Simple Homeschool Routine for Multiple Ages: Curriculum, Books, + Grace

Well, August is upon us once again, and – unlike last year – I have spent a good amount of time this summer thinking about the coming school year. I don’t think this means our school year will necessarily be any better than last year; last year was just fine, so if you don’t happen to have a lot of planning time available, don’t worry about it! But I have enjoyed the time I have spent planning, and with a mostly quiet and at-home summer, it’s felt easy to think and plan a little more than last year.

I wanted to share our ideas for the year, with the understanding that our plans must always be in pencil. In all our six years of homeschooling, our year has never, never gone quite exactly as I have planned, whether that be a result of large and unexpected disruptions (like a move or a new baby), or simply a result of unique and unpredictable personalities (aka our children) who don’t always respond to our plans in the way that we expect. I think each year we have gotten a little better at graciously accounting for disruptions and working through them when they come, but I still need to remind myself that my ideas at the beginning of the year are simply ideas – just a rough framework upon which we can build our days, but the details of each day will probably need to be tweaked and adjusted repeatedly.

Our Homeschool Routine for Multiple Ages

Morning:

After breakfast and morning chores, we have begun with our school time with Morning Time for at least two years now and we plan to continue. The one question in my mind is whether or not I should let the almost-3-year-old sit and listen with us this year (that is, play “quietly” in the same room) or whether he should continue doing his Independent Playtime instead. What will probably happen is that we’ll try letting him join us for a couple mornings and see just how disruptive it is.

After Morning Time, I plan to give some focused time to Little Sister and perhaps Baby Brother too while the three older boys work on their independent school – anything they can do without my help. We usually squeeze in a snack and an outside break around this time also.

Afternoon:

We always read aloud a chapter book during lunch – with no narrating, just for the joy of a story! Then Baby Brother goes down for his nap and Mom gets some much-needed, sanity-saving QUIET ALONE TIME. I plan to save the last portion of this nap time for checking over the older boys’ school work and helping them finish up anything they have left.

Evening:

We all pitch in for a pre-supper cleanup time, and if the weather is decent I will send the kids outside while I make supper. Daddy does some more reading to the older kids at bedtime, and I also have a list of nature documentaries that I’m looking forward to watching as a family once we get to that lovely season when it’s dark before we sit down for dinner and your snot freezes in your nostrils and we don’t get any outside time after 4pm.

Sample Day with Our Homeschool Routine for Multiple Ages

(not included but available as a free add-on: toddler tantrums, sibling squabbles, various viruses, or other interrupting incidents)

7:00 kids get up, Mom makes breakfast

7:30 eat, then get dressed and start chores

8-8:30ish gather at the piano to sing, then start Morning Time

9:30 put Baby Brother in his room for playtime; three older boys start independent work and I work with Little Sister

10:00 I take turns helping the boys with their piano practice and/or math lessons

11:00 done for the morning, everyone goes outside

12:00 lunch and read aloud

1:00 nap time/quiet rest or reading time for older kids; Mom gets alone time

2:00 help the boys finish up any school work that’s left

3:00 clean up the house, send the kids outside, start prepping dinner

5:30 dinner, family time

7:30 little kids in bed

8:30 big kids in bed

Resources We Hope to Use in 2024 and 2025

During Morning Time:

Here’s our stack that we’re planning to loop through! I’m very much looking forward to all of these. We usually try to read a short bit out of 3-4 different books and have a child narrate after each one. Pleas note that, yes, this is in fact MORE than 3-4 books (it appears to be seven, last time I counted) – which is probably too many, but I haven’t yet narrowed it down and am still debating between a few of them.

Other Curriculum:

Math – This will be our first time trying The Good and the Beautiful and I will let you know how it goes! We used to use Shiller Math and I loved it so much, but it’s not something the boys could do on their own. I wish I had the time to sit down with each of them and work through the lessons together every day – we had such fun with that! – but I have had to face the reality that this style of lesson is no longer working in our large family. I desperately needed something that the boys could do (mostly) on their own, so we have made that switch and are hoping that it results in more consistent math progress this year. If you have fewer children or kids who are spaced farther apart, Shiller Math might work better for you.

Phonics/Copywork – We are continuing on with Logic of English for our 8 and 5 year olds (the older two boys are reading fluently and don’t need it anymore). Our 11, 9, and 8 year olds will all do weekly handwriting practice using The Good and the Beautiful as well as some simple copywork – copying one sentence at a time from a book of my choice.

Reading – I’ll be choosing a stack of books at an appropriate level for each of the three older boys from our home library; I try to pick a mixture of biography, historical fiction, and classic literature. Each day they read a chapter and then either tell me about it or do a short written narration.

Typing – We’re going to continue on with Touch Type Read and Spell (and if you happen to need a typing program too, you can get 10% off by using my link and entering the code EROKSER at checkout). The boys loved doing their computer time last year, and I love that they can do it independently and also that it’s not too flashy or game-like. There’s enough attention-fragmenting entertainment bombarding us in our culture already that I like to minimize as much of that in our home as I can!

Extracurricular Activities:

Piano – We continue on with piano lessons for the three older boys, and they will keep practicing each day.

Homeschool choir – This doesn’t begin until end of September, which I appreciate – and also doesn’t require any weekly “homework” other than attending the once-a-week rehearsal.

Swimming – We’ll probably do a couple swim lesson sessions for the older boys, though I am hoping not to start until later in the fall. We’ve got plenty going on in the next month and I want to give us time to settle into our school routine before adding in extras. One of our unspoken rules for extracurriculars is that we won’t do it unless multiple children can participate together, and swim lessons ends up being something that fits well in that category.

Spanish – I am putting this down here with extracurriculars because it’s going to be low down on the priority list and will get dropped if we end up having too much this year. However, I’ve been wanting to try La Clase Divertida for quite a while now, and this seems like a good time to experiment with it. My thought is that the kids will watch a lesson in the afternoon once or twice a week – and that’s it. No other practice or Mom-time spent on it unless we end up having extra time on our hands, which quite frankly is even less likely than me running a marathon this year.

Finally, here’s a little peek at the sort of schedule I usually print out, laminate, and pop on the fridge: something fairly simple where we can cross off each item when it’s finished, and can easily tell at a glance what still needs to be done for the day (or the week).

Whew! If you’ve made it to the end of this monster post, congratulations. You have the endurance of an over-tired toddler at 8pm. And again, let me encourage you of the following: this is our homeschool routine for multiple ages, but yours shouldn’t look exactly the same. Your family situation is unique, and my only hope in sharing this outline of our year is to perhaps inspire you with an idea or two that might help you out. Take what you like and leave the rest!

If you’d like a little more detail about how we are approaching kindergarten this year for our 5 year old, check out this post on homeschooling kindergarten.

Thank you for reading! My hope for each of us for the coming school year is that we would have eyes to see our children for who they are, wisdom in providing living ideas to nourish their hearts and minds, and humility to keep learning and change course as needed.

Oh, and coffee. Copious amounts of coffee.