Teaching at Home to Multiple Age Levels

Lea Beall
Aug 26, 2018
2 min read

How do you juggle your schedule when you have kids of multiple ages at the school table?

Here’s a few tricks we learned that we used when we had toddlers.

Strategy 1: The important thing was we kept moving forward, allowed some flexibility in our schedule, and I tried to remain calm amid those days that seemd chaotic! Exasperation would sometimes set in and on those days, we would try to get a few subjects done and make up the others on Saturday!
I sat theolder kids at the table when some personal tutoring was needed. Then, I put the toddlers in their high chairs. The little ones got juice cups and snacks to eat or alphabet blocks to play with: when they were a little older, they might get crayons and coloring paper. Then I proceeded with the math lessons or spelling test.
I used nap time to help older kids with science labs.
The school room had a door or limited access so I could set the little ones to play on the floor with blocks, or toys or a train set, and keep an eye on them while I worked with older kids.
When young ones reached pre-school age, we would all sit at the table together and the young ones would color alphabet pages or number pages while older kids did other school work.
I also tried to select several subjects that would span the different age ranges: (Considering God’s Creation; Beautiful Feet History; Language Arts study guides). If I was reading aloud to the kids, the younger children listened.
Some toddlers enjoy music very much and that was true of my little ones. Sometimes my kids would like to look at board books or play with stickers.
We made the schoolroom a combination play room and rotated toys out at regular intervals to keep the little ones interested.Sometimes one child could play with a younger sibling while I gave attention to an older child who didn’t understand a lesson.
We liked to use some curriculum like math that kids could do alone by reading lessons to themselves. On difficult days, and there were plenty of those.My husband would help the kids with their math when he got home.
Sometimes toddler nap time was Mommy naptime, too!
My husband helped maintain an attitude of discipline in the home so the kids knew that school was expected.
I invited a grandparent over to play with toddlers while I assisted with a science lab, or a grandparent would teach music lessons!
Some school days were outings to a zoo or a field trip to talk about animals or to a park to look at the wildflowers, frogs and turtles.These days were times of refreshing for all of us.
If we has a field trip on Saturday so Dad could come, we still counted it as a school day and my husband enjoyed participating in the educational experience for the kids.