Nothing is worse than trying to juggle a multitude of curricula and children. You’re constantly changing gears from studying cells with your oldest child to studying gravity with your youngest and wondering, would combining children make homeschooling easier? Yes, as a matter of fact, it does.

Make Homeschooling Easier by Combining Children

Morning Time

Start the morning with a group study time which many families Morning Time. It’s simply a time period to gather as a family and study those subjects that tend to get missed in the busyness of daily life.

Use this time for memorizing poetry, reading great children’s literature aloud, and beginning the day with prayer. It’s the perfect time to study music appreciation and art history. It’s also an excellent time to study history, geography, and science as a family.

Here are some FREE units to study together as a family:

Simple Machines – 5 week unit plus free printable games and mini books
Solar System – 4 week unit plus free printable worksheets and mini books
Weather Unit – free printable worksheets with activities, 4 week unit, and more
Biology – Animal Cells, Flashcards. Habitat Adventure Game, Zoo Scavenger Hunts , Animal Report, Animal Home
Life cycles – Chicken , Flower, Butterflies, Frog
Dinosaurs
Earth Science
5 Senses Unit
Ancient Mesopotamia:(4 week unit)
Medieval Times (4 week unit)
Early Explorers (5 week unit)
Famous Artists
Music
Native Americans (4 week unit)
Colonial America (4 week unit)
Westward Expansion (3 week unit)
Expanding Horizons
United States (geography, individual states, capitals, etc.)
World Geography

Same Curriculum

Along the same not, if possible join children in the same curriculum. It’s much easier to deal with one curriculum than trying to juggle 3 or 4 different programs. Obviously this won’t work for every subject but it does work wonderfully for the content subjects.

For instance my family uses Tapestry of Grace as our unifying curriculum. Everyone studies the same topic together, although at different levels. Currently my 1st grader is studying South America: people, animals, and plants with a touch of history. My 8th and 11th grade children are doing a more detailed study of the history of South America, particularly the South American hero Simon Bolivar.

Life is easier when you’re no longer jumping from topic to topic throughout the day.

Same Topic, Different Levels

Sometimes you simply can’t find an appropriate curriculum which meets the needs of everyone in the family. In this case look to keep the children studying the same topic but using different books.

A few years ago I had 4th, 7th, 9th, and 10th graders with two toddlers underfoot. Instead of trying to put the children in 4 different science programs, I decided we’d all study biology together.

In this case I divided the children into two groups and found a high school biology textbook for the teenagers and a biology curriculum for my 4th and 7th grader. Then I sat down and rearranged the units and chapters so we were all studying the similar topics.

It worked beautifully. The level and depth of the studies changed, for instance the high school teenagers studied cells in much greater detail than my 4th grader. But I wasn’t changing from cells to gravity to oceans to volcanoes. Instead I was explaining cells to all the children.

The overview my 4th grader received helped prime the pump for the detail the high school teens learned, and the detail I covered with the teens helped give me depth to my explanations to the younger children.

We were also able to complete the same activities and experiments.

You’ll find that dinner time conversations are fabulous when you’ve combined your children. Start the children talking by asking a general question about the weekly science or history topic, or even
just inquiring as to what they thought was most interesting about today’s studies.

Now sit back and enjoy the fascinating family discussion.

Have you tried making your homeschool easier by combining children?