Handling the House & Homeschooling

I'm new to the homeschooling thing and my daughter is only 5.5 years old. We only home school for about 30 minutes a day at the most. That is one benefit to home schooling, it doesn't have to take ALL day long and they learn just as much. Anyway, there's plenty of time for me to clean the house. Well, not really PLENTY of time. There's always something else I'd prefer doing! But my daughter helps and we make cleaning be an activity and part of our routine. If we had several kids, there would be that many more kids to help clean up the mess;-)

F.,

I applaude you for staying home with your children, I too wish I had done it sooner. Your first question was an easy one. We have a house keeper who comes in once a week. This cuts down on the arguing and guarantees the deep cleaning is done regularly. Could we include it in our day??? Sure!! We are typically done with our School work by noon. (That's the incentive, you finish your work and then we get lunch). I have a 3rd grader and a 7th grader and this is our first year homeschooling, and again wish I had done it earlier. We do our yard work and other chores after lunch or if the day is really great we do it prior to dinner.

The bond with your family so intensifies when you pray and learn together. I hope this helps and if you have any questions, please feel free to contact me.

Good Luck and God Bless

Deb

Taking care of the house becomes part of the daily routine in which everyone takes part. It is essential that the children learn the responsibility of taking care of their home and belongings just as it is to learn the academics. If you follow a schedule, then you can pencil in housework as part of that schedule. Actual schooling doesn't take all day, especially at your children's ages. The biggest challenges you face in homeschooling are the same ones you face in parenting, which is how well the kids behave. Even if they are not ones to listen to you now, that can be part of the training. As you build your relationship with them, it gets much easier. I have 3 teenagers and do not have all the expected problems I have been warned about for years. I really enjoy them. I don't have everything down to a science and I've been homeschooling for 10 years. I have not quite figured out how to train my kids to pick up after themselves. They ALL know how to clean when we clean together, but we do way more cleaning than we should have to because they leave their stuff out. It is a parenting thing and everyone has areas they need to work on. One of mine is just that and I would LOVE it if I could figure out how to get that into their heads.

I would be glad to help answer any questions you might have about homeschooling. My oldest graduated this past June and is now an honors student in college. I have a 17 yo daughter who is already taking college courses while she's still in high school (dual credit). I also have 4 boys ages 14, 11, 9, and 6.

M.

Hi F.,
I realize you posted this long ago and have probably made decisions by now. None the less, I'd like to toss another option out to you. I am a licensed teacher with 13 years teaching experience. I will be opening a private school out of my home this fall. To begin with, I will take in kids kinder through second grades. I'd love to find a core group to work with at least until high school. I have an ad under Local Business Reviews Academics k-8 with a couple reviews and one under home schooling with another review, if you're interested. The School for Enlightened Learning is VERY child centered. I offer quality education for prices lower than traditional private schools. Whatever you decide, best of luck!

It is more difficult keeping the house clean with the kids not in school, but we all work together to get chores done and the house stays pretty clean. Like others have said, homeschooling doesn't take as much time as traditional school, so there is plenty of time for chores, errands and fun activities.

The flylady system has really helped me in terms of housecleaning. You can find out more about it here:

http://www.flylady.net

I homeschool my 6 & 4 yr old boys (1st grade & pre-k) and it takes about an hour to an hour and a half each day. It is tough to keep the house clean when you homeschool because you live in it more than a family where both parents work and the kids are in school all day. Try to get into a routine of having your kids do schoolwork and chores everyday, 4 or 5 days a week, before they get to do the "fun stuff" (outside play, computer/video game time, etc). It might take some time to get the kids used to it, but it will pay off in the longrun. We also have a cleaning service come every other week to do the deep cleaning, so that definitely helps. We just keep things picked up and wiped down in the meantime :).

My children are 12, 9 and 4.
I start them off on their school-work and then wash dishes or tidy the area. I also throw clothes in the washer.
They now help out with everything: dishes, tidying, etc. I had to break myself out of the teacher classroom mode. I was a public school teacher.

One -to one tutoring is so effective and there is less wasting time.

Homeschooling takes us about 3 hours.

My four year old has learned to play alone while we work. When he was younger I worked with one child while the other entertained my little one.