Large Family Homeschooling

A how-to-guide to large family homeschooling with peace and balance. Learn homeschooling systems that make motherhood better, easier, and more fun!

Large Family Living

The how-tos and what to do for homeschooling will be different for each family, depending on your family goals and current situations. I will share what works well for our family of 8, with 6 children ages 10 to newborn. At the time of writing this, we have 3 homeschooling children, 2 toddlers, and a newborn baby. My husband works full-time outside the home, has a small home-based wood working business, I have an online business, and we small scale farm. When we work our home management systems, including homeschooling with consistency, we can be mostly successful. I say mostly, as sometimes no amount of preparation and careful planning yields expected results in life with newborns and toddlers. In these situations, we take the opportunities to grow in virtue. Ahh, yes, the many opportunities.

Large Family Homeschooling

How to Homeschool Consistently and Efficiently

Consistency over time yields results. Needing to replicate a classroom and school hours in our homes is a myth. We do not need long arduous hours to be effective and proficient at homeschooling and learning well. Homeschooled children often learn to love learning, read many good books, seek opportunities to discover information outside of the “school day”, and learn more quickly with individualized attention and intentional efficiency. Below are a few tips that have helped our family be consistent and efficient with a busy schedule.

How To Find Time To Homeschool a Large Family

1. Start school work that requires problem solving and critical thinking (math and language arts) early in the day when minds are fresh. Follow with “passive” learning subjects, which can additionally be learned during read aloud time, before bed, and via audio during chores or vehicle rides.
2. Group child learning in science, history, and electives. This year, our 10, 8, and 6 year old are all using the same history and science curriculum. To assess comprehension, older children might write a report, have an in depth discussion, or answer several questions. Younger children might draw a picture or give a verbal sentence or two describing what they learned.
3. Teach your Kindergarten child reading for 5-15 minutes daily following breakfast. While the older kids are helping clear the table and wipe it down, I am able to do a short reading lesson with our 5-6 year old age child. A little each day consistently adds up, and teaching a child to read doesn’t feel like an overwhelming task.
4. Play audio books while driving, cleaning, and before bed. Hours of learning, moral development, and good stories can be consumed in time margins. Our children ages 10-4 currently love the Adventures in Odyssey story subscription. We also have covered biographies, history lessons, and stories of scientists and faith leaders in a captivating way with this strategy.

How to Teach “Self-Teaching” and Critical Thinking

1. Teach problem solving. Did you read and re-read the directions? Did you check the examples? Did you use context clues to understand that word? How can we find the answer to this question? Do not belabor a mastered concept, even if the curriculum does. Allow efficient progression by moving on to the next concept. Inform your children they can finish their school day sooner, graduate early, and enter the workforce or business sphere successfully by mastering concepts, passing exams, using critical thinking, and learning how to provide solutions in the marketplace.
2. Allow children to demonstrate knowledge in a way they are interested in: a book report, project, drawing, acting out a play with siblings, etc. These methods are better for remembering information than worksheets and are more fun! Do not feel like you need to come up with tons of options. Kids will invent their own options.
3. Reward finishing work with play time, snacks, an outing, etc. Teach your children to work until the task is done. The quicker it is done, the sooner they can move onto their free time. Reinforce this concept using real life examples. For example, in our family businesses, we work until the goal is met, not an arbitrary set number of business hours. Some people are more effective with one hour of time than others are with four. Talk about effectiveness and give examples of successful people who do not toil for profits.

Encouraging Love of Learning in a Homeschool Day

1. Fill your home with tons of “living books”. Storytelling increases our ability to remember information and sparks interest to do a deeper dive into these subjects. Our children have learned much more content for history and science than we could teach on purpose with formal curriculum (which we do also use) by reading really good books. Here’s are some of our family’s favorite book lists.
2. Create time and an environment for much free play, projects, quiet time for thinking, creative expression, outdoor exploration, and mastery of skills. Provide raw materials for building, crafting, baking, imaginative play, art, business enterprise, and research.
3. Have children teach each other. We do this with spelling flash cards for children at similar spelling ability. Our older children naturally want to read books to their younger siblings. During a phonics lesson, our older children can’t help themselves from leaning over to help sound out a word to a younger one. This reinforces concepts for the more advanced learner (and allows them to demonstrate their knowledge), while teaching the less advanced one something new. Praise helping each other. What gets recognized gets repeated!

Best Homeschool Curriculum For Large Families

1. Make a list of everything you want your children to learn before leaving your home. Live out these goals together. These are likely skills and activities you already to daily, such as cooking, cleaning, budgeting, critical thinking, relational and communication skills, and social skills. Here is one of our lists if you want to download for inspiration.
2. Lean into each child’s personality and learning style. Some children learn faster or are motivated by different interests. Adjust curriculum and instruction style as needed. Spend the fleeting time you have to build relationships as you learn together.
3. Re-assess what is going well and what needs to be modified going forward each year and several times throughout the year. Homeschooling is a blessing and privilege. When we view it this way, we find more enjoyment in the journey.

I hope you find these homeschooling tips helpful. Whether you are just getting started with homeschooling, growing your family, or you are seasoned in both, remember to find joy in the journey.

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