homeschooling system which includes all the family members, even the babies and toddlers, will only improve your children's overall academic experience. So, mamas it's time to relax, create a simple schedule, delegate junior mama's helpers, and enjoy your homeschool day.

With Love and Hope,
Jennifer

P.S. To help you keep the chaos to a minimum and stay productive throughout your homeschool days. I've create a Mama's Homeschooling checklist which you can print to help keep track of your one-on-one time with each of your children. I simply print off a sheet for each of my kiddos at the first of the week.  I write in what I plan to do with each child for the week. Then after we do their lessons I can check off each subject to make sure we're staying on target for our academic goals. Sometimes it's the simple things which help us simplify the most, but we've found these little checklists to be a super awesome asset to our homeschool days. I hope they will bless you as well.

Mama's Homeschool Checklist

Homeschooling With Learning Disabilities

Homeschooling is an extension of who I am and where my heart is. It is one of my deepest desires to encourage all mothers that they can and should home educate their children. Here's another one from Modern Mommy Mentor talking about how even children with learning disabilities deserve a home education.....

I have been told by parents, on more than one occasion, that the reason they can not homeschool their child is because their child has a learning disability. I find this all the more reason to pursue a home education, and I speak from experience. Today I’d like to share something that has been heavy on my heart lately. I want everyone to know that home education and learning disabilities can beautifully coincide, even if it doestake a lot of prayer and hard work.

To be perfectly honest, all of my children have experienced some form of learning obstacle(as I prefer to call them). We have addressed each one with prayer and trusted in God to sort out the details. My husband and I have worked tirelessly to help our children overcome many of these learning obstacles. That’s what parents should do! Nobody has my child’s best interest at heart more than me and my husband and I will never trust someone else to adequately address their personal needs and that includes the gift of learning.

We have encountered color blindness, speech impediments (2 children), severe speech delays, and a child with high functioning autism. We have never used the ‘free’ resources provided by the government, but we havedone our ‘homework’ and learned how to address each learning obstacle with God’s grace, mercy, love, and prayer. I have been overwhelmingly inspired and encouraged by God’s hand in each and every situation.

We recently experienced a glimpse of the miracle God is working in our six-year old’s life as he struggles with autism. Everyday, I consistently do his lessons with him; which includes working with numbers, writing, and reading. I have to sit with him and help him through every question, number, letter, and word. Sometimes I have to help him hold his pencil to write, but we do it, everyday. All my previous children have done the same work and could do it independently, but not him (and that’s okay). My prayer is that one day he willbe able to do the lessons independently. Well, this week he surprised me by bringing me two assignments that he had completed by himself! Can we say Hallelujah!!!

I send all the praise to the Lord above, for it is only by Him that we can be the parents our children need us to be. Unfortunately, more days than not I fail at this one simple task, even with God’s grace, but that is not God’s fault, but mine. Most days it would be far easier to put my child into a public school system, take advantage of all the “free” programs, and let someone else deal with the challenges that come with educating and tending to a child with special needs. But, that wouldn’t be God’s plan for our family. God didn’t give these children to anybody else, but solely to me and my husband. God’s word says He will not give us more than we can handle and that He will provide a way for us to address every need we will ever have.

Through our efforts of home educating children with learning disabilities I have learned a few things to make the journey a little more peaceable:

1. Pray over your child before lessons
2. Maintain a routine and stay consistent with academic requirements
3. Seek to have quiet during lesson time, remove distractions
4. Set realistic goals
5. Be cautious with ‘advise’ from others
6. Take things slow and let your child set the pace
7. Don’t let your child sense any frustration on your part (trust me you’ll experience it at one time or another)
8. Don’t compare your child to other children, especially academically
9. Do lessons orally, sometimes holding a pencil can just cause problems when in actuality your child really does know the subject matter
10. Give lots of love and praise

Having a child with learning disabilities is not without many challenges, but with those challenges comes the opportunity to practice faith and watch God work. God has created all of us special and unique and I think that is awesome! I wouldn’t change any of my children if I had the chance; each one is a blessing and has enriched my life beyond anything I could have ever imagined. I praise the Lord for giving me each one of my children and allowing me to home educate all of them. I will go to the ends of the earth to insure each of my children are given every opportunity to learn the lessons God has for them.

Don’t let learning disabilities be a reason not to home educate your child. I can’t imagine what would have happened to my six-year-old had we put him into public school. Fortunately, we will never know, for he will always have the sanctuary of his home as his platform for learning. There is no one better suited to educated a child than his or her mother, that is the way God designed it. Don’t be afraid of the unknown, live out your faith and trust in God to help you through the challenges associated with home education and learning disabilities.


With Love and Hope,
Jennifer

Unschooling With Purpose

Since it is the season of 'back-to-school' I reckon I'll post all my past homeschooling posts from my Modern Mommy Mentor website. Here's one sharing how we intentionally make learning a life-long passion instead of a brief season of life....

Our family views home education a little different from most folks. We didn’t come to these beliefs over night, but after much studying of the scripture, prayer, and research. Just like so many facets of our nation, the education system in our country is inadequate and broken. from the beginning of our home educating journey we knew we didn’t want to conform to the world’s ways just because that’s the way its always been done. That is why we choose to take education beyond the typical classroom and utilize something I like to call Unschooling with Purpose.

Recently, I saw on social media where parent after parent was plastering their children’s report cards for everyone to see. I’m sorry, but I just cringe at the thought of “grading” children. If a child doesn’t make straight A’s and B’ does that make them any less of a human being, are they not special or worthy of a parent’s praise? I would challenge parents that if their children are NOT making the “grade” than they need to evaluate their personal involvement in their child’s education, how well the teacher teaches the materials, and whether or not your child is being given every opportunity to learn said material through different venues and outlets. Not ALL children learn the same way! I truly believe children want to learn, do well, and succeed but they MUST be given every opportunity to do so. (which isn’t usually found in the realms of sitting at a desk for 8(+) hours a day with 15-30 other students the same age.)

I don’t grade or test my children. I am INTIMATELY involved with each one of my children’s education. I know whether or not my children grasp the concepts taught without grading them. We do not move on to new subject matter until I am convinced they fully grasp the content. The few textbooks we use are simply used as a springboard. We ONLY use them as a GUIDE to keep me aware of topics I feel are beneficial for my children to learn. And we don’t do every problem or even every lesson. Learning should not be tarnished by requiring children to learn topics so they can pass a test.

I really don’t understand why homeschooling families feel the need to recreate the public school system. I am not talking about having a school room, I actually think it’s beneficial to have a designated place to store all the home educating supplies that can be accumulated over the years. What I’m referring to is putting your children in a designated grade, making them do text books (workbooks) all day, completing 'so many lessons' in a year, etc. Our family does NOT place our children in a specific ‘grade’. My children begin learning at birth and Lord willing they won’t stop learning until they are called home to heaven. We do lessons year round and every day; every moment we are awake is an opportunity to learn and grow in wisdom and knowledge.

We focus on teaching godly character, inspiring the LOVE of learning, and teaching practical skills that will enable them to be competent capable godly men and women who can adequately manage their own households. I listen to my children’s interests, engaging them in conversations about their hopes, dreams, and desires. I purchase books and materials that will encourage them in their God-given passions. We involve our children in our daily lives, not giving them restrictions on what they can learn and do because of age. Given the opportunity children can learn to do most anything. We allow our children the freedom to be creative and use their minds. We limit their ‘technology’ time, trading it for a more constructive activity.

Learning shouldn’t be separate from our every day lives, but an extension of every moment we get to experience. The gift of learning should never be governed or restricted by anyone. Yes, there are certain topics that are important to learn, but they should never be force-fed for the sake of that’s what someone thinks should be learned at a specific age. Our time on this great earth is numbered and it is our sincere desire for our children to experience all that God has for them to the fullest. We’ve come to the conclusion that this can only be accomplished by breaking the bonds that come from the typical classroom environment.

I have truly been in awe as I’ve watched my children grow in wisdom and knowledge. We’ve given them the freedom to learn at their own pace. We’ve brought them along side of us as we’ve worked and learned new skills. But, most importantly they’ve been given the privilege to learn in a safe, non-hostile environment where the only expectations they have is to do their very best unto the Lord.

"And whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men." Colossians 3:23 (KJV)

As a parent I believe it is our duty to give our children every opportunity to grow in wisdom and knowledge. For our family, we knew that would be impossible if our children attended school outside of our home. We will not support a broken educational systems that ‘graduates’ record numbers of children each year who can barely read or do basic math; by placing our children in those programs. Praise the Lord we still live in a country where we have the freedom to home educate.

It is an honor to be used by the Lord to lead my children through their academic journey. Just today, my oldest son said he loved to learn and hoped to learn as many things as possible. Once a child develops a heart for learning and realizes they can learn anything, there is no stopping them! Education does not have to be bound to a classroom, Unschooling with Purpose enables our family to experience the true joy home education.

With Love and Hope,
Jennifer

Perks of the Year Round Homeschool Schedule

We are homeschoolers and have been for over 14 years! We've recently graduated our oldest son from our homeschool ~ it went so fast 😢 But, since it's apart of who we are I've always written about it. Here is a post I wrote last year about why we homeschool year round....

When you begin homeschooling there are an array of different aspects to review and evaluate.  Not to mention all the normal every day mommy responsibilities that must be continually addressed. All these crazy dynamics can quickly overshadow the joy of homeschooling. The days can seem long and overwhelming with the weight of wanting to 'do it all'. But, in reality the load is too great and impossible to achieve while working in the parameters of the traditional academic school year. Which is why I highly encourage the year round homeschool schedule.

It's so easy to get overwhelmed with the many demands of motherhood and homemaking without homeschooling. Add in homeschooling and it's a certain recipe for a mommy overload. Many mothers are quick to recreate the only academic system which they know once they start homeschooling: the public school system. And so begins the massive overload of schoolwork, extracurriculars, and general life demands. This system is broken, and will NOT work within the home setting. Give yourself a break mamas and ditch the system. Trade it for a nontraditional academic program rich in family and the treasures this world offers. There's so much to see and experience outside the classroom, which gives children a solid background to launch them into any career field their hearts desire.

With this nontraditional way of thinking homeschooling no longer looks like something we do each day for so many hours, but an extension of our lives. Instead of only recognizing 'school' as what happens when working through workbooks and textbooks sitting at a table; acknowledge it as something we do from the moment we are born until the moment we enter the gates of heaven. Learning happens 7 days a week and 365 days a year.  It is a privilege and gift from the Lord. People, especially children, are in a constant state of learning. Give them the opportunity to explore, listen to their interests and help them soar through the world of academics.

I agree that there is a time and place for traditional school texts and even workbooks, but they should never be the sole source of learning for children. It has been proven time and again that children learn best through hands-on lessons, preferable self-driven by their own initiative. As a homeschooling mother we would be wise to sit back and be simple observers; even helping to create and spark our children interests with as many 'learning outside the box' opportunities as possible. All the seasons throughout the year can be used as a learning platform for children. When we limit the academic year to just a few months and only to that which can be taught in a classroom; we are gravely limiting their options for true academics.

Once your academic platform is rooted in viewing homeschool as an extension of each and every day; it's easy to see why a year round homeschool is the best option for fulfilling the many demands of life AND educating our children.

Top 5 Reasons Why We Homeschool Year Round

1. Access to all the seasons to fully incorporate 'outside the box' learning experiences through field trips and hands-on learning.
2. Reduced hours spent schooling each day so that normal, every day activities can still be accomplished (like house cleaning and doctor appointments).
3. Relaxed holidays. Focus on academics can be traded for family festivities and truly enjoying the special season instead of  the drowning in the weight of school work.
4. Easier to plan for sicknesses and unexpected distractions. Sicknesses are going to happen and unfortunately so will other life-altering events. With a year round homeschool schedule it's easier to take off 'school' for those seasons of life.
5. Children have the time to be children. Their days should never be consumed with boring structured academics. They should be free to explore and enjoy their childhood. Adulthood and rigid schedules will be apart of their every day norm before they know it. Why not let them enjoy the freedom of adolescents to it's fullest?

I could continue on and on in regards to the many reasons we love the year round homeschool schedule. It just works for our family as does the nontraditional approach to homeschooling. I realize the year round nontraditional homeschool platform may or may not work for each family; but, the most important goal for each homeschool mom should be finding the balance which will allow her to find the true joy in homeschooling. The days are long, but the years are so very short. Don't waste them overwhelmed and bogged down with too much book work. Enjoy the time you have with your children, it truly is a special gift from the Lord.

With Love and Hope,
Jennifer