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chores

Homeschool Mom Balance

by Ashley Mullen Leave a Comment

We start homeschooling with the best of intentions, educate our children. But how does a homeschool mom make it work? How do you keep the house clean, get meals on the table and homeschool your child? Balancing it all is not easy but you can do it. Balance as a homeschool mom is important but super hard to find, and to maintain. You just have to find your homeschool mom balance.

Balancing it all as a homeschool mom

Balancing it all as a Homeschool Mom

*This post contains affiliate links, see my disclosure policy for more information.*

A Homeschool Mom Needs to Plan

I love my Happy Planner, it isn’t full of pretty stickers, but full of things that I hope to accomplish each day from blogging, to household chores for myself, to appointments or fun that I want to do with my family.

I have a Happy Planner big enough that I use it to keep track of all that stuff PLUS our homeschool plans, like what book and what chapter in the book we’ll be reading, etc. I even write down our weekly, repetitive things like “story time” at our local library. It’s all in one spot for me to look at with a quick glance.

Chores

I have to have my family helping out around the house or nothing would ever get done. I am one person, I cannot do everything alone. Hubby works all day so he can’t be here to help as much, though he is great at throwing together a supper when I just don’t feel like cooking.

Each of my kids have chores that they do everyday to help out:

  • unloading and reloading the dishwasher
  • taking the dogs out
  • setting and clearing the table
  • keeping their rooms tidy
  • keeping toys out of the living room
Balancing it all as a Homeschool Mom - Chores for Kids

Homeschool Moms Need to Wake Up Early

I get up before everyone else in our house, well, maybe not before our pup, he wakes up with my alarm too. I take this time to make and drink coffee, exercise, and just wake up in general.

My husband often comments on the weekends how cranky I am when I first get up… you know when the kids are getting up, and everyone is talking to me and demanding things. Just let Momma wake up!

Homeschooling

Picking a homeschool curriculum that is open and go, and easy to use. I think this is the best thing that I have done as a homeschool mom. Bookshark is open and go, no long hours of planning and trying to figure out what we’ll be doing each day.

No matter what curriculum you choose to use, make use to plan ahead a little so that you aren’t getting frustrated and searching and trying to figure out what you are going to be doing each morning.

Try to keep your homeschool things together in one space so you aren’t searching all over you home for books, pencils, etc. We have pencils with our craft stuff but also keep pencils with our homeschooling things. Pencils and erasers disappear quickly so having backups helps.

Self care is important - Balancing it all as a Homeschool Mom

Self Care

It doesn’t matter if your self care is exercising, going out for coffee alone or with friends, or hopping into a bubble bath. You need to remember to take care of yourself. That’s why I am up at least an hour and a half before everyone else here. I use that time for me, to exercise and to drink my coffee in peace.

Similar posts you may be interested in:

How to Homeschool When You are Sick

How to Rock it as a Homeschool Mom

Filed Under: Homeschool, Homeschool Helps Tagged With: chores, Homeschool Mom, homeschooling, planning, self care, wake up early

Chores & Allowance for Children

by Ashley Mullen Leave a Comment

We have recently implemented a chores and allowance system in our house. Our girls have been doing chores for a little while but we hadn’t started the allowance mainly because we went sure what, or how, we were going to do it. But we have now figured out our chores and allowance for our children.

Chores & Allowance for Children

Chores & Allowance for Children

*This post contains affiliate links, please see my disclosure policy for more information.*

We decided on an allowance cap: $5 a week. My girls earn gems for their chores at $0.25 each. They have to earn their gems, I’m not forking over my budgeted money for no reason.

We used gems to give them a visual representation of what they were getting, what they were earning. Keeping in mind that this is all age appropriate chores and allowance.

We are using mason jars to hold their gems, with scrapbook stickers for their names. The white retro milk bottle is where I have their gems stored. I bought that bottle because I love the look of with no idea what I was going to do with it.

age appropriate chores and allowance

How Much Allowance?

This is for you to decide. I cannot tell you how much your child should be getting for an allowance.

Chores & Allowance - Chores by Age

Chores for Allowance

Austin’s chores: vacuum, clear the table, feed the dog in the morning.

Brookland’s chores are: feed the kittens, feed the dog in the evening, and clear the table.

Here’s the thing with their chores. I’m not including things that they are expected to do anyways for themselves such as clean their room, fold and put their laundry away, and such. Those are things they have to do. Its for them, so I’m not giving out gems for them.

Pick and choose chores for your lifestyle and your family. Now as my kids have gotten older chores have changed. There is poop scooping, eggs to be collected, and other things that happen on a small acre.

What Happens with their Allowance?

Piggy bank. After a month, we’ll count it, and then they can choose to save half still in their piggy banks or spend it. The other half goes in their bank accounts to save.

I love that not only are they helping out around the house, but I also really like what they are learning.

What they are Learning Doing Chores? 

They are steadily build a strong work ethic, and developing the basic life skills. Kids doing chores helps them to feel contributing members of the family household. Research indicates that those children who do have a set of chores have higher self-esteem, are more responsible, and are better able to deal with frustration and delay gratification, all of which contribute to greater success in school.

The best part about them earning an allowance and how we are doing it, is what they’re learning from getting an allowance, like how to save money and carefully spend their money.

They are learning about bank interest – yes at 5 and 7 years old, when their bank statements come in the mail they open it and we talk about what is happening with their money sitting in the bank.

Printable Checklist

I made this printable for my kids. It saves me from asking “Did you clean here? Did you clean there?” I laminated it, so they can grab a dry erase marker and check off things they clean. I did call it “Mom Clean” because that is what I ask my kids. “Is it Mom clean?”

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Similar posts that you may be interested in:

Growing a Snack Garden with Your Kids

Deciding to Homeschool. Now What?

How to Use Google Classroom in your Homeschool

Filed Under: Homeschool, Homeschool Helps Tagged With: allowance, allowance bank, bank, chores, chores by age, saving money

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A Little About Me

I'm Ashley, a Canadian secular homeschool mom of 3, living in Nova Scotia.

I share our adventures in homeschooling and parenting.

You can usually find us at the library surrounded by books.
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