Homeschool Scheduling with Two Children

by Stephanie

I am about the home school my 2 children - 1 five and 1 six - how do I teach the two of them whilst at the same time developing their educational needs?

Do I teach the same subject but at different levels or teach different subjects - one in which they can get on with it on their own and one that needs a lot of attention ?


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Hi Stephanie
I am sure you will get lots of other comments and opinions about this question!

There is no right or wrong way to do things. You need to experiment with your family to see what works best for you.

I have always worked with my children together because I found that worked well for us. That way they could bounce ideas off each other and the younger could learn from the older one. But we have never done a lot of formal work (like worksheets or textbooks), so this just suited my style of homeschooling.

I have found that only now (at ages 10 and 12) are my children really beginning to work independently for a reasonable amount of time. So you may find you have to keep independent work short and sweet for your children's ages.

Take a look at some of the different homeschool scheduling ideas on this site. Then keep experimenting until you find a balance that works nicely for you.

best wishes, Julie.

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starstarstarstarstar 		i just started home school today
by: Anonymous

i just started to home school my two daughters one five and one is six today and i need a little guidance on how to schedule my day so i know we are all three on track. i have never did this before and i know noone who has so ima litle confused on how to make sure i am giving my daughters everything they need..
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starstarstarstarstar 		together
by: Anonymous

You are very lucky to have children close in age. Mine are 2 years apart and I teach most of the same to them...if they were only a year apart, I would be able to teach even more together. If you find your children have drastic needs, one being delay or very advanced, then you would need to adjust a teeny bit to suit that requirement. There are often children that are a year apart in the same class rooms at traditional schools. I think you should start off teaching them the same curriculum to make life easy for all involved. If you stumble across problems, take it from there. Best of luck!
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starstarstarstarstar 		Homeschooling Two
by: Lori

Hi Stephanie, your kids are close in age so I would do as much as you can together. It will save you so much time and work and there will be time for them as well to pursue their individual passions as well.

If they can already both read that is the first "hurdle" if one can read and the other can't you can still work with them together and the older one could help teach the younger one (depending on personalities of course).

I would also highly recommend read aloud time or tea time as we like to call it - everyone shares what they are currently reading - sometimes it's just a paragraph, a page or sometimes a whole chapter. We usually follow with some kind of writing or word activity after that.

Math is another area that is easy to do together, for example they'll probably both work on addition, it's easy to make the addition questions harder for one if that needs to happen but your are still working on the same "topic".

Things you want to watch for - if one is bored that means they need to move on and you don't want the other one to feel that they are "behind" the other one. If this happens you may either want to switch to a different curriculum (this way neither of them know why you are switching) or add games or a computer game to enhance their different needs for a period of time.

Once the core stuff is done it's easy to include their individual passions into school as well for example if one of them loves art but the other isn't so keen perhaps they enjoy science experiments that could be the time to do it individually but of course with the other "observing" they will still be learning!

Enjoy your journey and always remember if something isn't working STOP and try something else and if something is working keep doing that!

Best wishes!

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