My first year homeschooling started the same month that our third baby was born. That year, I had ample time to work individually with both girls while the baby napped multiple times a day. We finished the school year when he was 9 months old and just starting to really get into everything, but was still napping for two hours twice a day, which gave us plenty of time to do all of our work while he was sleeping.
This school year started with our house having a preschooler, a second grader, and a very active 1 year old! I quickly realized that the schedule we had used before absolutely was not working. I spent a few weeks doing some trial and error school days to see what would work for us, and we finally settled into a good routine for this season of homeschool with a 7 year old, a 4 year old, and a toddler! Here’s what works for us, and hopefully you can implement some of these things to help you if you’re struggling to homeschool with a toddler in the house!
- Decide what things you can do while the baby is awake, and which things will be reserved for nap time! Things we can do while our 18 month old is awake are chores, Spanish lessons, piano practice, our Classical Conversations Science and History lessons, Art, and morning devotion. All of the things on that list are things that I feel like I am able to do well with a baby sitting on my lap! Our nap time subjects are Math and Language Arts, which require a lot more individual time and focused teaching on my part.
- Give everyone a set quiet time. This is something that we have always done each afternoon. Whenever the toddler stops napping (for me this has always been around 3 years old) they can continue having a quiet time each day. All of my kids have some type of activity to do during a 30-45 minute quiet time each afternoon. The key is that they all have quiet time at the same time each afternoon so that they can rest, and I can get some things done or just have a moment to decompress! During this time, depending on their age, they read, look at books, put together puzzles, or anything that will keep them quietly busy! As they’ve gotten older, I can assign schoolwork during this time such as reading or finishing some writing or copywork that didn’t get done during the school day. During this particular season that we are in right now, both big girls do their reading assignments (Jubilee reads a book quietly from her reading list, and Selah flips through some picture books or does copywork) and Asher still naps. Some afternoons he sits in his crib during this time and plays with toys if he took an early nap.
- Set your schedule up loosely in blocks. This helps me stay on track while still giving myself and the kids a lot of grace! I set our schedule up in two blocks: morning and afternoon. Morning block is before lunch, and the afternoon block is after lunch. I have specific things that I want to get done in each block, but if something doesn’t get finished in the morning block, I know that I can save it for the afternoon block!
Here’s what our days are looking like right now:
Morning block:
- Breakfast (I consider this part of school… on the mornings that we don’t go to co-op, the kids cook breakfast. They usually make eggs, muffins, pancakes, or oatmeal bowls. There are lots of measurements and learning involved!)
- Morning chores: clean the kitchen, get dressed and brush teeth, make up beds.
- My second grader reads our morning devotion
- Spanish lesson
- Handwriting practice or worksheet from the Spanish lesson if it includes one
- Snack
- Loop subject (We alternate History, Science, and Art during this time. For example on Monday we do History, Tuesday is Science, Wednesday is Art, Thursday is History, Friday is Science, and the following Monday is Art. If we skip a day, we just continue on through the loop subjects in order like nothing ever happened!)
- Outside play time until lunch at 12pm
Afternoon block:
- Clean up the kitchen after lunch and put the 18 month old down for a nap
- My second grader does Math while my Preschooler does an independent activity (puzzles, light bright, etc.)
- Kids switch and my Preschooler does Language Arts while my second grader plays with Legos or draws)
- Switch back and my second grader does Language Arts (The preschooler and the toddler usually play together during this time)
- Quiet time (Asher is still napping and the girls are reading. I try to schedule this so that he wakes up right as they are finishing up their quiet time)
- Afternoon chores
- Piano lessons
- Outside play time for the rest of the day (sometimes we play outside first and do Piano practice in the evenings, just depending on how the day is going!)
And there you have it! That’s how we are making it work with a second grader, preschooler, and a toddler who is into all of the things! Of course, our days don’t always go as planned, but it helps me to have a guide to go by! I have found that homeschool schedules change a lot depending on the ages and needs of the kids, but we can always switch it up, be flexible, and make it work. That is one of the things that I love the most about homeschool! Remember to give yourself a lot of grace, and if you don’t get it all done, you’re still doing an amazing job. God’s mercies are new every morning, and I truly believe that if He leads you to homeschool, He will give you the grace and the perseverance needed to make it through every season!
