How It Works:

With multiple children who are different ages and grades and personalities, it’s hard to find that balance in the day and day. But here’s how our weekly schedule works – with a mixture of flexible and structured planning.

1. Designated Teaching Days: Designated teaching days on Mondays and Wednesdays work very well right now for our elementary and middle school children because of the amount of subjects they have. Typically, the math lesson is taught to each child individually on Mondays. The language lesson and cursive is Wednesdays.
   • Since our children wake up in a staggered fashion (very early morning person, mid-morning person and late sleeper) we can stagger up to three-four hours of instruction time. This staggering in the mornings ranges from 8am to noon for as many lesson subjects as needed. However, even if your multiple children all wake up at the same time or need to be awake due to your schedule, they can still stagger their schedules with you. Just select a subject and start alternating children until each one has had that 1:1 lesson time.
2. Designated Check-ins: These designated check-ins are more informal times throughout the day. We check over the day’s lesson, depending on when the child says they are “done” with their work. We also do a quick oral assessment of their language, spelling, science and check over journaling for corrections.
   • This allows for the children to be held accountable for completing their work. We assess if the work is done satisfactorily and then the reward is their free time and screen time. It also allows for a mental checklist for the child so they can complete chores and move on to the next part of their day. We all know they are “done” with necessities for the day.
3. Designated Review Days: Review days are more formal and intense types of check-ins. This is when we can better assess the subjects as a whole and overall competency in the subject.
   • We tag team the review days by selecting times in one day on Thursday for math corrections and language (during day my husband does these) and then I check over writing and/or science in the evenings. We do a quick oral review of vocab and spelling words during dinner and we can safely know that Friday tests are prepped.
4. Designated Catch-Up Days: Catch up days are necessary and helpful for a variety of schedules, ages and situations. But we love it best because it allows forgiveness and faults.
   • We all have those days that lessons don’t go well or the child is less than cooperative. Typically we have Fridays or Sunday afternoons to catch up. This gives a day with the stay-at-home parent to review more on all subjects and get the child motivated. It gives the worker outside of the home a chance to also review subjects with multiples.