Mrs. Thompson's Treasures : Spreading the Homeschool Love Blog Hop

I'm so excited to be a part of this blog hop! I love homeschooling, and I love TpT, so this is a great way to share about both! We're joining together to give away a great prize bundle!

You can enter the Rafflecopter at the end of the post!

I'd like to share a little about how we manage homeschooling with younger siblings around. I started some preschool with my first child when he was 3. We didn't do much, but he just really liked it and wanted to learn, so we jumped right in! Now he is 6 and in 1st grade, my oldest daughter is 4 and started PreK this year, and we also have 2 more little sisters, ages 2 and 1.

It has definitely been challenging to find a routine that works for all of us and allows the big kids and I to get any work done. And we still don't have it down perfectly. I'm constantly changing things up to try and be more efficient! So, here's a little glimpse into our day:

Even though the kids are up by 7:00, we don't usually start school until 8:45 or 9:00. This gives us some unrushed time to eat breakfast, get dressed, and have a family devotional. Then I always like to have the kids do something active before we start any work. So we'll go for a short walk, play outside, or just watch some fun YouTube videos that we can dance to.

Then around 9, the 1 year old goes down for a nap, and the big kids start their work. We started using workboxes this year, and I love it!

I switched the boxes around so each of the big kids have a red, orange, green, blue, and purple box. They both start at their red box and work their way down. The first box is always calendar pages, number of the day, etc. Then they each have some pages they can do mostly on their own: alphabet and numbers stuff for my 4 year old, and math practice, spelling words, and journal writing for my 1st grader. I also try to include one fun activity for each of them in a box, like a mystery picture, tangrams, puzzles, dice rolling game, etc. While the big kids start their workboxes, I get some table work for my 2 year old. Sometimes she'll sit and do an activity, and sometimes she won't! Our school room is in a converted garage, and the other half of the room is a playroom. So, sometimes she will just play with toys while we work.

Our homeschool room (well, half a room)

Around 10:00, the girls will watch a show on Netflix and I'll do some language arts with my son. The baby usually wakes up around this time, so I'll bring her in with us and let her play. Then at 10:30 my son plays on the computer and the girls finish up TV time and then play. We eat lunch early, around 11:00, and then have a little free time. Around 11:45, My 4 yr old will do a lesson on the computer (we love Reading Eggs) and I'll get the 2 littles ready for a nap. When they go down, my son reads his library book and I'm able to work with my 4 yr old on some beginning reading stuff, and then I read some books to her and she lays down for a nap.

Finally around 1:00, I'm able to spend about an hour with my son, working on the rest of his subjects, and then we usually end our school day around 2:00. About this time the little ones are waking up and chaos ensues for the rest of the afternoon and evening :-)

I always love reading about how other homeschoolers structure their day, so I hope this has been fun and maybe even helpful for you if you are homeschooling with toddlers and babies around!

I'd also love to share with you some FREEBIES I have in my TpT store for the fall!

Pumpkins Emergent Reader - Count & Color (PreK-K)