Curriculum Choices Archives

Homeschooling multiple kids is a topic that a lot of homeschoolers look for tips and how-tos on. How do you teach three or more grades at the same time? Especially when there are two years between your kids. It actually isn’t that hard when you have the right tools and choose the right curriculum to help you get the job done.

Homeschooling Multiple Kids with Ease

*This is a post sponsored by Teaching Textbooks. We are receiving access to levels in exchange for this post. This post contains affiliate links, see my disclosure policy for more information.*

There are three main areas you want to cover when you’re homeschooling your kids- math, reading, and writing. You really don’t need a lot to cover these three areas. I’ll tell you how we are planning to do it now.

Teaching Textbooks Online Math

Math isn’t really something that you can work with multiple kids on, seeing as they are learning at different levels. My first grader won’t be doing division and my fifth grader can do more than basic addition.

In the past, they have each sat at the table doing math with me walking around to help each. Last year we started using Teaching Textbooks with my oldest, and this year is going to be that much easier here at our house as we’re adding another level to our routine and schedule.

Yay! Less math for me to teach one-on-one. I honestly love this program so much.

This year we using Teaching Textbooks again. It made fourth grade math a breeze. This year, we’ll be using level 5 and level 3. This means that while my girls are working independently on math, I can work with their brother, who isn’t old enough for Teaching Textbooks yet.

They’ll each be able to grab their tablets, headphones, and marker boards and do their math anywhere in the house – or the yard – on their own, with very little help required from me.

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I am able to keep track of how they are doing from the parent dashboard which I use a lot to see if there is a concept that they are needing a little more work on and how they are doing in general.

If we’re going to be without power or internet due to being away from home or a scheduled maintenance issue, I can print off their lessons from the parent dashboard.

Sometimes I print them off if they need a little more practice too. There is something about paper work that can help it click better sometimes.

I honestly can’t wait until all three of my kids are able to use Teaching Textbooks and I can step away from teaching math, as it is not an area I feel confident in teaching them.

Reading Books Together

Reading together is the best way to cover topics together with multiple ages, and for multiple subjects.

Whether you are reading aloud to your children, or choosing to listen to audiobooks, everyone can enjoy listening together. When choosing either classic books or more popular books together that you can discuss together as part of your language arts.

You can copy paragraphs out of your books for your children to use as copywork, and for taking note grammar and more.

You can pick books about time periods or places that you want to learn about for history and social studies. Such as when we read Owls in the Family for our history curriculum and learned a little more about Saskatchewan, where we currently live. Or use just one book to cover both language arts (reading and writing), history and social studies.

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Homeschooling Multiple Kids with Ease

With a great math curriculum option like Teaching Textbooks, and with books from either your public library or your own bookshelves, you can homeschool multiple kids, multiple grades with relative ease.

If you are looking for curriculum instead of picking and choosing as we often do, there are options, like BookShark, who levels work for multiple ages.

Recommended Products for Homeschooling:

Elementary Curriculum Choices for Your Family

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

I’m not going to tell you what elementary curriculum you should choose, I can’t know the answers to everything but I can give you some things to think about.

We are going into our fifth year of homeschooling. We have used boxed curriculum and we have been eclectic homeschoolers using this and that to suit our needs. In fact I avoided box curriculum for the first few years for a few reasons, cost being one, but also because I had no idea what we would need, what we’d use, what would work and so on.

Take a deep and think about these things before you make a quick choice on your child’s elementary curriculum.

What Your Family Needs in a Curriculum

We are strictly secular homeschoolers as you just may have noticed here already. Therefore we need a curriculum, books, or workbooks that follow that, religion free. But maybe your family wants/needs a curriculum that follows a specific religion. The beauty of homeschooling is being able to tailor it to your needs.

Thinking about Elementary Curriculum Choices for Your Family

Curriculum Ease of Use

There are curriculum at are completely ready for you, open the box and go with little to no work or planning for you the parent, these would be boxed curriculum.

There also those that require a lot of planning and work for you. This is a big thing to look at. Homeschooling moms and dads that also work may not have the time for the extra work. This would be a eclectic style of homeschooling.

The amount of work that is required for your child may not be a fit either. Depending on how fast they work, how quickly they learn new concepts and such.

The amount of work required for you, as the homeschool parent may not be reasonable. If you are a working mom, you may need to look for something a little less time consuming to plan and prep for.

Your Homeschooling Method

Is there a curriculum available that follows the method of school you follow? If you are unschooling then you aren’t going to need a curriculum at all. Eclectic homeschoolers, such as us, may just want to pick up some workbooks.

Or maybe you and your kids are looking for something like Outschool. Where they can join virtual class on a topic that maybe of interest to them, or maybe something that you want covered but aren’t sure how to teach.

Elementary Homeschool Subjects

What subjects do you want to teach your children this year? Math, reading, and writing are the most important, but what about science, social studies and history, or geography? What about art or music classes?

The curriculum choices other there are wide and varied. There is something for everyone and every family. One thing to remember is that just because it works for one child, it may not work for all your children.

Try to find reviews, talk to family and friends make sure to ask why they liked or didn’t like it a curriculum choice. What they disliked might just be what you are looking for.

I’m an admin for a great Facebook page now that is all about curriculum. If you are a homeschooler, or going to be starting to homeschool and you have questions about curriculum join us. Chances are someone has used the curriculum you are thinking about using and can answer any questions you may have.