How does homeschooling multiple children work?

[GiftOfGod]

How can the teacher lecture if other students of different levels are in the same room? Is most of homeschooling reading and working out of books? Just curious.

[Insanis]

How can the teacher lecture if other students of different levels are in the same room? Is most of homeschooling reading and working out of books? Just curious.

I have no personal experience, but regular school rooms are full of people at different levels. Regular school is more about managing crowds and dealing with boredom than education.

The basics are the same for everybody though, so one focuses on that. Then, one can exercise flexibility for the more capable.

Also, older ones can help younger.

[GiftOfGod]

How can the teacher lecture if other students of different levels are in the same room? Is most of homeschooling reading and working out of books? Just curious.

I have no personal experience, but regular school rooms are full of people at different levels.

By levels I meant grades. If you have a kindergartener, a third-grader, a sixth-grader, and a tenth-grader...what do you do?

[Insanis]

By levels I meant grades. If you have a kindergartener, a third-grader, a sixth-grader, and a tenth-grader...what do you do?

Grades are a construct, not reflecting reality that much.

People almost always progress faster than public school grades allow, so the distinction is for legal purposes only.


As for your scenario, that is pretty good for learning.

Are you picturing kids sitting all together and a parent lecturing them as a group? That is not how learning works. I'm sure it is a lot more flexible depending on circumstances, and one can just have different focuses at different times.

Think of it as an extension of parenting. How does one raise the kids? One probably teaches them the same basic way.

[MundaCorMeum]

For not having any experience, Insanis is pretty spot on.  I have 8 kids, and I basically do what he laid out.  I do have a block of time in the morning where I "lecture" as a group....the younger ones are around and listening in (my 4 year old can quote Shakespeare, sing chant, and knows who Plutarch is - or atleast his name, anyway), but only the 8 year old on up are required to sit in on those lessons. I cover literature (in the form of family read alouds, varying the reading level with each book), picture study (again, 4 year old can do this), music appreciation, chant and sacred music, history, geography, folk music and solfa.  I have a loop that I work through.  After that, we take a short mid-morning break, then the children have a spiral notebook with their own studies assigned, tailored to their level.  The only true education is self education, so for the older ones, I mostly guide, check work, and engage in discussions.  Until a child can read, I am very hands on.  For the non-readers, we stick with math, phonics, religion, and a read aloud loop in which I read a different book each day to them from either literature, history, or science.  My oldest is musically talented, so she teaches piano to some of her siblings.  It's not for the faint of heart, to be sure.

[MundaCorMeum]

Once my kids get to high school, I do outsource math, writing (she does a history/literature course for this), and science to a fellow homeschool Mom who is finished with her own kids.  She has classes at her house.  I am capable of teaching them higher level math/science, but it's helpful and it works for our schedule, so I take advantage.

*Edited for spelling/grammar

[Insanis]

For not having any experience, Insanis is pretty spot on. 

Well, I've seen others, and at home, while I wasn't strictly homeschooled, I learned far more at home than in a school.

I have 8 kids,

Congratulations. It is always good to see healthy families.

[MundaCorMeum]

Thank you for the encouragement and compliment, Insanis.

One more thing to add...it's very easy to "lump" various kids together, and assign the same books for a year.  For example, two of my kids are reading the same science book this year, though they are doing it on their own.  They work together on projects and experiments, but do the readings and journal entries on their own.  For my 1st and 2nd graders, I do the same read alouds with them, so my time is used more efficiently.  They enjoy it, too, and often the younger (sometimes even older ) ones will sit in and listen.  It makes for good family discussions to group them together this way, and I find it makes them less peer oriented.

[The Curt Jester]

It's actually not that hard.

1. In general, long lectures are not required.

2. Some students need more assistance than others, so they get more hands-on time.

3.  Older kids help tutor the younger ones.

4.  Some students are assigned busywork while the others get assistance on new lessons.

5.  If you have some self-motivated kids who can read well, they can often do things on their own all week, no problem.

[Insanis]

5.  If you have some self-motivated kids who can read well, they can often do things on their own all week, no problem.

Would you say it is trivial to homeschool properly?

[diaduit]

For not having any experience, Insanis is pretty spot on.  I have 8 kids, and I basically do what he laid out.  I do have a block of time in the morning where I "lecture" as a group....the younger ones are around and listening in (my 4 year old can quote Shakespeare, sing chant, and knows who Plutarch is - or atleast his name, anyway), but only the 8 year old on up are required to sit in on those lessons. I cover literature (in the form of family read alouds, varying the reading level with each book), picture study (again, 4 year old can do this), music appreciation, chant and sacred music, history, geography, folk music and solfa.  I have a loop that I work through.  After that, we take a short mid-morning break, then the children have a spiral notebook with their own studies assigned, tailored to their level.  The only true education is self education, so for the older ones, I mostly guide, check work, and engage in discussions.  Until a child can read, I am very hands on.  For the non-readers, we stick with math, phonics, religion, and a read aloud loop in which I read a different book each day to them from either literature, history, or science.  My oldest is musically talented, so she teaches piano to some of her siblings.  It's not for the faint of heart, to be sure.

Do you 'sit in' for all the lessons or read alouds?  I don't, I give work to do but when needed I will sit and teach something if they need it e.g.  new to fractions or history lesson.

How many hours a day do you give to school?  I only do 3 hours for primary and 1 hour for junior infants .
The older two have paid for curriculum for A levels for the older and similar for 15 year old.  I never really teach them and have topped up with grinds from a maths teacher.

[The Curt Jester]

5.  If you have some self-motivated kids who can read well, they can often do things on their own all week, no problem.

Would you say it is trivial to homeschool properly?

I should modify what I said.

The step process isn't hard in itself, but there's still plenty of work involved.

Keep in mind that it's a generalization.  Difficulty is affected by:

• Your children's ages
• Their motivation level
• The number of children
• Your own workload
• Your own affinity (or lack thereof) for the various subjects
• Is your spouse willing to help?
• Support groups
• Making your own curriculum/using a tutoring service/paying for a curriculum/paying for a curriculum, plus full grading

[Insanis]

5.  If you have some self-motivated kids who can read well, they can often do things on their own all week, no problem.

Would you say it is trivial to homeschool properly?

I should modify what I said.

It was a reference to the Trivium of education.

With this model, people learn grammar, logic, and rhetoric first, how to use language, how to think, and how to communicate, and this sets the basis for all future learning.

It is in line with what you described.

Trivial is a reference to these beginning classes, but most people have forgotten it and focus on "math and science" without knowing how to communicate or think, so the basics are now not so trivial for most people who come out of a modern education system.

[The Curt Jester]

Math in itself is logical, so that falls in with the whole logic thing.  But I agree, use of language is extremely important and it is something I will be stressing with my children.

[Insanis]

Math in itself is logical,

Math is a massive subject in itself. People tend to underestimate its expanse. After learning arithmetic, Euclidean geometry, trigonometry, the calculus, etc, people think they learned a lot of math, but that is just the basics. Math goes way deeper than that.

Of course, the ancients and medieval view of it was a bit simpler. 

so that falls in with the whole logic thing.  But I agree, use of language is extremely important and it is something I will be stressing with my children.

The quadrivium follows the Trvium, and includes arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy.

However, these distinctions are from a time when things might have been viewed differently. Technically, most things have some element of math in them, whereas, ancients viewed math primarily in terms of geometry and worked from there (we square numbers because of this geometric view).