Feeding a large household is quite a daunting task, but trying to make meals that are healthy when you have many family members takes it up one more notch. Healthy eating requires more time and preparation. What’s the best way to plan nutritious meals when you have a large family? 

Feeding our family keeps us very busy. We are a family of twelve with five boys and five girls ranging in age from 19 down to almost two. Since we believe that “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure,” we have aimed to eat clean as much as possible.

For us, this means eating breakfast, lunch, and dinner at home with meals made from scratch. We try to limit the white sugar and flour in our diet and focus on real foods. We want more proteins, vegetables, and fruits in our diet.

Below are the strategies we use to feed our family healthy meals three times a day!

#1 Make Time in Your Schedule

Like it or not, eating healthy meals requires more time. There’s a reason fast food isn’t good for you! Cutting veggies for a salad takes longer than opening a bag of chicken nuggets and popping them in the oven. 

If you want your big family to eat healthy, you need margin in your busy schedule. You may need to eliminate some items from your calendar. 

In our family, we seriously limit our commitments. With plenty of siblings, our kids don’t have as much need for many of the community activities that most parents feel obligated to join. When our family was smaller, we participated in groups like scouts, but as our family grew, this kind of involvement was too much. 

Too many events in a busy family usually mean the kids are overtired, the house is out of order, and mom and dad are frazzled. 

If you adjust your calendar so that you have more time to eat and prepare food at home, it will be easier for you to eat healthy meals. 

#2 Make a list of your favorite healthy meals.

Making healthy meals for your large family doesn’t necessarily mean you need to have a detailed meal plan. Even though I am a mom of 10, I don’t menu plan at all. Instead of writing out weekly plans for 3 meals a day, I keep a list of our favorite healthy breakfast, lunch, and dinner meals. 

This master list, along with our well-stocked kitchen (below), IS my meal plan!

Because I have a list of our go-to meals on-hand, we try to have ingredients for all the dishes on that list. This makes grocery shopping easier too. We don’t spend a lot of time writing a shopping list or looking for special ingredients for certain dishes. We get most of the same items each grocery trip to supply the dishes on our meal list. 

Our Master List of Meals

Although your meal ideas will probably look different from ours, these are very easy recipes that can be adapted to meet your family’s needs.

Breakfast

• Eggs and bacon
• Yogurt with granola
• Sourdough pancakes or French toast
• Baked Oatmeal
• Quiche
• Toast with cream cheese or peanut butter and honey-sweetened strawberry jam

Lunch

• Salad
• Skillet dish: ground sausage and rice with black beans and onions topped with shredded cheddar cheese
• Quesadillas (I usually add leftover chicken or taco meat from a previous dinner meal.)
• Protein smoothies and popcorn
• Tortilla Chips with Sausage Dip
• Sourdough pizza
• Soup
• Skillet dish: Holushki topped with parmesan cheese
• Hard-boiled eggs with raw veggies and dip
• Skillet dish: ground sausage, sweet potato, apples, and green beans

Snacks

• Fruit
• Popcorn
• Ants on a Log (celery, peanut butter, raisins)
• Trail mix
• Tortilla chips with guacamole or hummus

Soups

• Chicken Corn Soup
• Ham and Bean soup from leftover ham roast
• Sausage and Potato Soup
• Chili
• Butternut Squash Soup topped with mozzarella cheese

Dinner

Beef– Chili, Tacos, Meatloaf, Spaghetti (served with spaghetti squash or high protein noodles), Shepherd’s Pie, Cowboy Grub, Meatballs with a no sugar Ketchup sauce

Pork– Sausage links, corn, and beans dish, Sweet sausage and potato skillet dish with creamy sauce, Ham Roast with potato and vegetable sides

Chicken– whole chicken with baked cubed potatoes and a vegetable, fajitas with avocados tortilla chips rice and peppers, 2 chicken breast recipes, 2 legs and thighs recipes 

Large family meal plans are easier when you have a central list of easy meals that the whole family likes to eat. 

Buy Meat in Bulk 

Not all big families are able to raise meat on their own property, however, anyone can buy half a cow or pig. Buying meat in bulk and storing it in a deep freezer will make meal prep much easier. If you have meat, you have a meal!

Fresh fruits and vegetables

We like to have fresh fruit like apples, grapes, oranges, clementines, and bananas on hand. For vegetables, we buy lettuce, celery, cucumbers, carrots, broccoli, tomatoes, sweet potatoes, and onions. Aldi has great organic options for produce, so we either get our produce from there or the local farmer’s market when it’s in season.

(Helpful tip: Kids want to snack all day long.  If you leave out a bowl of vegetables or fruit on the table throughout the day, they will snack on this and acquire an appetite for fresh produce!)

Dairy

Although we would love to have a dairy cow, that is not an option for us. These are the dairy products that we use. Raw milk, mozzarella cheese, cheddar cheese, cream cheese, parmesan cheese, sour cream, half and half, whipping cream, and yogurt.

Oils & Fats

Butter, lard, olive oil, coconut oil.

Whole Grains and dry food

Coffee, tea, raisins, wheat berries (for grinding to use in making our sourdough bread), oats, rice, sugar, tortilla chips, popcorn, nuts, trail mix, bread (for when we run out of our homemade sourdough.)

Condiments and sweeteners

Honey, maple syrup, stevia, jam, peanut butter,ketchup, mustard, mayonnaise, honey-sweetened BBQ sauce, vinegar, Braggs Liquid Aminos (rather than soy sauce.) 

Preserved Food/Root vegetables

In our basement we store home canned goods like applesauce, diced tomatoes, chicken broth, peaches, pickles, beets, strawberry jam, and green beans. We freeze some of the vegetables from our garden, but we also stock up on frozen store-bought veggies. We buy some of our canned products like black beans and kidney beans from the store. 

Spices

Salt, pepper, garlic powder, onion salt (great on potatoes), parsley, oregano, and chili powder are staples for us.

#4 Develop your food preparedness skills.

One great way that large families can alleviate the grocery budget is by growing and preserving food at home. For most of us, that means learning new skills. 

I have found that the best way to develop skills in any area is to try one thing at a time. Repeat that skill or product over and over until you are very good at it. When it becomes easy, then you can add the next skill. 

My approach to food preservation is to pick one food the family loves and will eat regularly. We preserve enough of that food to last for an entire year. 

Our family learned how to can foods by starting with applesauce. My mother-in-law helped us can our applesauce in the first few years of our marriage. When we felt confident with that, we tried other foods: strawberry jam, then peaches, tomatoes, and more. 

The first several times you try something new, everything takes a lot of time because you have to think about each step of the process, but after repeated success, you can do the work with minimal effort because you know each step.

Food Preservation Skills To Learn

• Have a garden.  This takes a little work and extra time, but learning to grow food at home is the perfect way to teach kids where food comes from and to limit the number of items on your grocery list.  
• Preserve food. Over the years, we have learned different ways of preserving food: dehydrating, water bath canning, pressure canning, and freezing. Freezing is the easiest by far so I would start with that first.
• Raise livestock. Layer hens are the perfect way to start raising livestock. Many municipalities allow families to keep chickens. They require very little space and having fresh eggs is wonderful!
• Make fermented foods. Fermented foods like sourdough, kefir, kombucha, and sauerkraut are wonderful , gut-healthy probiotics.

Meal Prep Tips

• Get meat out to thaw at the beginning of the week. If you have meat, you have a meal that is easy to get on the dinner table. 
• Have broth on hand. Soups are an easy large family meal that will feed the entire family.
• Leave a bowl of raw vegetables out on the table throughout the day for kids to snack on.
• Learn to make a quick meal with what you have on hand. We often make “everything soup” or “everything stir fry.”.  I use whatever vegetables we have on hand, saute them in butter, add a little meat and broth or rice. (Cooking whole grain rice in the instant pot is a big time saver for me!) Sometimes these dinner time meals end up being our favorite dishes!
• Make double whenever you can so you can have leftovers for another meal.

Looking for more great resources for raising and managing a large family? You may enjoy reading these similar posts. 

Our Large Family Homeschool Curriculum

10 Tips for How to Homeschool a Large Family

Ambleside Online Homeschool Curriculum for a Large Family

How to Keep a House Clean When Homeschooling a Large Family

Realistic Guide to a Simple Large Family Christmas

How do You homeschool with ALL Littles?? Do you look at seasoned homeschooling moms incredulously, wondering how they possibly did it when they were in this stage? You love the idea of offering your kids a rich education through homeschooling, but with so many young ones underfoot, it just seems so hard! In this post, I want to offer encouragement for homeschool moms of littles.

I have a lot of sympathy for homeschool moms who have all young kids. I remember that season very well having been in it for so long. In fact, I’m still in it. We have ten children ages 18 down to 7 months and we are going on our 14th year of homeschooling. Having kids under age six in our home has become the norm for our family for so many years now so that I can’t hardly imagine it any other way. Even so, I have to admit it really is easier now than when they were all little. Those early years of diapers, dishes, dinner, and dirty laundry on repeat…they were hard!

Video: Encouragement For Homeschool Moms of Littles

“I Can’t Get Anything Done!”

Being with very young children all day is really exhausting! Have you heard yourself saying the words, “I can’t get anything done!”? I sure have. For homeschooling moms of all littles, getting very little done is the hard reality.

A day spent with all littles is completely unpredictable. You may write out your daily “to do” list, but it is completely subject to your children’s moods, potty training, lost sleep, tears over math, spilled milk, and a host of other possibilities.

• whining two year old
• toddler deciding not to nap
• baby teething
• constant interruptions
• repeated questions from three year olds
• younger children still building immune systems so they are sick more frequently
• pregnancy or adjusting to a new baby

Additionally, many moms with young children are homeschooling for the very first time, so there are other difficulties as well.

• choosing (and learning) a curriculum
• discovering your homeschool style and your child’s learning style
• finding a routine that works for you
• finding homeschool friends/co-ops
• family or friends questioning your decision to homeschool that can be discouraging
• adjusting to a homeschool mentality after having been traditionally schooled yourself

These Are The Foundational Years of Your Homeschool

One thing I did not realize when I was in the thick of homeschooling with all young children was that I was in the investment stage of both our homeschool and our family life. Whenever you start any kind of endeavor, whether it is a business, a project, or perhaps building your first home, the beginning is always the hardest part. How many years does it take for a business to start earning a profit? When you dig out the foundation for the construction of a new house, it actually looks like you are going backwards, digging that big hole in the ground. Who could look at that hollow cave of dirt and see the beautiful home you have envisioned?

It is the same with homeschooling. In the beginning, you make the largest investment and see very little fruit. You change messy diapers, make meals, attempt a reading lesson, answer a million questions, read one more story, cry over math, bathe dirty feet, run another load of laundry, kiss them goodnight ….and crawl into bed exhausted. And for what?! To get up and do it one more day.

The idea of homeschooling is so appealing, but the reality of it just seems impossible some days. When you look into your children’s sweet faces, you wouldn’t have it any other way, but are you really getting anywhere?

Seeing Fruit

When you have been homeschooling for several years, you gain perspective. When you see your kids become avid readers or develop unique hobbies, you begin to reap the rewards of all your blood, sweat, and tears. And it is SO worth it! When our second son showed an interest in learning guitar and taught himself to play by watching YouTube videos or when our daughters exhibited artistic talent in some of their baking endeavors, I loved seeing them blossom. Watching your kids become individuals right before your eyes is a beautiful thing. It makes all the investments of the the early years worth it, I promise!

Encouragement: It Does Get Easier!

The good news is that it does get easier! It gets easier because the longer you homeschool the better you get at it. It becomes second nature. You no longer puzzle over the math problem. You’ve learned how to break things down in a way that the kids understand. You are more familiar with your curriculum as well, so that’s one less hurdle.

I have noticed that when the number of independent kids in your home begins to outweigh the number of dependent kids, you really start to see the scales tip the other way. The younger ones are stimulated by just having the older ones around. They no longer look to you for all the entertainment. Additionally, when you have older kids around, the littles look to the older kids to learn the patterns and rhythms of the home.

When your kids are all little, they know nothing at all. You have to teach them everything! I remember teaching our oldest son how to ride a bike without training wheels. We went out every single day for weeks helping him. With all the kids after him, however, as we started to help them, we realized their older sibling has been teaching them. It took half the time and less work for us.

Practical Solutions

Do a little reading, writing, and math every day. A little here and there goes a long way over time. Let your goal be making progress. Hold your homeschool plans loosely. Some days you will get a lot done, other days not so much. But as long as you do a little every day, you will keep moving forward. Steady plodding brings success!

Get away to recharge. We’ve all experienced that moment when you feel like you can’t wipe one more nose, tackle one more discipline issue, or do one more math problem. You are starting to feel burn out. One of the best solutions I have found when I feel this way is to get away for a little bit. Going out for coffee, shopping with a friend, or just taking a walk will give you a break and help you recharge. When you come home, you will be refreshed.

Pause and tackle tough issues: What is the issue you are struggling with in your homeschool? Messy house? Behavior issues in your kids? Try taking a break from school to find a better strategy to solve the problem. If you have to take a day off of school to get on top of things, the kids won’t get behind. You will be able to make more progress when you have smoothed things out.

You Are Doing Kingdom Work

I want to encourage you that you are doing kingdom work. All the work that you are doing with your little ones has eternal ramifications. The children that God has entrusted to you are eternal souls. You have the responsibility and the awesome privilege to raise them in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. When you can have an eternal mindset, it really helps these small earthly struggles and setbacks seem much smaller.

Pin It! Encouragement For Homeschool Moms of Littles

One of my favorite parts of spring is seeing sweet strawberries ripen like jewels in the early summer in the little patch beside our house. Preserving strawberry honey jam for a large family is a task that has taken more than a few years to perfect. For the first time this year, I finally have mastered this delicious recipe and I am happy to share it with you!

Video: Honey Strawberry Jam Recipe for a Large Family

Previous attempts at Making Strawberry Jam

When I first started making homemade strawberry jam several years ago, I made it with a full-sugar recipe, but over the years, it bothered me how much white sugar we were consuming, so I switched to a recipe with less sugar (Low Sugar Sure Jell). This worked for a while.

One year, I attempted to nix the granulated sugar by using a natural sweetener like honey. The problem, however, was that I couldn’t get the honey jam to set, so I went back to the safer low-sugar recipe that I knew would set without difficulty.

Finally, this year, I decided to try the honey-sweetened strawberry jam once more and I love how it turned out!

Preserving Jam for a Large Family

To feed our family of twelve last year, we made 50 pints of strawberry jam. This lasted us until March, so ideally, we should probably do about 60 this year if we want it to last until next May. The recipe in this post yields 5 pints.

How can you determine the amount of jam you should make to feed your family for a year?

1. Count approximately how many pints you use per month.
2. Multiply this number by 12 months in a year.
3. Divide by 5 (the pint yield from one batch) to see how many batches you need to make.

Problem Solving: Breaking Jars

Over the years I have sometimes had a problem of jars breaking when I put them in the canner to process. I have learned that this is indirectly related to having a larger family.

Because I usually have some children underfoot and others helping when we are making jam, the process sometimes takes longer. I often have random interruptions as I work on the jam throughout the day.

Sometimes the finished jam will sit in the pint jars long enough to cool down to room temperature. When I place these room-temperature jam jars into the canner of boiling water, the change in temperature causes the jars to crack. The solution is to either process the hot jars of hot jam in the canner immediately or, if there is a time-lapse, put the room-temperature jars in the canner when it is warm, but not boiling.

* This post may contain affiliate links, which means I make a small commission at no extra cost to you.

Easy Jam Recipe

Here are a few things you should know before making this homemade jam recipe. If you are used to store-bought traditional jam, this may not taste quite as sweet as your normal preference.

Additionally, honey sweetened jam does not yield as much as a full or low-sugar recipe. In my opinion, however, the smaller yield is worth it because you can be confident that your family is consuming healthy food.

Ingredients

• 8 cups crushed fresh strawberries, pureed with a potato masher (kids are great for this job!) or in a food processer
• 1 cup water (or fruit juice if you prefer it a little sweeter)
• 9 tablespoons Low or No Sugar Sure Jell or Fruit Pectin
• 1 cup honey ( I prefer raw honey.)

Canning Tools

• large pot
• canner
• pint-sized mason jars, lids, and bands
• magnetic lid lifter
• canning jar tongs
• canning funnel

Instructions

1. Pour 8 cups of crushed fresh berries and 1 cup of water (or fruit juice) into a large saucepan. Heat on the stovetop, slowly whisking in the 9 TB Sure Jell. Bring to a full rolling boil that cannot be stirred down.
2. Add 1 cup of honey. Bring to a rolling boil again. When the boil cannot be stirred down, set a timer for 1 minute. Stir constantly to keep it from sticking to the bottom of the pan. Turn off heat after the minute timer is complete.
3. Use a funnel and ladle to pour hot strawberry jam into clean jars (pint-size.) Leave a 1/4 inch of headspace. Wipe the top of the filled jars with a hot, clean cloth to remove any strawberry residue.
4. Boil lids and rings in a small pot of water for 1 minute.
5. Use a canning magnet to pull lids and rings out of the boiling water. Place lid on the jar. Screw on the ring. It should be screwed all the way, but not too tight. (Too loose and it may not seal, too tight and the jar lid may buckle.)
6. Use a jar lifter to gently place the pint jar into a canner filled with hot water. Seven pint jars will fill a standard canning kettle.
7. When the kettle comes to a boil, process the jam for 10 minutes.
8. Use a jar lifter to remove the jars from the boiling water bath canner. Set on a tea towel to let the jam cool. Do not move for 24 hours to allow the jam to set and the jars to seal. Test the seals on each jar by tapping in the center or gently pressing down.

Preserving Food Teaches Kids Life Skills

One good reason to preserve food for your family is because it teaches kids valuable life skills. Getting them involved in growing and making their own food helps them fully understand how they contribute to the family.

There are many jobs that kids can do to be a part of when preserving food. With jam, they can pick the fresh fruit in strawberry season, wash them, cut off the tops, mash them to a puree with a potato masher, and measure the berries, honey, and sure jell.

When they see this process year after year, even if they aren’t actively doing the work, they can step in and out in any part of it because they watched it all several times.

It’s also good for them to see how we respond to failures (like jars breaking and jam not setting.)

Besides all this, the memories made and smells of delicious jam are worth making this a regular family tradition in your home.

Find More Ways to Preserve Food For Your Family

How to Can Applesauce and Pass Down a Family Tradition

7 Easy Foods to Preserve with Kids this Summer

Pin it! Preserving Honey Sweetened Strawberry Jam for a Large Family

You can enjoy a rich curriculum while homeschooling multiple children. If you love Ambleside Online curriculum, but are unsure how to make it work for your growing family, you need to read this post! Learn how you can make Ambleside Online Homeschool Curriculum work For A Large Family!

If you are new to the blog, my husband and I have ten children. This year I have seven in school, two preschoolers, and an infant. Here is the grade level break down for this year: 12th, 9th, 8th, 6th, 4th, 2nd, and Kindergarten. This is quite a large age gap! Here’s how we make it work.

Video: Ambleside Online | How We Make It Work for a Large Family

Why Ambleside Online?

I was introduced to Ambleside Online when we began looking into homeschooling several years ago. At that time, our oldest child was around four years old. (He is now 18!) I instantly fell in love with the Charlotte Mason style curriculum which emphasized short lessons, living books, habits, science through observation and relationships, history learned chronologically, and a knowledge of God as understood through the Bible, not to mention their excellent book list!

Over the years and as our family grew, it became more challenging to find a way to make AO work in a large family, but at the same time, I wasn’t willing to give it up. I remember googling “Ambleside Online Homeschool Curriculum For Large Families” about ten years ago, but I could not find much content out there on this topic. In spite of this, I continued to use AO with our kids and managed to find a way to make it work. In this post, I am sharing all the ways that make Ambleside Online work in our family of twelve. I hope it will help someone else who might be searching for information on this topic like I was all those years ago.

Comment

This recent comment on YouTube also inspired me to write this post.

“I also use AO and love it. I have 5 children and my second child will be joining us this next school year. I’m going to group my two students for everything except skill based subjects. I’d love to hear what your favorite AO reads are that you do with all your children. I love the idea of family learning so I’m going to do my best to adapt AO to fit our family.”

-Hope

After reading this, I realized that there are probably other people who also love Ambleside Online and are wondering if it is possible to do with a large family. I am not sure that we have the best system, but in 13 years of homeschooling, these are the ways that we have captured the best of AO in a home with multiple children.

How We Use Ambleside Online in Our Large Family

If you are new to Ambleside Online curriculum, it would probably be helpful to first head over to their website to familiarize yourself with it before continuing with this post. I have written this for people who are already familiar with AO to help find ways to use it in a growing family.

I think it is important to say from the start that Ambleside Online is not necessarily a curriculum designed for a large family. It is just the curriculum I have loved from the very beginning. I have adapted it and made it work through the years as our family has grown.We view AO as a feast. We don’t do all of it. Currently, I only use my personal favorite books which is why I will give book lists below for the books I have picked to use with our family.

Additionally, we don’t ONLY use Ambleside Online. I have outsourced history to Veritas Press Self-Paced History lessons and we use some of the AO history book suggestions as supplemental reading. Also, we use seterra.com to teach geography. Additionally, there are also AO subjects that we don’t do because of the size of our large family. One of these is Plutarch.

You may also enjoy reading how Brandy Vencel is using AO with multiple children in this post. Making Ambleside Online Work For A (Very) Large Family.

Books We Love

What are our favorite must-read Ambleside books? You can browse our list of personal favorites below.

Through the years as our family kept expanding, I had to assess at the beginning of every year how best to cover the books that are on my must-read list. For this reason, I won’t give a detailed description of how we cover these books. It changes from year to year based on pregnancies, babies, and ages and number of kids in school. Also, I don’t necessarily do them in certain years or grades. I just try to make sure that either by reading aloud to them or them reading on their own, these are the AO resources that each child gets at some point in their elementary years.

*This post contains affiliate links which means I may make a small commission at no cost to you.

Literature

Year 0-We use almost all the books recommended for Year 0, so I will not list these.

Year 1

• Aesop’s Fables for Children by Milo Winter
• Blue Fairy Book by Andrew Lang
• Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling
• Paddle to the Sea by Holling C Holling

Year 2

• Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan. We have an audio version of this book. A few years ago everyone listened to this before bed. Currently we are reading The Little Pilgrim’s Progress by Helen L. Taylor as our Read Aloud.
• Understood Betsy by Dorothy Canfield Fisher
• Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Graham
• The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood by Howard Pyle. The old English in this book is tough at first, but once you get used to that, this book is just fantastic. Loved by all our kids!

Year 3

• American Tall Tales by Adrien Stoutenburg
• The Princess and the Goblin by George MacDonald
• Children of the New Forest by Frederick Marryat
• Optional: The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling (Not an absolute favorite of mine, but if time allows.)

Year 4

• The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe
• The Incredible Journey by Sheila Burnford

Year 5

• King Arthur and His Knights of the Round Table by Roger Lancelyn Green

Year 6

• The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
• Animal Farm by George Orwell
• Black Ships Before Troy (Retelling of The Illiad) by Rosemary Sutcliff
• The Wanderings of Odysseus (Retelling of The Odyssey) by Rosemary Sutcliff

In addition to the literature books, I love all the AO Free Reading book lists. We have collected several these books and I refer our kids to them when they are looking for something good to read.

Biography

Year 1

Read all the Ingri and Edward D’Aulaire books. They are excellent!

Year 2

• Trial and Triumph by Richard Hannula (Covered in Morning Time)
• The Little Duke (A challenging book best suited for kids who love a good story, but so good once you get into it!)

Year 3

• Leonardo da Vinci by Emily Hahn- A challenging but good book. I read this aloud to my kids.
• Bard of Avon: The Story of William Shakespeare by Peter Vennema and Diane Stanley-This is a picture book and a child can read on their own.
• The Landing of the Pilgrims by James Daugherty- Fun to read at Thanksgiving!

Year 4

• Poor Richard by James Daugherty, Kids absorb more if I read this aloud.
• Abigail Adams: Witness to a Revolution by Natalie S. Bober, I have older kids read this on their own.

Year 5

• Of Courage Undaunted: Across the Continent with Lewis and Clark by James Daugherty
• Carry a Big Stick: The Uncommon Heroism of Teddy Roosevelt

Year 6

• Never Give In (about Winston Churchill), by Stephen Mansfield

Language Arts

We complete copywork, oral and written narration, dictation, and grammar as suggested by AO using Charlotte Mason’s methods. When practiced regularly, copywork and narration, specifically, cover so many concepts in one lesson.

I have written several posts on how we implement these.

Copywork and Dictation

Simple Step-By-Step Guide to Homeschool Writing

Helpful Habits for Writing Well #2: Copying the Best Pieces from Great Authors-In this post you can access free downloads of copywork we use for each AO year.

Recitation

Simple Ideas for Memory Work in Morning Time

Narration

Helpful Habits for Writing Well #3: Narration

Grammar

Our Large Family Homeschool Curriculum This post explains our overall homeschool curriculum, but one whole section shows how we teach formal grammar beginning in 4th grade as suggested by AO.

Notebooking

Helpful Habits for Writing Well #4: Notebooking

History

Our formal history curriculum is not part of AO history suggestions. We outsource history by using Veritas Press Self-Paced History. You can read more about that here. We do, however, supplement history with many of the AO history book suggestions. Below are the books that I have used either as read alouds or assigned readings for my kids.

• 50 Famous Stories Retold by James Baldwin
• An Island Story by H.E. Marshall (up to around chapter…..)
• Child’s History of the World by Virgil Hillyer
• This Country of Ours (selected chapters)
  • Note: Some chapters of the book This Country of Ours are little too detailed for my preference. I usually pick and choose the chapters that we use in this book.

As much as I love the concept of a Book of Centuries as suggested by AO, we have not found a way to successfully complete one. This is still something that I still want to try, however!

Math

Ambleside Online gives several math curriculum suggestions. From these, we have chosen Singapore Math U.S. Edition. With Singapore, the kids are mostly able to work independently with assistance from me as they approach new concepts. Other than helping the youngest child get started with the basics, I do not teach individual lessons to each of them. They read the lesson and sample problems in the textbook and complete the correlating workbook exercises. Kids who are old enough and trustworthy can check their own work in the teacher’s manual.

Another excellent AO suggestion is Right Start Math. Initially, I started out using Right Start with our oldest three children. I love their approach and philosophy, but the lessons were too teacher-intensive for our growing family. We switched to Singapore, BUT I still use many of the math games to teach concepts. The games are excellent! I highly recommend their Math Card Games book.

Nature Study and Science

Here are some of my favorite AO science suggestions.

Burgess Bird Book and Burgess Animal Book- (Two of my absolute favorites!) I buy the Peterson Field Guide Coloring Books and the kids will color along as I read the chapter. They love doing this! Afterward, we watch short YouTube clips of the animals we studied. Rebekah, from A Humble Place, has links to YouTube videos that correlate to each of the 40 chapters in the Burgess Animal Book.

James Herriot’s Treasury for Children by James Herriot

Story of Inventions by Frank P. Bachman

Archimedes and the Door of Science by Jeanne Bendick

Story Book of Science by Jean Henri Fabre

Elements: A Visual Exploration of Every Known Atom in the Universe by Theodore Gray and Nick Mann

Nature Study

Although AO lists the Handbook of Nature Study for several years in a row, we have found field guides and apps to be more our style. One thing that has worked well for me is to assign the kids to do a nature notebooking page one day a week in place of copywork on that day. We base the format for these on the book The Country Diary of An Edwardian Lady.

Subjects Covered in Morning Time

For a more detailed description of how we do Morning Time, you may enjoy reading How to Simplify Your Homeschool with Morning Time

Bible

When I was new to AO, they suggested The Child’s Story Bible by Katherine A. Vos as a resource for teaching Bible stories. I no longer see this on their website, but we continue to use and love this resource. We read a chapter every morning.

Picture Study

**Although AO has three terms for subjects like picture study, composer, and poetry, we only study one or two per year for each of these subjects.**

Although we don’t necessarily follow the suggested rotation for picture study, the lists are inspiration for which artists we choose to study. We love the Simply Charlotte Mason picture study portfolios.

Composer

We have only successfully studied a handful of composers. I love the Opal Wheeler books. We use Apple playlists as well to play composer pieces.

Poetry

Using the AO suggestions, we choose a poet to focus on for a period of time. I choose 4-5 of my favorite poems that they have written. We read one poem a day until it is memorized. Then we move on to the next poem until all (4 or 5) of them are memorized.

Church History/Missionary Biography

One day a week I read a chapter from Trial and Triumph (or other missionary biography) in place of our Bible reading. Trial and Triumph is a chronological collection of church history biographies.

You may also enjoy reading this post on a similar topic. 11 Excellent Christian Biography Resources for Your Homeschool

Hymn Study

I love AO’s idea of studying a different hymn every month! I have adapted it, however, and plan the hymns we study for the year based on hymns that my husband and I love and prefer to pass down to our kids. A few of the hymns AO suggests are unfamiliar to us. Likewise, some of our favorite are not included. As part of our bedtime routine, we sing a hymn and pray with the kids.

Shakespeare

I have not been successful at reading Shakespeare plays with all of our kids, BUT they love reading the retellings from Tales From Shakespeare. We read one or two plays per year either during Morning Time or Afternoon Read Aloud.

Summary of Ambleside Online Homeschool Curriculum for Large Families

This sums up the basics of how we use Ambleside Online Homeschool Curriculum with a large family. Another option to try is AO for groups. I have not done this personally, but it is worth looking at to see if it will fit for you. What questions do you have about Ambleside Online? Is there something I missed? I would also love to know which AO books are a must-read in your home!

Pin it! Ambleside Online Homeschool Curriculum for a Large Family

In a large family, everything is MORE! More food to make, more clean up, more stuff. If there is no system or plan for keeping the house in order, it will be chaos! Homeschooling adds one more element to the mix. Have you ever wondered how to keep a house clean when homeschooling a large family? Is it possible? I say, yes, it is! Here’s how we make it work in our home.

My husband and I have ten children ages eighteen to one month. Currently we have seven kids in school. Our grade levels are 12th, 9th, 8th, 6th, 4th, 2nd, and Kindergarten so that makes a pretty wide age gap! We also have a preschooler and toddler. You can read more about our homeschooling story here.

Over the years, many times I have said, “I can clean the house or I can homeschool the kids, but I can’t do both!” Have you felt this way too? Here what we have learned from 13+ years of homeschooling our large family.

You may also enjoy reading these.

10 Tips for How to Homeschool a Large Family

Our Large Family Homeschool Curriculum

Our Homeschool Routine | Day in the Life Mom of 9

Video: How to Keep a House Clean When Homeschooling a Large Family

Large Family “Clean”

When I say clean, I am not thinking of the same type of clean we had before kids or even the same “clean” we had with one or two kids. When you have a lot of people living in one house, the wear and tear multiplies. Like the proverb says, “Where no oxen are, the crib is clean,” so the opposite applies as well.

You could probably HAVE a pristine house AND a large family if you really wanted it, but in my opinion, you’d have to manage it more like a factory or a business… and that’s not really how i want our home to feel!

We are a family. I want our home to be a haven, not a showcase. We love letting our hair down every now and then with fun times like Friday night movie nights, birthday celebrations with lots of friends over, and restful Sundays where we can truly relax.

Here is what I have in mind when I say large family “clean”

• Having a plan in place: chores and daily rhythms.
• Having the house company-ready at least once during the day.
• Being able to get things picked up for company with a 15 minute notice.
• Waking up to a fairly clean kitchen on most mornings.
• Everyone having clean clothes to wear.

Prioritize Housework above School

When our kids were all little and I was figuring out how to make homeschooling work, I did let housework go a little. These were the foundational years of teaching them EVERYTHING. At that time, I felt that if I were to get the house all in order before starting school, we would never be able to start. In those years I just did the breakfast clean up, threw in a load of laundry, and we started our school day. I focused on the essentials of teaching our school age kids to read, write, and the foundations of math.

As our family grew in size, however, and as more of our children became independent learners, this changed. With more people (and more older kids) in our house, chores have become a priority before school work.

If you struggle to keep up with the housework AND homeschool, I encourage you to do the same. Prioritize the housework above your academic work. You may fear that you will “get behind” in your academic studies, but I have not found this to be true and here’s why.

1. Doing housework IS learning! The work that needs to be done in a home is something many adults struggle to learn. These are valuable life skills.
2. If your kids love to learn, they will always be moving forward. Their curiosity will spur them on.

Seasons When You Can’t Keep Up

This principle applies as well when you go through seasons when you can’t keep up. Have you ever been through a season where it seems that you just can’t keep up? I know I have. When we first moved to our current house, it took me a while to figure out a cleaning system that worked for us. I felt overwhelmed knowing how to manage our large family in a bigger house. What eventually worked for us was to put school on a back burner for a while to prioritize our housework. We still did some school every day, but it was secondary. Getting the house in order and thoroughly checking chores took first place. When the house was satisfactory, then we moved on to school. During this time, I was set the bar a little higher so that they could get a good understanding of what I expect from them when they do their chores. I’ll be honest, some days it was 11:00 before we got to our academic work, BUT doing this for a period of time helped give the kids an understanding of what is expected from them when they do their chores.

Quiet/Nap Time For Littles Having younger kids do an hour of quiet time can help you get some free time in the afternoon to work individually with kids who need help. Or this may be a time that you can use to deep clean a certain area or organize a closet. This gives the littles a time for rest and everyone else a time when the house is quiet.

“Whoever is doing the most work is the one learning.” Someone once told me this years ago and I have found it to be true. If you become irritated because you are working non-stop while everyone else is playing or making a mess in some other area, this is a sign that your kids should be doing more to contribute. Enlist their help! Giving them more responsibilities will challenge them. Kids learn so much from hands on work!

Daily Chores

When our kids were all very little, our life it seemed, revolved around the four d’s. Diapers, dinner, dishes, and dirty laundry. Our life still revolves around these things, but with a large family, we have more older kids who can contribute to the work.

Get kids involved in the work by giving them chores. Giving kids daily chores is teaching them valuable life skills which they will use as adults. Consider chore time as part of the life skills learning of the day. Doing a job thoroughly is something that is best learned with repeated practice. These habits will help develop good work ethic which will prepare your kids for adulthood.

For more reading on life skills, check out these similar posts.

50 Life Skills That Should Be Taught At Home

Life Skills In Different Seasons

It may take a little planning to get a chore system in place, but once you have a chart printed out, it will be a wonderful tool for your family. Our chore chart is very simple.

The First Chore : Make Your Bed

From the time our kids are three years old, I try to teach them these three things to help them learn basic hygiene. One of them is to make your bed. This is their first chore.

1. Get dressed.
2. Brush your teeth.
3. Make your bed.

Having them learn to make their beds as soon as they get out of it will help them learn to start their day by keeping their immediate space neat and organized. When the bed is made, it makes the whole room look better. Here is one of my favorite speeches about the importance of making your bed.

Cleaning Zones

The best chore system I have found for our family has been to divide our house into zones: living room, kitchen, entryway, downstairs/upstairs bathroom, etc. Zones help everyone separate, rather than too many people tripping over each other in one area. “Divide and conquer!”

When I initially started a new chore chart, I wrote each zone down on separate index cards. Then I listed on each card what wanted to be done in that area for it to be clean. Some tasks need to be done daily and others weekly. I put all of these zone cards in an envelope near the chore chart, so they could pull them out as a visual reminder when they started on their zones.

In the beginning, I gave each child the same zone to do every day so that they could get good at it. Over time and with practice, we slowly rotated through the zones and now each child does a different area every day.

Our up and coming littles, when they watch their siblings doing chores, want to get their names on the chart too! So we have them partner up with a buddy who shows them how to do each zone.

A Clean Kitchen

In a large family, the kitchen is like a revolving door. It seems no sooner do you get everything cleaned up after a meal that it’s time for another meal! A few years ago as our family was beginning to expand, I started noticing that the time I was spending in the kitchen was getting longer and longer. It was hard for me to get a break from making meals and cleaning them up to be able to do other equally important tasks. I realized at this time that I needed the kids to help more.

Assign a daily kitchen helper. Depending on the ages of your oldest kids, assign a child to either be your kitchen helper (middle kids) or completely responsible (older kids) for kitchen clean up for for every meal. Currently we do this by day. One child is the kitchen clean up person for one day a week. This is less confusing to me than having a different person for every meal. We have this covered for six days. Mom and dad do the seventh day. Younger kids can be a helper to an older child on their clean up day.

Meal preparation. If needed, your daily kitchen helper can also help with meal preparation.

Everyone use the same cup. We have stainless steel cups with kids’ names on them to use throughout the day to help keep dirty dishes to a minimum.

Use paper plates during busy seasons. When we are homeschooling with an infant (or in other stressful seasons), we use paper plates for the first two months to help us adjust.

15 Minute Pick Up

The 15 Minute Pick Up is a mom’s super tool. I pull it out whenever we need it. Set the timer for 15 minutes, assign kids to different areas to pick up everything in sight, on the floor, on tables, the kitchen island, etc. We often do a 15 minute pick up before my husband gets home. Also, we usually do a pick up when company is coming. Anytime things begin to feel chaotic, a 15 minute pick up will reset your home.

Laundry system

If there’s one thing that can make everything seem overwhelming, it is getting behind in laundry. If everyone has clean clothes to wear, it seems to keep us one step ahead. Here’s how we handle laundry in our home.

Kids 10 years and older do their own laundry.

They are responsible to wash, dry, and fold their clothes. Older kids have their own hamper in their bedrooms. I don’t have a formal system for who washes when. I leave it completely up to them to decide when they need to do their wash. Yes, sometimes we have had somewhere important to go and somebody has no clean clothes because they forgot to do their wash, BUT they learn and this usually only happens once!

One family hamper for younger kids.

Our younger kids do not have their own hamper. For kids younger than ten whose laundry I wash, we have one hamper next to the washer. They have to bring their dirty laundry down at night when they change for bed. This transfers the work from me to them. It saves me the work of going around collecting it and gives them a job they can do.

Pin socks.

One system that worked well in our home for a long time was to teach our kids to pin their socks. I keep a bowl of safety pins in a central place. By pinning their socks before they put them in the hamper, we are able to save some pairs. Inevitably, however, socks still get lost. For this we keep a large sock basket in the laundry room. When it gets full, I pay our younger kids to match them.

Run 1-2 loads of laundry a day.

Running 1-2 loads a day helps us not to get behind.

Only one laundry basket.

It may seem a little crazy to tell you that for our family of twelve I use only one laundry basket. I have found that if I have more, the baskets get full and pile up. By having only one laundry basket, I am forced to fold it before I run more laundry through. Occasionally if I am not able to fold in a busy moment, I call kids to help me.

Solutions for Deep Cleaning and Odd Jobs

I always have a running mental list of deep cleaning and odd jobs that I need to get done. Things like organizing drawers or closets or similar projects. I chip away at it here and there, but sometimes it piles up and I just get behind. We offer to pay our kids to help me with jobs like these. Our kids love earning money so there are almost always volunteers!

Bedrooms

We don’t have our kids clean their bedrooms every day, but we do like to have them regularly picked up.

Make the bed everyday. When the bed is made, the whole room looks cleaner.

Clean room before screen time. We have three screen days a week where the kids can play video games. (This does not include using screens for school work or watching shows/movies with the family.) Before they can have screen time, they have to thoroughly clean their rooms. This is a great motivator!

Leave a Comment!

I would love to hear from you! What can you share about how to keep a house clean when homeschooling a large family? Keep the conversation going!

Welcoming a newborn is a special time for the whole family. It’s also a big adjustment. Homeschool moms, in particular, have a unique experience of adjusting to an infant while having other kids home with them all day. Recently the Lord blessed our family with a new baby, our tenth child. In the thirteen years we have been homeschooling, we have had six babies born during the homeschool year. Needless to say, homeschooling with a newborn has become very familiar territory for us! Here are some things I have learned about how to homeschool with an infant.

You may also enjoy reading these similar topics.

Best Tips for Homeschooling with Toddlers in the House

Homeschooling With a Baby

10 Tips for How to Homeschool a Large Family

With a newborn in the house, any routines you may have had are now on stand-by as you adjust to this new family member who comes with a completely unpredictable schedule. You may be in the kitchen after your kiddos are in bed finishing dinner dishes or bouncing your crying newborn late into the night. It can be a full-time job meeting the needs of your baby while feeding everyone and keeping the house clean. You (and your husband) probably have little time to yourself. What should you do about homeschooling during this time? I hope these suggestions will give you some direction.

Video: How to Homeschool With An Infant

Homeschooling: Take a break or keep going?

When I was a younger mom with all littles, I took a complete break from homeschooling when we had a new baby. The time after having a newborn can be very overwhelming, especially when you have a lot of little children. Everything you do takes longer, everyone needs mom all the time, more little ones make more clutter. Almost no one can do anything for themselves. The one “schoolish” thing I did make an effort to do every day was to read to our school age kids whenever I could fit it in.

Things look a little differently in our home in this season. We have more older kids who are able to do a lot of their school work on their own. I act more as a facilitator and counselor in their school work. In this stage, it is easier for us to keep going with homeschooling for the older kids. Having older kids at home with no structure, milling around, can also be stressful. Continuing with school helps them to have just enough structure to their day to make things run smoothly.

How will you know if you should take a break or keep going homeschooling? A good rule of thumb is this. If the number of your dependent kids outnumbers the number of independent kids, it might benefit you and them to take a break for a period of time. If, on the other hand, your independent kids are in the majority, you might find it helpful to keep going. I would define independent kids as children who can read and write fluently, learn new concepts with minimal help, and follow a checklist on their own.

Recognize and communicate your needs to your spouse

This seems to be something I don’t hear much talk about, but adding a new baby is a big adjustment for your marriage. All at once, you have a child who needs to eat every 2-3 hours, doesn’t sleep through the night, and has no predictable schedule. If you are a breastfeeding mom, you are probably up several times a night. Often your infant will only be consoled by you. Having a child “attached” to you 24/7 along with the regular needs of other children means more demands on both mom and dad. This can temporarily change the dynamics in your marriage.

This big life change combined with the resulting exhaustion from caring for an infant can easily lend to miscommunication and frustration in your relationship with your spouse. The best way I have found to prevent this is to communicate with each other beforehand. Talk together about both of your expectations and what you can do to help each other get breaks and also have personal time to do things you enjoy. This doesn’t need to be formal or planned.

Here are good questions to ask each other.

“What is one thing you would like to get done today?”

“Do you need a break?”

“What can I do for you today?”

For us, it usually looks like this. I like to have some time during the day to do something productive and creative without the baby or other kids around. He likes to have some time during the day to get outside to work on projects. We try to find ways to do this for each other.

Tips: Caring for Baby and the Family

Because your baby’s schedule is completely unpredictable, you lose some of the control you had before baby as your routine suddenly goes out the window. You will probably find yourself saying,”I can’t get anything done!” Here are some ideas that might help.

–Wear the baby. Wearing your baby will open up a whole new world for you! As baby comfortably sleeps up close to his/her favorite person, you can get some work done hands-free!

–Let siblings hold the baby. Let your kids hold the baby so you can get a few things done. This gives them time to bond with their new sibling while giving you some free time to get things done.

–Jot down (or make a mental note) of the small things you do with your kids. I think it’s normal during this time to worry that you are not spending enough time with your other kids. By jotting a quick note in your planner of the small one-on-one time that you spend with individual kids, you will have a visible reminder for yourself to see that you ARE spending time with them, just maybe not as much as normal. Don’t make it formal or planned. Just note when you sit down eye-to-eye to talk with your teen, play a game with your preschooler, sing with your toddler, or work together with another child on a task, etc.

–Minimize the baby products in your home. It’s amazing how much stuff we think we need to have for a baby, but really, how much does a baby need? More than anything else, your baby just wants you. Over the years we have seriously cut down on the baby items in our house because they just aren’t necessary. With less baby clutter, our home is simpler to clean and manage.

–Find a sleep routine that works for you. This doesn’t mean that there is one “right” method that is going to give you a full night of sleep with an infant. What it does mean is that you shouldn’t fight against something that works for you just because it’s unconventional or not the way you are “supposed” to sleep your baby. For us, co-sleeping has been the answer to a workable sleep routine for me and our babies. I sleep, baby sleeps, and we can all function the next day. What sleep routine fits you?

Tips for Housework and Meals

-Keep up with your regular chore routines. This will help the whole family maintain some amount of order as well as keep tasks from getting behind and the mess piling up.

–15 Minute Pick-Up In our home when I start to feel things getting a little out of hand, we set a timer for 15 minutes and everybody works as quickly as possible to do a quick pick up. Often the kids complain whenever I announce a pick up, however, by the time we are done, everyone’s attitudes are much better as they appreciate the results of a clean space. The 15 minute pick-up is an automatic reset.

-Use paper plates. We use paper plates for almost two months after having a new baby. Why not? It’s a minimal cost and it saves so much clean up afterwards.

–Do Less. It’s ok if your house is not up to the standard you normally keep. It will take some time for you to find a “new normal” as you adjust to the addition of a new family member.

Homeschooling Tips: Prioritize Home Over School

When you begin to start school again, here are some things to keep in mind with an infant in the mix.

–Keep relationships a priority. Your relationships with your kids are more important than your school work. A new baby is an adjustment for siblings as well. Don’t let the only time you spend with your other children be spent over their school work.

–Hold your homeschool schedule loosely. Be content with small chunks of progress every day. The grand goal is progress, not completing your regular schedule. Do less school. One of the benefits of having homeschooled for several years is that you can see the ebb and flow of homeschooling. You recognize that there are seasons when you don’t get as much done, but its OK because you also know that there are seasons when you get twice as much done. It all evens out.

–Enjoy the baby. Your homeschool is the only learning environment where can bring your baby to school. Make the baby part of your lesson. Look at those tiny ears and adorable toes. Wonder at God’s handiwork. Relish the first smile. Don’t miss any of these precious moments.

–Be Flexible. With a new baby, you are likely to have more interruptions. If people stop by to visit, do a little school work before they arrive, then stop to enjoy the company. When baby is crying or needy, it’s ok to put the lesson away and try again tomorrow. Having an infant is a very temporary stage in your life. You will have plenty of time to catch up later.

–Have child read to you when nursing the baby. Also, if it is convenient to you, you can use the time you are nursing to read aloud to your kids.

–Reading covers a multitude of sins. Whatever subjects you are not getting to during this time, fill in the gaps by reading a little bit every day. Or have older kids read to younger kids while you rest. You may worry that you aren’t getting enough school done during this time. Reading aloud is going to make up for some of the subjects you are not able to get to right now.

Take Care of Yourself

As a new mom again, you are at the mercy of your baby’s schedule. You may not have time to do many of the things you did when you did them before your new baby came along. Your emotions can be touchy as your body adjusts to hormone changes. Taking some simple precautions to take care of yourself will prevent you from becoming overwhelmed.

–Rest. I have often thought that I don’t have time for rest, but do you know what happens when I do too much? It usually comes back at me full circle. I get sick or exhaustion eventually leads to feelings of being overwhelmed which can paralyze all progress. Getting adequate rest prevents this.

–Listen to the Bible App. Fill your mind with truth. Hearing God’s Word will remind you that you are living for something that will outlast you, something eternal. It will also remind you that the Lord will give you the strength for whatever comes your way today.

–Limit activities. Resist the urge you feel to “get back into the real world” too quickly. It may be helpful to get away for a break here and there, but jumping back into your normal life schedule is likely to make you feel overwhelmed very quickly.

–Go outside. Fresh air and sunshine can work wonders for your spirit. Going for a short walk can completely change your perspective. Even if it’s only for 5 minutes, go outside!

–Enjoy a hobby or creative pursuit. Taking some time during the day to do something I enjoy helps redirect some of those postpartum emotions. Focus on some small task that will give you a feeling of accomplishment for that day. Here is a quote that has helped me when I struggle with postpartum anxiety. “Instead of worrying about what you cannot control, shift your energy to what you can create.” -Roy T. Bennett.

Have the Right Perspective

Having a newborn is a very temporary time in your life. Lower your expectations. You are caring for your little baby during the most critical time period of his or her life. Infants are fragile. Your baby needs your tender care now more than he ever will at any other time in life. This time will fly by and eventually be a blur. Don’t let the pressure of school keep you from enjoying your new addition. Instead, take advantage of the opportunity you have in homeschooling to truly relish this special time in your family.

If you have been a homeschool mom for any amount of time, you know exactly how this moment feels. Your baby needs a diaper change, the toddler is dumping bins of toys, your Kindergartener is waiting to read to you, and your 2nd grader is in tears over math. And it’s only 9:00 a.m! It’s like an intense game of “whack a mole”, where you are trying to solve one problem…only to run into three or four more just when you think you are getting ahead! So how do you keep homeschooling when all your kids need you at the same time?

Video: Homeschooling When All Your Kids Need You At The Same Time

How do you homeschool multiple kids? You work with one child at a time, starting with the greatest needs first. Begin with the youngest child. Encourage older kids to do independent work until you can give them your full attention. Although you may feel in this moment like you are failing to meet everyone’s needs, taking care of them individually is exactly what you are doing!

Have the Right Perspective

When you have a moment when everyone needs you, you should realize that this is normal. That doesn’t mean that this is always how it is, but there will be times like this.

The first time this happens to a new homeschool mom, I think the tendency is for them to doubt themselves and wonder how other homeschool moms are pulling this off. What’s the best way to manage all these distractions and needs? There must be some magical system or tool.

I assure you, there’s not.

When you see homeschool moms who appear relaxed and seemingly un-miffed, while you are struggling to stay above water, it’s not that they have found something you haven’t. It is probably that they have come to accept the overwhelming moments as part of the package.

Here’s what you need to understand about homeschooling. Although YOU may feel overwhelmed and like you are failing to meet everyone’s needs, taking care of them individually is EXACTLY what you are doing! You see, in a classroom, it is very likely that there would be no line of kids waiting their turn for one-on-one help. In a class of 20 or so students, everyone gets lumped in with the group. The kid who needs help has to figure it out. The one who understands it and needs more of a challenge has to sit through the lesson anyway.

The reason you have a line of kids needing you is because you are giving them a unique, individualized education and THAT is a good thing!

Understand the Ebb and Flow of Homeschooling

The longer you homeschool, you gain a better perspective. You know that there are days when you only get to the basics, and other days where you cover twice as much. In one individual day, it may seem like you didn’t do much, but at the end of the year, you will be surprised by all the progress your kids have made.

Some days in fall or spring, we tend to ditch the textbooks and opt for a nature hike. Other times we plow through our textbooks. We cover a ton of academic work in January through March during the shorter winter days when we are all stuck inside.

We have made our homeschool fit around our lifestyle. Because of this, it looks differently at different times of the year and in different stages of life. In the end, however, it all evens out. When kids love to learn, they are always growing, every making progress.

Pin it! Homeschooling When All Your Kids Need You At The Same Time

Moms With All Littles

If you are a mom with all littles, I am going to tell you something that I wish someone would have told me when I was in that stage.

It gets easier.

When your kids are all small, there’s not a whole lot that they can do on their own. This is a season of investing and it is hard work. They really do all need you most of the time. Building a foundation is always the hardest part with the least seen rewards.

BUT as your oldest grows and becomes more independent, this slowly changes. Over time, your number of independent kids will start to outnumber your dependent kids. That’s when you begin to feel the difference.

Here are some suggestions if you have all littles.

• Use the baby/toddler’s nap time to do the subjects in which your older kids need the most help from you. We did math in the afternoon for several years because it was when the baby was napping and I could count on fewer interruptions.
• Have your budding reader read to you while you nurse the baby.
• Wear the baby or toddler.
• Have a quiet time during the day where you can get a break to recharge. Little children are exhausting!

You may also enjoy reading How to Homeschool With a Baby and Best Tips for Homeschooling With Toddlers in the House.

Work With One Child At A Time

It can be tempting to multi-task and try to put out all the fires at once, but in my opinion, you can be more effective when you take one child at a time and give them your full attention. You can choose to solve the quickest “fix” or start with the youngest first. I have done both.

Start With The Quickest “Fix”

Sometimes it makes the most sense to solve the quickest “fix” first. There may be something urgent that can be solved quickly so that you can get to everyone else.

Start with the Youngest First

Since the youngest children are the ones who have the greatest need, begin with them. This may mean stopping and nursing the baby. It may be stopping and playing with the toddler for a few minutes until they are engaged in an activity. Or, it may be having an older child read a book to a toddler. It’s ok to have your older kids help! This is a nice break from their work and can be a big help to mom, not to mention that it builds a closer bond between siblings!

Older Kids

If you have older kids, encourage them to first try and see if they can solve the problem on their own. This doesn’t mean you aren’t hands on or giving them the one-on-one attention they need. It means you are motivating them to become independent learners. You are also helping them to be problem solvers which is a valuable life skill!

If they are unable to move ahead without help, have them do other available independent work from their checklist until you are free to give them your full attention. This might be a reading assignment, copywork, narration, or an online class.

Teach them to Wait

Teach your kids to wait patiently until you are available to give them your full attention. This probably seems so obvious, but I think that it’s important to say that teaching them to wait is not necessarily a lesson they learn in a day or a week or for some of them…a childhood! It’s a lesson that is learned by repeated encounters.

As kids mature, sometimes it takes a while for them to understand that the world does not revolve around them. This is an opportunity for them to put others ahead of themselves, to defer to the needs of others. It’s also a chance for them to learn delayed gratification. In the adult world, these are valuable character traits to have, so begin teaching them now.

Relax: Time is on your side!

One of the reasons we decided to homeschool is because of all the time we get to spend with our kids. Because you are homeschooling, you don’t need to fit your lessons into a certain window of time. You have ALL day! You have plenty of time to get to whatever it is that is pressing. You can take a few minutes in the afternoon or evening or weekend if you need it.

Not only do you have all day, you have their whole childhood! Let your homeschool become a lifestyle of learning together. The longer I homeschool, the more I am convinced that it is less about all of the lessons and textbooks, and more about a lifestyle of learning and growing together.

Enjoy your kids. Look them in the eyes and really listen to them. You have their whole childhood to be attentive to them!

To read more encouragement like this, check out the blog posts below!

How Do You Homeschool With ALL Littles?

Personal Wellness and Homeschooling

Homeschool Mom, You Are Doing a Great Work!

How to Homeschool With Read Struggles and Challenges