Homeschool scheduling is about finding your starting point and matching your family’s own groove. For example, when my boys were preschoolers and toddlers, my goal for the day was to shower and have some meaningful reading activities for my oldest son. Insanity was thinking I had to get my homeschool started at 8:00 a.m. when there was no need to. Fast forward to the middle and high school years. My sons now start their homeschool day closer to 8:30 a.m., independent of me.
The key to breathing sweet homeschool scheduling into your day is to begin with a set of guidelines that you can actually follow—ones that fit your family’s groove. We don’t need one more thing to stress us out if we are already struggling with homeschool scheduling, so look at these easy starting points below.
Analyze Your Family’s Routine and Daily Flow
For example, if you have a younger household, your day will start earlier. When my household was younger, some days I could start school by about 7:00 a.m., stop for nap time, and then pick up again with a few more activities. Other days were helter-skelter.
Setting a dogmatic time to start our homeschool day only added to my aggravation because there was very little I could control when my children were preschoolers. Later, I understood that because my children were so young, I had to have a tentative game plan and find flexibility so that I could accommodate my family’s needs.
However, older children tend to thrive with routine and sameness even though we may not as adults.
Find Balance
If you are not a morning person, then give yourself another half hour or so in the morning before you tackle your assignments in the Instructor’s Guide. However, if your children are morning people and they can start independently of you, then set the schedule to accommodate their desire to start early.
Think About the End of the Day
When does your homeschool day end? Though learning and living naturally flow in our day, and sometimes it’s hard to see the difference between the two, we still want to schedule an ending to our day. Through the years, I have heard of homeschoolers who homeschool for eight hours or more. I am shocked.
Our job as homeschool educators is not really very different from having a full time job. We need to have an ending to our day because homeschool burnout may loom ahead if we don’t.
During the younger years when there is not much difference between playing and learning, having an ending time is not as important. However, as your children approach the middle and high school years and you are teaching them to stick to a schedule and how to balance their time, it becomes critical.
Avoid Hour-by-hour Homeschool Planning
When you are struggling with homeschool scheduling, avoid hour-by-hour planning and instead to plan bigger chunks of time. Getting out your daily planner and setting aside 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. for homeschool is doable, flexible, and gets your feet on the road to homeschool organization.
Next, noting the hours 1:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. for house chores is pretty flexible too. Instead of chaining you to a homeschool schedule that might not work for you or that may be too specific right now, start with scheduling broad zones of time.
As you fine tune your homeschool schedule to fit your family’s rhythm, then you can fill in with hour by hour chores, academic subjects, and other activities you have planned.
The simple truth is that homeschooling requires time and a schedule that fits your family as your children grow. Fitting your family’s groove at the present moment, having an ending to your homeschool day, and planning in blocks of time are the beginnings of homeschooling scheduling success. w out the topics they are interested in and can relate to, ask questions that spark opinions and more questions, and get excited about what will happen next. Your kids will follow suit and you’ll be digging in and having valuable discussions with them before you know it.
About the Author
Tina Robertson celebrated the graduation of Mr. Senior in 2013 and is getting ready to graduate her next son. Because of her love for new homeschoolers, she mentors moms through her unique program called New Bee Homeschoolers. She loves all homeschoolers, though, as she shares her free 7 Step Curriculum Planner, unit studies, lapbooks and homeschooling how tos. She can’t sing, dance, or craft, but she counts organizing as a hobby. She is still in the homeschool trenches blogging at Tina’s Dynamic Homeschool Plus.
Are you in a season of on-the-go-schooling? Are you out exploring the world more than you’re at home? I know I am! Museum visits, sports practices, dentist appointments, weekend trips, co-op classes, piano lessons and countless hours in the car blanket our week.
This constant motion means that our homeschooling has to be flexible. Sometimes reading assignments are tucked into the twenty-minutes hanging out in the waiting room or the forty-five minutes at the library between activities.
At first, I didn’t think we could fit anything meaningful into these short shifts of learning, but I knew I had to find a way!
Next to my front door, you’ll find a laundry basket filled with tote bags of various kinds. As we waltz out the door, staying on track with learning is as simple as grabbing a tote. Let my bags inspire you to build carry-alls that meet the needs of your on-the-go family!
1. Tote Bag Homeschooling for All
If you’re going to set up just one tote, this is the one. It has something for everyone—perfect for family-style learning! Here are some suggestions based on what’s in my own bag:
A card game or two
A juicy read-aloud
Drawing books and colored pencils
Journals for freewriting
Magnetic white boards
Magnetic letter tiles for word play
A tablet for streaming documentaries
2. Tote Bag Homeschooling for One
This kind of tote bag is designed for one learner and is individualized accordingly. Here is what you’d find in a few of ours.
Learner, age 6: phonics workbook and early readers, math book, a couple of picture books, a geography sticker book, crayons and unlined paper, audiobook player with earbuds
Learner, age 12: atlas and Markable Map, deck of cards for math games, writing journal, historical fiction book, tablet with science videos bookmarked
Learner, age 14: laptop for online math lessons and history videos, novel, science book, word roots game, colored pencils and drawing notebook
Mom: Instructor’s Guides, a few math manipulatives, a read aloud book, a box of granola bars
3. Tote Bag Homeschooling by Topic
This tote bag is focused on one subject area and the contents will vary depending on the topic.
History Bag: history read-aloud, atlas, geography game, world history encyclopedia
Science Bag: field guides, nature notebooks, colored pencils, science books, science-themed games
Math Bag: deck of cards, snap cubes, math-themed read aloud, base-ten blocks, math notebooks, dice
Reading Bag: early readers, letter tiles, white-boards and markers, word cards, a phonics game
Fine Arts Bag: poetry anthology, art books, how to draw guides, markers, colored pencils, oil pastels, books about famous musicians, audio player with earbuds
4. Tote Bag Homeschooling on a Budget
This tote bag is inexpensive and versatile! It could be assembled with just a few items from the dollar store!
Library books
Notebook and pencils for writing and drawing
Dice, a deck of cards, and dominoes for math games
Homeschooling flows smoothly into the pockets of our days with grab-and-go tote bags! They don’t have to be fancy or overly involved. Build a few totes and line them up in your entryway so you’ll be ready for next day of on-the-go learning. Each bag can fit your family’s needs and the contents can change as often as you’d like them to!
Angela Awald is a homeschooling mama to 6, certified teacher, writer, and doula. Her days brim full of learning, loving, and laundry (lots and lots of laundry)!! She believes that nurturing children (and ourselves) means helping them to see that all of life is about learning – from our mistakes, from each other, and from great books! Angela blogs at nurturedroots.net where she shares the ways she is nurturing her family and inspiration for nurturing your own.
Have you ever heard the myth that homeschool parents need to be extremely organized to successfully homeschool? Maybe you tell someone you homeschool and their reaction is, “Oh! You must be so organized!” Or you attend a homeschool convention and hear speaker after speaker talking about planners, schedules, calendars, and organizational systems as if those are more important that reading aloud and doing science experiments.
Well, I strongly disagree with the assumption that you must be organized to be an effective homeschooler, and here’s why. I am a disorganized mess, and we have a very successful homeschool nevertheless!
What do I mean by a disorganized mess? Here are a few examples:
I’ve never successfully maintained a planner.
We don’t have a single file folder holding school papers.
If we can find enough pencils for everyone to write at the same time, it’s a good day.
Now you may be wondering, “If you are so disorganized, how do you ever get your homeschool work done?”
First, I think it’s important to point out that kids do not need constant academic instruction. Most homeschooled kids can accomplish a lot of the more academic needs in a much smaller amount of time thanks to the small teacher/student ratio and the ability to move at the student’s pace.
Second, kids learn a lot through everyday life. We don’t need to have a plan for every moment of the day for them to learn.
Third, while many parents are organized, there are plenty of parents who are not at all organized. And you never know the whole story of someone else’s life. That super mom you are comparing yourself to may not be quite as organized as she seems from the outside looking in.
Benefits of Being a Disorganized Mess
Not many people see benefits to being disorganized. And truthfully, there aren’t many. I cannot tell you how many times I’ve bought two of the same item simply because I forgot I had bought it in the first place. That’s not an advantage of being disorganized.
But being disorganized has allowed us to be a bit more spontaneous. Since we don’t usually have a set plan, it’s easy to take time off to explore a newfound interest. When we are in the middle of a lesson and my sons want to expand on it, we can. We can drop whatever we are doing and not worry about ruining our schedule (because we don’t follow one).
How to Get Stuff Done in Your Homeschool
When your mind opens to the reality of homeschooling, it can be overwhelming to think about all the possibilities that you could cover with your children. There are so many academic subjects plus extracurriculars, field trips, and supplements. I have two steps to combat the overwhelming feeling of trying to get it all done.
Simplifying. I write down all the subjects i want to cover in a year (or even semester). Then I rank them in order of importance. For instance, we would put math ahead of science and science ahead of coding, etc. Once I have my list, I consider what I can eliminate. Do I really need to do grammar lessons this year or is it something that could wait until my boys are older? I write everything that is left in order of importance and determine a basic routine to get it done. We do math twice a week, reading twice a week, and rotate history and science on a weekly basis. This very simple structure means we get things done without feeling hemmed into a strict regime.
Writing down my goals. What are my goals in homeschooling? Do I want my kids to gather all the possible knowledge they can? Or are my goals more about making learning fun? Knowing and understanding my ultimate goal helps me realize what matters and what doesn’t matter. Our main goal is to teach our kids how to learn. When we focus on only that, the overwhelming feeling of getting it all done is simplified to just one task.
Choose the Right Curriculum
A lot of successful homeschooling in general is choosing the right curriculum. Homeschooling as a disorganized mess is no different. For me, an open and go curriculum works best. When I can just sit down and start the lesson without prep work, it eases the effect of my disorganization. We are able to start any time we please without organizing the lesson first. I don’t need to have a planner or spend hours a week figuring out what we need to do. I just open the Instructor’s Guide and do the next thing.
Not all curriculum can be open and go though. Any hands-on curricula will need at least a bit of preparation. I prefer programs either offer a concise material lists of items normally found in a household or a program like BookShark’s science that comes with a kit of required materials. That kit is a lifesaver for a mom who isn’t great at planning ahead.
So when you’re searching for curriculum, consider how much prep time is required. If you’re a disorganized mess, you might want to stay away from ones that require more planning and stick with something that lets you open up a guide and do the next thing.
About the Author
Erin blogs at RoyalBaloo.com where she inspires people to make learning fun! Through printables, games, activities, and unit studies, learning becomes an adventure worth having.
No matter what style of homeschooling you follow, reading is probably a very strong part of your homeschooling journey because reading is one of the best ways to learn about the world, all from the comfort of your own home.
Unschoolers read.
Relaxed homeschoolers read.
Charlotte Mason homeschoolers read.
Montessori followers read.
Classical homeschoolers read.
All homeschoolers read!
Since reading is a natural part of homeschooling, it’s only natural that you want your learning space to include a comfortable reading nook. But what do you do when you don’t have the space or the money to set up the reading nook of your dreams?
How to Set Up a Reading Nook When You Have No Space
Our family has lived in so many houses over the years that we often joke we are semi-nomadic homeschoolers. In all of our homes and in all of our learning spaces, we have somehow never ended up with a nice reading nook or a room dedicated to bookshelves and beanbags.
But no matter our circumstances, I always make an effort to set up an area that invites the kids to snuggle up with a good book.
Right now, our homeschool room is a corner in our basement toy room. There is not much space there for beanbags and couches, so the kids tend to do a lot of reading in their bedrooms, on their beds. The kids may keep the books they are reading in their rooms for accessibility, but the rest stay in the basement until they are needed for homeschool lessons. With this book storage system, my kids always have access to great reading material while books that are not in use are stored safely for future enjoyment.
Informal Reading Space Ideas for Homeschoolers
You don’t have to have a formal reading nook set up in order to include a reading space in your homeschool. You can designate these areas for reading, at least part of the time:
Living room couch
Dining room table
Toy room floor (lie on a blanket)
Child-sized bean bag chairs
Child’s bed
Front or backyard (think blanket, lawn chair, porch swing, etc)
Really, any place that the kids find comfortable for reading will work.
Of course the couch or bed isn’t always a reading nook, but during reading time, each place transforms into serving the purpose. Maybe you have a special blanket, pillow, or other prop that signals the place is now being use for reading.
If your child is a relucant reader, working together to create an inviting space that’s reserved only for reading (at least during reading times) is a sneaky way to inspire more interest.
Think about fabrics, comfortable poses, and lighting when choosing and designing your reading nooks.
In a large homeschooling family, it can be difficult for kids to find a quiet spot to read. But when there are a lot of comfortable reading options available, kids will have an easier time settling down to devour a book.
If you have a specific time for independent reading each day, each child can go to their preferred reading nook.
Practical, Child-Friendly Book Storage
If you’ve ever tried to mix little kids and books, then I’m sure you have experienced the joys of kids using books as stepping stones – and the damaged books that follow these activities. I am embarrassed to say we have lost more than our fair share of books to this activity.
I don’t know about other homeschooling families, but I have never been able to get my little kids to put books back on the shelf regularly. And you can bet your bottom dollar that the preschooler is never going to get those books to stand up nicely on that bookshelf.
So how do I store and organize books in a child-friendly way that still keeps the books accessible and well taken care of?
Baskets are my solution!
We have a handful of square wicker baskets for the younger kids’ books. The kids simply have to set their books in the baskets when they’re done reading.
With the basket method, the books look tidy, they’re out of the way, and nobody uses the books as stepping stones. The real trick is teaching the kids to set the books in the baskets nicely rather than tossing them in from across the room.
Book Storage for Older Kids: Shelves
My older kids are capable of putting books on a bookshelf when they are done reading. So in addition to some baskets, we have a couple of bookshelves for their books.
Sometimes the shelves are a nice fit and the books can stand up properly. Other times the shelves are an awkward fit and the books have to stack on top of each other. But as long as the spine is out and the books are orderly, I’m a happy momma.
Currently, our homeschool room has really big and awkward shelving units. These are not even close to the proper size for a stereotypical book storage space. But that’s okay. We make do with what we have. One day when I’m rich and have my dream house, I’ll have wall to wall bookshelves filled with books. There will be homeschooling books, educational books, entertaining books, and more. I’ll put Belle’s library to shame. But until then, I am happy with the space, and the book storage, that I have.
About the Author
Charlene Hess spent many years teaching before she had her own kids. She now has 7 of her own, whom she has been homeschooling for the last 10 years. Although she still teaches other children outside of her home, she finds great joy in exploring the world with her family.
Charlene has participated in many leadership trainings with John C. Maxwell. She and her husband blog about their homeschooling and parenting adventures at Hess Un-Academy.
Guest Gretchen Roe from Demme Learning says that math is like death and taxes: you don’t get away from either one. She urges parents not to shortchange kids in their math instruction by claim they’re just not a math-family.
Learn how a mastery-based curriculum is student-centric, allowing a child to work at the pace they need to fully comprehend the skills (instead of the curriculum determining the length of lessons and how quickly you work through them). Find out why manipulatives are key to learning math and why some kids discard them too soon. Are your math lessons too long? Discover the ideal length of a daily math lesson. The day-to-day math we encounter as adults mostly comes to us in the form of word problems.
Janna Koch (00:36): Welcome to Homeschool Your Way. I’m Janna Koch, your host and BookShark’s community manager. In the homeschooling community, much like any community, there are words thrown around with an assumption that everyone knows and understands the meaning. I, for one, hate when I don’t know what a word means, because if I don’t understand the term, how can I give my two cents? If you don’t know, by now, I’ll just come out and say it. I love to let people know what I’m thinking about in almost everything.
Janna Koch (01:09): Mastery-based learning may be one of those words. You may have heard the term, but can’t quite give your two cents yet. I’m here to help. I’ve invited Gretchen Roe, a veteran mom who happens to have a degree in psychology and child development and has spent the last 19 years in positions of homeschool advocacy, serving on a variety of nonprofit boards. Plus, she is a sales representative for Demme Learning, one of BookShark’s partners in math and spelling. She will help us master the idea of mastery-based learning and equip you to give your two cents about it.
Janna Koch (01:47): First, a homeschool hack. Keep it simple. If you’re feeling overwhelmed with your homeschool or with life in general, ask yourself, “Are these tasks serving my why?” If you don’t have a homeschool why listen to the episode [42] we did with Candace Kelly explaining the need for a why, or write down why you chose a homeschool in the first place. As you look at that to-do list, make sure it aligns with your why. My homeschool why has always been to foster the love of learning in my girls.
Janna Koch (02:20): There are times when I realize I’m doing just the opposite. If I allow the list or the curriculum to dictate my time, am I really fostering joyful learning? To be honest, I’m usually killing their desire to learn anything. So, keep it simple. Let your why fuel your day, not the list. If you have a hack you’d like to share, please go to bookshark.com/podcast and leave a comment.
Janna Koch (02:49): Gretchen, thank you so much for being here.
Gretchen Roe (02:51): Oh, it’s my very great pleasure to have the time to spend with you today.
Janna Koch (02:55): Now I know you and your history, but for those who don’t know, why don’t you go ahead and share a little bit about yourself and talk about what’s keeping you passionate about homeschool, after all these years.
Gretchen Roe (03:08): I had no intention of homeschooling. In fact, I had no intention of having children. We have six and we homeschooled 21 years. Four of them graduated homeschool from high school. And then our fifth was homeschooled to high school and our caboose was homeschooled to middle school. And it was the most joyful 21 years of my life. And I wouldn’t have traded it for anything. I have worked in the homeschool community and positions of homeschool advocacy now for 15 years. And I love the fact that we have the ability to guide our children to adulthood in all aspects. And so, I continue to be as excited today about the homeschooling journey, even though it’s not one that I’m taking right now. I just enjoy walking alongside other parents as they take that journey.
Janna Koch (03:57): So, how long have you professionally been involved with homeschooling?
Gretchen Roe (04:02): I became a homeschooler overnight in the middle of an academic year, when a teacher told my third grader, she didn’t need to memorize her multiplication tables. And I said, “Nope, that’s a wrong answer.” Something’s got to be better out there. And I really only intended to homeschool her from March to June. And it became a glorious adventure that didn’t end for a long time. And she turned 36 yesterday, so I think we did okay.
Janna Koch (04:31): Now how about your partnership with Demme Learning?
Gretchen Roe (04:36): I have known Steve [Demme, founder of Demme Learning] for 15 years. We spoke on a homeschool circuit together and a little over eight years ago, they asked me if I wanted to come aboard professionally. And I said, I wondered when you would ask me to do that because I loved the product. It was a complete game changer for me. When I came to work for Demme Learning, it was Math-U-See and they had just launched Spelling You See.
Gretchen Roe (05:01): The end of the pool, where the language arts happens, is my favorite end of the pool to swim in, and so I was really excited to see Spelling You See come aboard. But Math-U-See was a huge game changer for me. I’m not a confident mathematician. I think math is spelled with four letters for a reason, but I loved the fact that Math-U-See made it possible to educate my kids. So four of my kids are Math-U-See kids, and I never looked back. It’s been amazing.
Janna Koch (05:44): Gretchen, a lot of parents ask me when I talk about Math-U-See, “What is a mastery-based type of learning?” And it definitely is not the type of learning that I had in traditional school or even in my homeschool years. So, it was very unique to me as I became aware of your product and started using it in my home with my children. So, could you just walk us through this philosophy of what this actually means and what it will look like for parents?
Gretchen Roe (06:15): Sure, absolutely. So, there’s two kinds of ways to teach mathematics instruction. One is incremental, that’s the one, most of us are familiar with. Someone pre-determines how many times you will see an individual concept, and so perhaps they present that concept three times and then it falls out of rotation or sequence. The challenge with that kind of learning is if you’re not solid in your understanding, then your understanding is incomplete. And there’s no way to assess that incompleteness as you go further.
Gretchen Roe (06:50): And because math is sequential and cumulative, it becomes really essential for us to get it right. And that is one of the reasons that I love a mastery-based program. At Math-U-See, we say we are student-paced. So. As a student can demonstrate their understanding to a parent or an instructor, they can move forward in the curricula. They’re not bound by a predetermined number of math problems per se, and that makes a tremendous amount of difference.
Janna Koch (07:22): It does. Now, when you found out about Math-U-See and fell in love with this program, what differences did you see in your children as you started using it?
Gretchen Roe (07:33): One of the things I think that’s really important is my background is in child development and child psychology. I actually was enrolled in a PhD program when I found out I was expecting my eldest son and so he’s my PhD, but I love the fact that I can bring more than one sense to the table. Not all of us play on a level field, as far as our understanding, we all have different gifts, but if I can teach a student in as many modalities as possible, it makes it possible for a student to learn. So, I can teach a gifted learner, I can teach a struggling learner and they can all have a level playing field because they are bringing their talents to the table in as many ways is possible.
Janna Koch (08:22): Now I was a family who came into the program later on. So, my daughter was 12 when we started using Math-U-See, because I started to notice that other programs just weren’t cutting it for us. And by that, I mean, it was taking over an hour and a half and there were tears every day. And so I thought, not only is she miserable, but I’m miserable as her mom to see her struggling. And I’m also miserable as the teacher, going “I don’t know how to say it a different way. This is how I learned it.” I was unwilling in a sense to learn a new way of teaching because it works for me, why doesn’t it work for her? And it worked for her two older sisters, which is really what threw me for a loop as a homeschool parent. Why this last one is this not working for? What am I doing differently? And we’ve talked about this in the past.
Janna Koch (09:07): So, when she came into it, she’s not using the manipulatives a lot of the times. And part of me is like, well, if you’re going to do it, you need to do it right and yet she is seamlessly moved into the program and working through it beautifully. So, the type-A in me that’s struggling with there’s manipulatives for a reason, you must use them. I can’t be the only parent that appreciates your program and yet uses it and adjusts it to my child.
Gretchen Roe (09:38): Sure, and isn’t that a definition of homeschooling, we adjust to meet the needs of our child. The truth is in a Math-U-See experience, the manipulatives hold a very special place. And the place that they hold is they allow a student to bring as many senses to the table as necessary to fully understand and grasp a concept. And the other thing that the manipulatives allow us to do is to take a concept that a student understands and give them the resources or the tools to teach that concept back to a parent. If they don’t have the language to do that. At 12, both our daughters, because I came into Math-U-See at the pre-algebra level. So, my daughter was 13 and they pretty much have a well developed language resource at that point, but a six year old, maybe not. So, that’s where the manipulatives help us in that process.
Gretchen Roe (10:35): You’re not going to walk around with plastic blocks in your pocket. As Steve says, the blocks serve a tool to allow us to step along a continuum from the concrete understanding of the initial exploration to representational understanding what do you know in your head to the abstract end of the equation, which is really those Arabic numerals that we force kids to understand math. And so they serve as a tool to help a student facilitate their understanding. And they’re a tool as long as they’re necessary.
Gretchen Roe (11:09): Just like you said, if your daughter is getting the concepts and teaching them back to you and not needing the manipulatives, then she’s moved beyond them. I do have to say sometimes I encounter older students who stepped away from the manipulatives because manipulatives… “We don’t need no stinking manipulatives.” And the truth is they shouldn’t have, because they didn’t have that full conceptual understanding that really allows us to put it in our heads. And what the manipulatives do is they allow us to put that learning into our long term memory in the proper place. So, it can be retrieved later. That really is the goal of the manipulative experience.
Janna Koch (13:14): Well, what about parents who say my child is artistic? My child is a writer. My child is, and math isn’t their strong suit. And so, we’re really not pushing math or we’re really not looking to change for them to just get through it, to just get by, because we know that they’re not a math person, we are not math people. And I’ve been guilty of myself as saying it, but as I’ve matured and grown older, I understand that is so not true.
Janna Koch (13:47): So, you were explaining that in your younger years, your child psychology and so math wasn’t necessarily your thing. But now you’ve been working with this company for eight years and you’re very passionate about math. So, help me understand as a parent who maybe I shouldn’t worry about my child really understands algebra or not, why we need these higher types of learning in these processes in order to make it a better experience as adults.
Gretchen Roe (14:20): Sure. The truth is math is like death and taxes, you don’t get away from either one. And we have developed a culture here in the US of thinking that math literacy is not a necessary skill set, and because of that payday loan companies thrive. It’s up to us to keep the doors open for our kids mathematically. And I would’ve taken that argument to the wall with you 15 years ago with the kid who brought me to Matthew, see, she’s now 30. And she was 13 when we found our way here. And we had been through two different curricula and really struggled. And I said, those very same things, well math just isn’t her thing. She’s my daughter, blah, blah, blah. But the truth is as parents, our goal is to keep as many doors open as possible for our kids. We don’t know what the future holds for our kids.
Gretchen Roe (15:17): And if we make suppositions, we narrow their ability to be flexible. And if I’ve learned anything since 2020, it is that flexibility is a great sign of intelligence, so we need to keep those doorways open for our kids. And as a matter of fact, we have this misapprehension that if you are artistic and you’re creative, you’re not mathy, and that’s not really true, Leonardo da Vinci comes to mind. And I think the important thing is we don’t know what the future holds for our kids. So why would we start narrowing the pathways? Let’s keep the doors open wide and regardless where they choose to go academically, they have the wherewithal to be successful. I’m glad I kept the doors open for that particular child because that non-mathematical artsy kid is a research biologist today. And if I’d closed doors on her, she wouldn’t view where she is today.
Janna Koch (16:24): My daughters were in their guidance counselor’s offices and he was explaining that they didn’t have to continue on to a higher level of math anymore. They’d accomplished what they needed to according to the standards, and so they were like, yeah, free ride, we’re done. And I loudly interjected and reminded them that the reason they needed a parent there for these sessions is because I am the voice of reason. And I said that very thing. I said, “You don’t know your interests are going to change. You could read one book, you could hear one lecture and it could change your life and the trajectory of what you want to do. Do not shut that door by saying, “I’m not going to take college algebra now because I’ve completed what I need to complete.” And we’ll see, jury is still out if that was helpful or not. But I think the other thing is, as a society, I have noticed that we tend, I’ll speak for myself, tend to take the easy way out, the path of least resistance.
Janna Koch (17:22): So, if something is a challenge in a fixed mindset, well, then I don’t want to do it because I don’t know how it’s going to turn out or if I’m going to do it well, but with a growth mindset, it goes, this is something I’ve never learned. As you were talking, I was thinking I’ve never done calculus. I think maybe I might just pick up some Cal. I want to, if I’m sitting here teaching this to my children, I want to be demonstrating to them as well. That’s what they’ll be like, why you only did mathematical investigations when you went to college and your master’s degree had no math, which actually is not true because there was some finance and business and statistics that I had to take. So, you have to know how to do those higher processes of math, but I don’t want them to limit themselves.
Gretchen Roe (18:08): Well, I chose my college degree based on what I thought was the least amount of math necessary to get a degree, looking down through the course catalog, not realizing I’d have to have two years of psychological statistics. And then I made it worse on myself, I split those two years by a seven years, summer vacation. So, you don’t know what the future will hold. And I always say to parents, what are your students’ plans? And parents are like, well, he is a 13 year old boy. Great. That’s awesome. Let’s keep the doors open then because we don’t know what he wants. And kids’ desires change as they age. And I think mathematical literacy is as important as book literacy and it’s part of our educational process. And we, as parents, are obligated to teach our children to be self-sufficient in society. And that means we have to have mathematical literacy.
Janna Koch (19:09): I have never heard the term mathematical literacy before, and I think-
Gretchen Roe (19:12): It might have just made it up, but you know what?
Janna Koch (19:15): I think it’s beautiful.
Gretchen Roe (19:15): It’s very relevant. So I always am impressed with my own lack of mathematical literacy. When I sit down every year and I’m like, oh, taxes, I got to do this. How does this work? Because if you don’t do something with frequency, you don’t remember it. And here’s a tip, here’s another reason why mastery in mathematics is so important. In our world, mastery is demonstrated by teaching someone else what you know. And isn’t that the highest form of proving knowledge is to be able to explain to someone else why you know this particular thing works.
Janna Koch (20:01): Unfortunately, I think we have seen in our society a lack of mastery in so many things, because people don’t know why they do things or why they don’t know what they know, right? And so, I think as homeschool parents, it’s another privilege of ours to be like, hey, here is a very serious topic that is relevant and current in our society. Let’s talk about it. How do you feel about it? Well, what are your friends saying about it? Okay. What do you think about what they’re saying? It was one of my favorite things about being a parent, really, is being able to walk with my children through these hard things in life, and then seeing, okay, we don’t have all the answers.
Janna Koch (20:43): Nobody has all the answers, but let’s work the process at each step of the way so that we can gain a confidence in what we do believe, the decisions that we do make. And I think math is a perfect example of that. Like you said, if you don’t know, and you’re making financial decisions, I mean, we live in a country, we have so much freedom. We’re able to choose how we spend our money. If you don’t understand how money works, how adding and subtracting and multiplying, and God forbid, even like you were saying compound interest in all of these things, you’re going to be lost.
Gretchen Roe (21:20): Sure. Well, I think back I mentioned, my eldest daughter just turned 36 when she was 19 years old, she got a $53,000 SBA loan and opened her own coffee shop. And at that point in time, she had a little old ancient mercurial cash register that sometimes worked and sometimes didn’t and she found that she could only hire homeschool kids to work in the coffee shop. And the reason was because when the cash register went on, the fritz, most kids couldn’t calculate the change in their heads to know what change to give back. And so she very quickly learned that her staff was going to be homeschoolers because they could do that mental math. And so much of mental math is not part of the mathematical experience anymore. I’m glad it’s part of Math-U-See.
Janna Koch (22:13): I am too. I think one of the biggest things that annoys my teenage daughters even now is I will say, okay, what are they going to give you back and change? Don’t look at them. And of course my twins are 16 and they’ll be like, stop it. You’re embarrassing us. And I’m like, I’d rather embarrass you now with the safety net of me standing right here than when you have a job, like you’re saying, and something goes wrong and you can’t count it back to somebody. And then you know that anxiety, how that feels when you just don’t know what to do in the situation. It’s like, wow, as your mom, it’s my job to help you avoid situations like this by embarrassing you now so that you have the skills later. Might be the title of my next book, I’m here to embarrass you now.
Gretchen Roe (22:57): I like that book. That’s a good one. We could probably co-write that.
Janna Koch (23:00): Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Gretchen Roe (23:02): My husband always says our goal is to raise kids who have character who are not characters, so we’ll see.
Janna Koch (23:10): Yeah, well …
Gretchen Roe (23:10): Boat’s still out on the caboose and the train. We’ll see.
Janna Koch (23:15): It is fun to look at all of the different ones and their different personalities and how you think you’re parenting the same, but then birth order and different, multiple intelligences in different ways just really affect all of that, which is what makes us so unique and beautiful. And that is part of also expressing to our children that everyone is unique and has beauty. Let’s find it. What is beautiful about this? And I feel the same way about education. We love to read in this house. We love to discuss, we are all talkers, but where’s their beauty in math. Let’s talk about it. Oh my gosh, there’s patterns. There’s patterns all out in the world in nature and in math and math is just kind of mimicking that and it’s helping us understand it. So let’s look at it that way instead of, oh my gosh, I have to now do my math.
Gretchen Roe (24:03): Right. Well, and I think part of that is anybody who was raised in a public school environment remembers an hour or gosh, my son has a friend who is in a block schedule classroom situation. And her math is a 90 minute experience in a day. And you don’t love things that linger painfully for you. So, I think in some ways parents have to revisit their own math experiences and maybe shed some of that stuff, so we can help our kids be successful. At Math-U-See, we say, “If you’re in our Greek series, the colored books back here, you’re looking at 15 minutes a day, because your child has an attention span of their age, plus two to three minutes for new material. And so if you’re spending an hour a day doing math, you have 15 minutes of quality instruction in 45 minutes of obedience.”
Janna Koch (25:05): Mm-hmm.
Gretchen Roe (25:07): And that makes a tremendous difference for kids.
Janna Koch (25:09): Yeah. And for a parent, maybe even going a step further and translating it and saying, well, now you have 45 minutes of exercise of something that you actually despise, right? We’re not talking about paddle boarding, because if you told me I had 45 minutes paddleboarding, I’d be out there in a heartbeat. You couldn’t give me back off. But if you told me I had 45 minutes of running, how could I possibly psych myself up to do that? It just isn’t possible. And I think we do forget that even in that 45 minutes, like you said of obedience, that is exercise to them of something that doesn’t come naturally is not on the top of their list of boy, I want to sit here and do something for 45 minutes that I don’t necessarily like, but gosh, darn it, I’m going-
Gretchen Roe (25:53): Well, there’s a corollary to that as well because as parents, if we’re not fond of something, we look to shuttle it off. And I often have conversations with parents who will say to me at what age can my child do math all by themselves? And I annoy them when I say, well it depends because every child is different and mathematics is a language. You can’t learn it in a vacuum. And frankly you can’t learn it from a computer because a computer’s a tool. It’s not a teacher. So you got to be able to engage with someone in order to test your understanding and make sure that it’s solid and be able to move that forward.
Gretchen Roe (26:38): And that was one of the things that impressed me so much about Math-U-See is, yeah, a mastery math program sounded like a great idea, but he didn’t realize how understanding the process of mastery would translate into all of my kids’ other academics. Because if you talk yourself through something and you say, all right, what do I know? And you walk yourself through that process, that habit of learning to walk yourself through math then goes into your science and goes into your language arts and your history and those other things, and we become a more well rounded learner.
Janna Koch (27:18): Mm-hmm. I think that circles us back to Leonardo da Vinci, like what the Renaissance man, right. He was the epitome-
Gretchen Roe (27:26): That’s right.
Janna Koch (27:26): … of being well rounded. And yet unlike Leonardo, I say I’m the jack of all trades master of none, but it has suited me. It has suited me just fine in my endeavors in life. But I do love the idea of having mastery in all areas. Just like you, just like what I caught onto that word you said literacy. If we could look at math as a type of literacy as parents, then that would translate to our children as, okay, this isn’t just numbers, and we have to memorize and we just have to get through it.
Janna Koch (28:04): How can we start writing a story with math? And yes, you’ll use numbers because as a kid word problems were like, ugh, please. Not the word problems. They never made sense to me. I don’t know who the author of these were, but I’m thinking maybe another book we might collaborate on is getting a fiction writer to start writing our word problem, so that we can make them engaging with students, but that they can actually see that there’s two languages being woven together is math-
Gretchen Roe (28:36): Right.
Janna Koch (28:36): … and vocabulary and certain structure.
Gretchen Roe (28:39): Well, the hard part in most endeavors, when I talk to parents who are like, ah, yeah, I hate work. My kids are great on computational math, but they hate word problems. When math comes to us as adults, it’s a word problem.
Janna Koch (28:52): Mm-hmm.
Gretchen Roe (28:52): So, we have to give our kids a degree of facility. And one of the things that we say at Math-U-See is the word problems are where you prove your application and understanding.
Janna Koch (29:04): Mm-hmm.
Gretchen Roe (29:04): Because if you can take the conceptual understanding you developed in the worksheets and then apply it in the word problems, then you really have both sides of that mathematical coin.
Janna Koch (29:15): Yeah. And then their literacy would be even higher. So, [inaudible 00:29:20].
Gretchen Roe (29:19): Absolutely.
Janna Koch (29:22): I love [inaudible 00:29:23]. One more thing Gretchen, before we go, what would you like to say to a parent who is maybe struggling with several things, deciding whether or not homeschool has actually worked for them, really struggling with the idea of, are we going to re-up again next year? And maybe this is all coming from a place of, I’m not seeing the results that I set out to see. So, if you had a parent come into your booth and or call you on the phone, what would be your best words of advice for them for those things?
Gretchen Roe (29:56): Don’t read other people’s highlight reels. We all are involved in some sort of homeschooling endeavor where there’s the child who has every kudo and accolade going on. And we’ve got the child at home who couldn’t find their shoes to go to the homeschool co-op in the first place. And the truth of the matter is your journey is your journey and it is equally valuable, and this is a hard job. You’re going to invest a lot of time and blood and sweat and tears. And you don’t see the return on your investment right away. But it doesn’t mean you’re not making a tremendously good investment, but you are fully capable and equipped to teach your children and figure out what worked this year and celebrate that because it’s a marathon, not a sprint.
Janna Koch (30:54): Yeah, man. And nobody wants to run a marathon, Gretchen.
Gretchen Roe (31:00): I know it. I know, but you find yourself there, you know what our kids are going to grow up. So do you want to influence them or do you want somebody else to influence them?
Janna Koch (31:08): Yeah. Well, good advice coming from a mother who has seen it from start to finish and is now helping other parents as they are along their journeys.
Setting your own daily schedule is a wonderful luxury homeschooling brings. We’re not scrambling to get kids on the bus at 7:30 in the morning. Breakfast becomes a leisurely meal instead of a frantic race against the clock. The shift into and out of Daylight Savings Time hardly impacts us.
You have time to welcome the morning, spend time with your children, and enjoy a slow start. You determine the course of your day by setting your own daily schedule regardless of what the school does or what your other homeschool peers are doing.
Homeschool in the Mornings
Many of us enjoy homeschooling in the mornings. We can start the days with a brief morning time of poetry recitation, great literature, music, and art. The children tackle math when they’re fresh and able to think carefully about the problems. We get the business of our day—school—taken care of as first priority so we can do more frivolous pursuits later.
After homeschooling in the mornings we have the afternoons free. We’re able to explore the town and go on field trips. Children can enjoy their favorite activities or play with friends. We can take long nature hikes and see the flowers bloom, leaves bud, and geese return.
Evenings can be spent watching documentaries, enjoying read-alouds, or simply spending time together as a family.
Homeschool in the Afternoons
Just because many homeschoolers sit down to educate children in the mornings doesn’t mean you can’t homeschool in the afternoons instead. Sometimes it works best to spend the mornings sleeping, relaxing, working at home, doing chores, or simply enjoying the day.
If a slow start suits you best, consider homeschooling in the afternoons instead. That’s the beauty of homeschooling. You set the daily schedule to fit your family’s needs.Enjoy a slow morning together, eat lunch, and then gather your school supplies. Run through math, English, and science. Curl up on the sofa to listen to the latest book you’re reading aloud. Spend the afternoon doing science experiments or history projects.
Homeschool in the Evenings
Despite the flexibility homeschooling brings, most people believe you still need to homeschool during daylight hours, and that’s simply not true. Remember, you set your own schedule. This means you can spend the morning on nature hikes, long bike rides, and exploring the town.
Afternoons can be spent in activities, field trips, or time with friends. You can spend the day exploring the world and using up your children’s energy so they’re ready to sit and study quietly in the evenings.
Begin your formal homeschool day at dinner time. Engage in long history and science discussions at the dinner table. Teach children to read in the living room after dinner. Work on math together.
Each parent can take a child to run through schoolwork together. Discuss math, teach phonics, and write during the quiet evening hours.
As you think about your ideal schedule, remember that homeschooling is flexible, and there is no right or wrong time to homeschool. Consider carefully your family’s routines and lifestyle before setting a daily schedule for your homeschool. Non-traditional homeschool hours may be best for your family.
And you may find that one season of life fits morning learning while another season of life is better suited for evening homeschooling. Younger children tend to rise earlier, and teens love to sleep in, so adapt with their preferences by adjusting your daily schedule too. Or use a hodgepodge of times for your children. No one says that all your children have to study at the same time either!
If your son tends to dawdle instead of completing a page of grammar exercises…
If your daughter draws pictures instead of working on writing assignments…
If you’ve seen your child’s shoulders slump when asked to read…
Then you might have a reluctant learner when it comes to language arts. From making excuses to complaining to avoiding the work, these behaviors point to a problem. But there’s good news! Your children can learn the skills they need and even enjoy the process, too!
Find Out Why Your Students Are Reluctant
First, find out why your students are reluctant to learn language arts. It’s important not to assume that it’s a character issue.
How will you know the difference? Character issues are often seen in other areas of life, not only when it comes to completing their language arts assignments. If your children are trying to get out of all work, including chores or anything that requires effort, it may be because they need consistency and discipline.
But if you see these behaviors only when working on homeschool language arts, there may be underlying issues that aren’t related to character. Some possible reasons include:
Learning disabilities or processing disorders. Talk to your doctor or a specialist. Research options for getting a diagnosis so you can make a plan. The good news is that early intervention can help kids learn to cope and even flourish despite their challenges.
Vision issues. A simple appointment with an optometrist or opthamologist will tell you what they need.
Maturity. Sometimes children are not developmentally ready, so the best thing to do is wait. But waiting doesn’t have to be passive! Read aloud to them. Tell stories together. Write down things they have to say. You’ll be developing the skills without expecting more than they are ready for.
A lack of foundational skills. There are building blocks to learning language arts. If children struggle with the physical act of writing, then it will be hard for them to do creative writing. Be sure to focus on the foundation and find ways to build upon that foundation until they are ready to take the next step. Look for a language arts curriculum that is developmentally appropriate.
3 Ways to Teach Language Arts to a Reluctant Learner
1. Optimize the Learning Environment
Create a better learning environment, conducive to focused work time.
Often people define themselves as early birds or a night owls. Generally these are the times they are most productive. When do your children seem most focused?
Is it first thing in the morning?
Right after lunch?
Or even in the evenings?
Use those times to your advantage.
Children can also be very sensitive to the atmosphere around them.
Do they need a calm, organized area?
Is the temperature comfortable?
Is a chair better for this activity or does sitting at a desk help them concentrate?
You may have to try a few different things to find what works best, but it will be worth the time
2. Use a Natural Approach
A natural approach to teaching language arts capitalizes on how children have been learning since the day they were born. You probably didn’t approach teaching your kids how to talk by putting an alphabet chart on the wall or giving them a board book titled The Syntax of the English Language. And you probably didn’t make them say a sentence correctly ten times so they would remember proper usage and structure.
Instead you immersed them in language by talking to them. They naturally absorbed the rules of language. Sure, they made mistakes, but you actually thought those mistakes were cute. You knew that over time they would learn not just what to say but how to say it.
Kids learn to write by writing, read by reading, speak by listening. They copy and dictate from books by real writers. They narrate what they have been reading. And in this process, sometimes riddled with cute mistakes along the way, students become proficient at writing and reading and speaking.
3. Get Creative
Use a timer. Students can feel overwhelmed if they can’t see the end in sight so they don’t even want to try. Help them to get past this roadblock.
Set a timer for 10 to 15 minutes. When the timer goes off, give them a quick physical break like jumping on an indoor trampoline or riding a scooter down the street and back. Or allow them to follow the timed lesson with a subject they enjoy more.
Build their language arts muscles by starting slow. Shorten a copywork or dictation passage or break it up over a couple of days. Let them experience success before increasing the difficulty.
Focus on just one skill at a time. If they are doing copywork and struggle to write neatly, have them focus only on how they are forming the letters. Don’t worry about a spelling mistake made when trying to get a letter just right.
Partner with your child. Take turns. They read a page, then you read a page. They write a paragraph, then you write a paragraph that they dictate to you.
Allow them to do some work orally. Language arts skills are built even when the physical act of writing isn’t happening. Good communicators know how to organize their thoughts. Therefore, any time your kids can express themselves clearly, they are practicing an important skill that will translate to writing later.
Let them do something with their hands. When you’re reading aloud, allow them to build with LEGO, create with playdough, or draw a picture.
Make narration a normal part of life. Simply say something like, “Hey, why don’t you tell Mr. Jimenez about the story we were reading!”
You Can Teach Language Arts to a Reluctant Learner
Creative avoiders can exhaust, frustrate, and even anger their parents at times. You don’t have to dread teaching your kids, though. Look for the signs to see if you have a reluctant learner.
By evaluating why, optimizing their learning environment, using a natural approach like BookShark’s, and getting a little creative, you can help your children succeed while keeping your sanity in the process.
