I find that the easiest subject to teach to all of the kids at once is history. I use a variety of different things to accomplish this. I made a video to give an overview of what we do in our homeschool with history and then since I forgot to include a fairly important element, I made a second video! I’ve only touched on what we do so feel free to ask clarification questions in the comments.
Here are links to give you more information about some of the products I mentioned:
Story of the World has 4 Volumes. We started with Volume 1 and went through it fairly slowly over about two years and are now about three quarters of the way through Volume 2 which takes you from the Fall of Rome to the Rise of the Renaissance. We use the book, the Activity Book, and Tests and Answer Key.
Nest videos and activity/colouring books…We use these for history and we also have their artist videos and New and Old Testament videos.
Brimwood Press – the products I spoke about specifically were Colour the Western World and Calendar Quest
Sensory bins that we have done to accompany our history learning: Knights & Kings  and Pirates
Catapult made from popsicle sticks and a plastic spoon
Hopefully that gives you a bit of a better idea of how I approach teaching history to such a wide variety of ages and keep the older kids engaged and challenged while still including the younger ones.
Loved seeing your video….it was helpful for me to get more ideas on blending my kiddos. I was on your blog perusing again last night….I’m in awe of all of your curriculum choices. How are you able to to fit in all of the extras? That is what I’m struggling with. I do bible, phonics with 3 different kids and then math and that’s about it until lunch!! Some afternoons we have therapy so it doesn’t leave much time for other things.
You were an inspiration in trying workboxes again. it is working gloriously during their independent work time (basically when I’m working with each child doing phonics) BUT it’s pretty boring…audio center, handwriting and an explode the code book everyday:)I would love, love, love to implement more unit studies ect but I just can’t find the time in my day. (after lunch we do history and or science).
SO I’m wondering…do you school year round? how long is your day? My one 7 year old can’t read yet…and I have 2 emerging readers, my oldest is 12 and I have him somewhat independent this year. So, I recognize this just might be my season to accomplish nothing, but teaching reading and math:\
I’m really glad to hear that you are having some success with workboxes. We don’t school year-round but don’t take the full summer off either. We start with a short devotion book (we are doing a Veggie Tales one right now), prayer, memory verse, then I read them Story of the World and we do the review questions aloud. Then I read them a book and/or a chapter out of whatever novel we are going through, then I read from the Who is God and How Can I Know Him textbook and then any other reading aloud I might have to do (like if we are doing a composer study or I’m reading something about a unit study). Then I put the sight word of the day on the white board and every few days, I put one of the Super Sentence brainstorming things on there. Interspersed in all that reading I do up there, I have the kids do little brain breaks to get them moving and keep them from zoning out.
I’ve found that the key is to do all the stuff that I have to read all at once and then after that, I have them work on their stuff so that includes whatever Story of the World colouring sheets or map work or test they have that day and then their workboxes. In their workboxes they have some of the basics like math and handwriting.
To keep the workboxes fun, there are lots of hands-on activities that you can include that aren’t hard to set up. I set mine up on Sunday evenings and then just rotate the activities between the kids through the week. There is a lot of fun in there on the weeks we do unit studies but I just can’t manage to do one every week. I aim for at least one unit study a month and it lasts a week or two. Sometimes it’s a learning one like something like magnets and other times, it’s just for fun like right now we are doing some candy activities (and eating) because we are reading Charlie and the chocolate Factory. For workbox ideas, if you go to my categories tab in the sidebar and click on workboxes, you will find some easy to put together ideas. I should get back to blogging about some of those workbox ideas!
Hope that helps a bit.
P.S. We have activities or appointments scheduled for almost every afternoon so our “school” lasts from about 9 a.m. until NOON.
Wow! Thank you so much for the quick and detailed response!! I still feel like I can’t get it together though:( I spend 1 hour solid of teaching reading one on one (with several kids). It also takes us almost 45 minutes to get through math u see…I have 3 in alpha, but they are not on the same lessons…so someone is always needing a new lesson and my one kiddo REALLY struggles in math so always needs help and my other kiddo can'[t read so I have to read every word problem. I spend almost 30 minutes in bible because we are doing a bible study co-op so they have workbooks we do together. Of course then I have to do one on one spelling too. aagh! (several of mine are dyslexic so I am doing all about spelling/reading). My oldest is in 6th so he is completely independent…don’t know if he should be, but it’s survival mode because there is such a HUUUGE gap in abilities that the multi level learning was really hard.
Basically no matter how hard I try, we are working 9-11:30 and that is before any history, science or literature activity:/ Did you have multiple kids learning to read at once? How do you handle multiple kids using math u see ? (or maybe you don’t use that anymore). Sorry to ask so many questions…I know it will never be perfect but would love to streamline the best I can! I hate not being able to eat lunch until 1pm and then still having science or history to cover:((
I have 2 still using Math U See and I work hard to keep them at the same level. One has an easier time of it than the other but I give her worksheets and that kind of thing to keep her busy (I know it’s not ideal but I need to keep them in the same chapter for my sanity).
I have 3 that are learning to read this year and my suggestion for that is bedtime. When my husband isn’t out of town, he can help with this at bedtime and even our older boys can help so I can get multiple kids having reading teaching at the same time. So the reading is hardly a part of our homeschool time (other than sight words on the whiteboard and hands-on or fun phonics activities in the workboxes). There are usually a few nights a week when reading doesn’t happen because we have activities or whatever but I also will take time on a Saturday morning or Sunday afternoon to sit with one and practise so I figure it even out to about four or five times a week each.
I hope that helps.
Great post Sharla, and super comments underneath too – they are like bonus posts! Thanks for linking up at Story of the World blog roll. Have a great 2014 year of homeschooling, from Victoria
Thanks for all the great advice!! We are just starting our first year of homeschooling this fall & I’m super excited – but way nervous!! I know we can do it but I also know it’s going to be a lot of work!! My big question -(which I was excited to see you use Story of the World 😉 – is – if you are teaching multi-ages, do you go back over lessons/topics another year?? For instance, my kids will be in Kinder, 3rd, and 6th next year. If we are learning about ancient Greece – surely my 6th grader is going to get more out of it & remember way more than my kindergartener! When do I reteach that so she (Kinder.) will fully understand it?? Or do you?? Do I go through all 4 volumes & then start back at #1?? Sorry for all the questions – I’m just a little confused! :/ Thanks for your help!!
We’ve run into that issue because I taught things to my older boys when my younger ones were very young and even though they may have been in the room or even participated in the learning, their retention just wasn’t there because of their ages. I find the best way to fix that is by introducing unit studies in later years to reinforce the learning and reintroduce it to the younger ones. So as far as Story of the World goes, I wouldn’t redo the entire volumes, but I would do unit studies on important highlights such as the Roman Empire or Ancient Greece or some of the Revolutions. I hope that helps!
By the way, congratulations on your homeschool start!