Help me come up with a "mommy is too busy cleaning" curriculum

[macmacmoo]

Cleaning is not something I enjoy. Hubby is very understanding that my cleaning occurs in random waves that most days the bare minimum of a load a dishes maybe a load of laundry gets done. He tolerates this because when I get in a cleaning mood things get very clean and lovely. These cleaning moods can last a few hours to a few weeks. The last thing I want to do when the cleaning mood strikes to proctor lessons. Most of the curriculum I have is teacher intensive so continuing without me isn't really an option.

 

Eldest is 8 and reads at a Boxcar Children level.

Middles is 5 and now his letters and sounds but hasn't started blending and reading

youngest is 2 and is a tag along

 

Hit me up with your favorite workbooks, apps, websites, amazon/Netflix shows, anything. Just don't say let them play lol.

[Garga]

To me homeschooling is my job and it is done first and everything else second.  I wouldn't call in to a boss and say, "I've got a cleaning spree going on and I can't work today..."  

 

I'm just not sure that's a wise idea.  Half a day here and there, maybe, and only because the kids are very young...but not for weeks on end.  And not when they get older unless they're independent learners.  And most kids aren't completely independent to be left alone for weeks of schooling until they're...maybe in college? (a bit of hyperbole there...but only a bit...)

 

You may want to consider creating an overall different schedule for yourself.  Make sure all the homeschooling takes X amount of time and stick to a schedule so that there's plenty of time in the rest of the day for the cleaning, rather than being hands on most of the time and then suddenly switching gears and having the kids work all alone on something new for a week or three.

 

If you know the homeschooling will be done by a certain time each day, that may make it better for when you feel the urge to clean.  If you get school done by 1:30 every day, then you have 3 or 4 hours before it's time to make dinner to devote to cleaning, if the mood hits.

 

(And I understand about the cleaning mood hitting.  I'm like that, too.  But, as I said, homeschooling is my job, so if the mood hits when I'm homeschooling, too bad for me. I keep homeschooling.)

Edited April 25, 2017 by Garga

[Garga]

P.S.  Thinking on this a little more:   I posted above thinking mostly of your 8 year old.  I think your 5 and certainly your 2 year old would be ok while you're cleaning.  But I, personally, think you should be careful not to switch things up too much with your 8 year old.  S/he is in 2nd or 3rd grade, right, so school should take 2-4 hours a day or so.  That can be finished by lunch or early afternoon.  

 

I'm also thinking ahead.  That might work this year, but as the years progress, it'll be a bad habit to be in.

[Jean in Newcastle]

Educating children is a much higher priority for me than cleaning.  For one thing, the government does not require me to clean.  It does require me to educate my children. 

[Miss Tick]

BBC Dance Mat Typing

Dragonbox and Dragonbox Elements

Is Starfall still around for the littles?

How about buying a couple introductory foreign language videos. Those work best when watched multiple times.

 

 

Those ages just aren't super independent, though, well that work for you? Can you send them off for 20 or 30 minutes and get something accomplished our started and then do something together and send them off again? More power to you. My house could a dose of what you've got!

[...................]

I can't imagine how anyone can function well this way but one of my best friends of 16 years lived her life this way and it was just a fact. Yes laundry and dishes and making dinner got done every day but deep cleaning and organizing? Only when she was in the mode, or emergency mode (aka a friend who isn't close to her coming over)

 

Over time she changed and became

Much more consistent and all the kids learned to clean and so things became less on and off. :)

 

But anyway ,..

 

Reading Rainbow DVDs

Flash Kids Workbooks

complete Curriculum Workbooks

Critical Thinking Press Workbooks

Kumon Workbooks

Rewards and Stickers Charts so they actually do the stuff

 

But what I was thinking (and this is what my friend eventually did) was create and unschooling-ish basic barebones education plan. When she was in creative mommy teacher mood she did all kinds of co ops, projects, baking, and crafts. But when she was busy with life or in clean-out-her-house mood, either way the kids did their barebones education on their own.

 

Basically your kids need :

1. Math workbook that's self teaching for the most part

2. Phonics/Handwriting/Spelling preferably all

Inclusive such as ACE or CLE.

3. Reading practice, with you if they're learning and by themselves (also ACE or

CLE would be good for this.)

 

Science, math, history, art, crafts, hands on stuff can all be done when you're in the mood or through videos, random books etc.

[MerryAtHope]

I'd start to incorporate chore-training/character training--designate an hour per day to clean. 8 yo plays with 2 yo while you work one on one with your 5 year-old on some cleaning task. Then switch--5 yo plays with 2 yo while you work one on one with your 8 yo on some cleaning task. 

[HSmomof2]

Educating children is a much higher priority for me than cleaning. For one thing, the government does not require me to clean. It does require me to educate my children.

ITA^^^ Except for laundry and daily pickup/dishes, I do my cleaning during the evening or on weekends. I had a lovely, clean home during the year dc went to ps.....🙂

[Artichoke]

Cleaning is not something I enjoy. Hubby is very understanding that my cleaning occurs in random waves that most days the bare minimum of a load a dishes maybe a load of laundry gets done. He tolerates this because when I get in a cleaning mood things get very clean and lovely. These cleaning moods can last a few hours to a few weeks. The last thing I want to do when the cleaning mood strikes to proctor lessons. Most of the curriculum I have is teacher intensive so continuing without me isn't really an option.

 

Eldest is 8 and reads at a Boxcar Children level.

Middles is 5 and now his letters and sounds but hasn't started blending and reading

youngest is 2 and is a tag along

 

Hit me up with your favorite workbooks, apps, websites, amazon/Netflix shows, anything. Just don't say let them play lol.

 

 

If you're open to changing your cleaning ways, then you may want to check out flylady.net.  

 

If you'd prefer not to change, then how about making yourself teach the basics in the mornings and then begin cleaning afterwards?   What about schooling for six or nine weeks then having two or three weeks off?  

 

Some ideas for your dc are: 

quiet time in bed/room for books or puzzles

Leap Frog/Factory

Magic School bus videos

Lincoln Logs

Outside play for the olders

 

At the risk of sounding not nice, we homeschool moms don't usually have the luxury of  living by our whims/moods if we wish to do our homeschooling job well.  Taking hours or afternoons off to clean is probably okay; but if you require weeks to clean your home without schooling, then you may want to re-evaulate your methods.    Best wishes as you find a solution~

[2_girls_mommy]

I totally second FlyLady. She will change and fix it all for you if you follow it. It is amazing. 

 

But for those you need to do something on your own times, you could look at the Thinking Tree Journals. We discovered them this year, and it has been pure love for my 12 yr old. They have younger ones too.

[ThursdayNext]

I don't know what's wrong with doing a light week, and then bumping out your school schedule into summer break a week.

We like the Wild China series on Netflix, and plan to watch Wild Alaska. There's some printable maps they could color for geography. A world map puzzle could be fun. You could ask your 8 year old to read to her siblings. Or play some counting and math activities with the 5 year old. (Pay her with money or chocolate if necessary.) If you can work on reading for 20 min with the 5 year old, and get your 8 year old started with math, that should be good.

[frogger]

It is actually good to have breaks. Most people in careers get vacation days! If you have a high stress job or creative job you can actually be more productive after a break.

 

I prefer cleaning weeks where we all clean ( 2 year old just being a helper and then occupied by sibling). It is important to have a way to keep them busy so they aren't tearing things up behind you. Some schools have moved to a year round schedule with shorter breaks every quarter or so. This is refreshing but not long enough to forget everything like the ridiculously long summer breaks where they forget everything and the first third of next years book is nothing but review. :( At that age I would probably try to finish a unit or some natural breaking point and let them have time off too. If you want to keep them busy have them help. Pick a task that is a break to them like a geography puzzle, times tables game, book basket, wild life documentary, and certainly help them learn a new chore each time. I don't know that they have to have a whole different curriculum. Then you can all start a little refreshed.

 

A week or two is fine but if you get prolonged cleaning moods perhaps a set starting date for yourself.

[EKT]

I love to clean and can totally relate to "cleaning moods," but I would (gently) recommend that for long-term sustainability, it might work best if you try to fit cleaning in around your homeschool schedule and not the other way around. Of course, putting school on hold this once and taking a week or two off will not harm your children, but if it's a repeating pattern, you might find that over time it becomes too disruptive to your kids' education. May I suggest scheduling your cleaning? That's what I've discovered to work best for my family. I do two week-long marathon cleaning sessions per year, one over summer break and one right after the New Year in January. My husband either takes the kids to my in-laws', or my family just knows they're basically on their own for the week while mama goes into deep work cleaning mode, lol. But scheduling my cleaning marathons this way is great for two reasons: (1) The house is spotless right before fall semester and right before spring semester, so I go into the new school semester with everything feeling bright and shiny and ready to go, and (2) when I do the summer cleaning session, the kids are on summer vacation, and when I do the winter one, the kids are on Christmas break, so it's built right into our vacation calendar and does not affect our homeschooling. This has worked really well for us the past couple years and allows me to avoid any conflict with homeschool. (It can be really hard to wait when I feel the hardcore cleaning itch come on, but I know in my heart that school always has to come first.) Beyond that, we deep-clean the house as a family once per week (everyone--kids and adults--do chores, laundry, bathrooms, etc.), and on a daily basis, we try to pick up for 15 minutes every night before dinner, putting everything back in its place. This is a system that keeps my house in good shape almost all the time and keeps me sane.

 

So, just throwing that out there as an option for a fellow marathon cleaner. Hope you find something that works for you! 

[fralala]

I think every homeschooling family can relate to the difficulty of keeping a house neat and tidy when it is almost in constant use as a place where meals are prepared and consumed, science experiments and art projects are completed, books are read, toys are played with, and so forth.

 

So perhaps you deserve to shift your attitude a bit from your husband "tolerating" your lack of daily cleaning, which sounds awfully generous of you toward your husband and harsh of you toward yourself (based on the ages of your kids alone). I think my spouse would bristle if I said that I tolerate him not coming home from 8 hours at work and sweeping, mopping, and dusting, and rightly so. If you mean that both you and your husband accept and tolerate the mess because you understand that this stage is temporary and trying and that for everything you do, something else gets neglected, and you both have the same priorities-- I'm on the same page. But I don't want you or your husband to undervalue the amount of work you are doing when you're not vacuuming and scrubbing.

 

But this isn't what you wanted. You wanted a list. I like art supplies and podcasts, but with a 2 year old? Anytime you clean (except naptime) you are going to very likely end up with an equally bad or worse mess created elsewhere. You're shoveling the driveway during a blizzard! And you're probably doing better than you think.

[Julie of KY]

I'd keep a minimal amount of schoolwork for the 8 year old and then I'd incorporate the kids into teaching them to clean.

 

[Junie]

I try to set a 15-minute timer every day and everyone cleans different parts of the house at the same time.  Your children are littler, so this wouldn't be as effective for you (yet).  I have also watched some of these youtube videos.  The mother sets a timer for one hour and gets as much done as she can.  (I have RA, so I can't do an hour all at once, or I would be using this method.)  IME, an hour a day should keep the house pretty clean.

[displace]

One of the best deals I've found was on testingmom.com. Sounds strange (it's an IQ prep site). But the subscription is $100/year and has access to a lot of high quality educational websites (brainpop and jr and ESL edition, reflex math, mathletics, spellodrome, mangamath, lots of scholastic websites (reading and educational videos), mobymax, chesskid, typing quest, mango language, and others).

 

The only downside is the links usually have to be accessed by her website, and some websites allow access to only one child, which may not be a problem for you. Your 5 and 8 could both use some parts of it. For ex: 5 year old uses brainpop jr, 8 year old uses brain pop regular.

 

Mystery science free good science

 

Reading eggs /math seeds for 5 year old.

 

Prodigy math free math practice.

 

HWT app for 5year old.

[kolamum]

You know, I have to confess I'm with Garga here about homeschooling being my job & coming first. However, at your children's ages you don't need to be doing hours & hours of school either. I'd consider doing the basics right away with your 2 eldest {math & phonics are basics at that age} then I might set them up with a Magic School Bus video, set a timer & clean as much as I could in that time.

 

Understand that I race myself against a clock a lot to get jobs done too.. Then I might consider reading to the kids & then setting them up with an activity, game, or free play while you set a timer & clean again.

FWIW, we have a cut-off time for school each day & then everyone is responsible for helping to tidy up our home. It works for us, but I remember in those younger years that if dinner was served, & there was clean dry laundry to wear it was a huge accomplishment at times.

[CAtoVA]

Following as this is a sore spot for our family. After homeschooling for nine years my DH understands and accepts that schooling is priority number one for me but he can't quite wrap his head around the fact that then that means that the house won't always be spotless, every day at all times, grrrrrr. And we have littles so the shoveling while it's still snowing analogy spot on. Fortunately, I can afford to hire a house cleaner so that is likely where we are going. It's still frustrating that my DH just.doesn't.get it. I so envy all of you with DH's that DO!!!

[...................]

Following as this is a sore spot for our family. After homeschooling for nine years my DH understands and accepts that schooling is priority number one for me but he can't quite wrap his head around the fact that then that means that the house won't always be spotless, every day at all times, grrrrrr. And we have littles so the shoveling while it's still snowing analogy spot on. Fortunately, I can afford to hire a house cleaner so that is likely where we are going. It's still frustrating that my DH just.doesn't.get it. I so envy all of you with DH's that DO!!!

Just an FYI: Cleaning ladies don't clean your mess. They deep clean your house (vacuum, scrub, dust, shine) They do not pick up toys,

 

....unless you get a maid who comes 3-5 times per week. Then they will help with whatever you want :) but it's a LOT of money.

 

Just so you know what you're really looking for

[CAtoVA]

Thanks, that IS what I am looking for!!!! : ).

 

I spend time cleaning up/tidying up toys, etc after everybody AND getting the kids to clean up after themselves (DH seems allergic to asking them to pick up after themselves, oh well) and then I also have to do the "deep" cleaning too! It's not fun. I DO want someone once a week or so to do the dusting, mopping, vaccumming, etc because after the daily grind of tidying up and doing laundry and teaching a full day to several different levels I just have. no.energy.left. ykwim? : )

 

Oh, and again, you ladies who have the understanding and reasonable-on-this-issue husbands, you are very fortunate!

Edited April 29, 2017 by chiefcookandbottlewasher

[SeaConquest]

Just an FYI: Cleaning ladies don't clean your mess. They deep clean your house (vacuum, scrub, dust, shine) They do not pick up toys,

 

....unless you get a maid who comes 3-5 times per week. Then they will help with whatever you want :) but it's a LOT of money.

 

Just so you know what you're really looking for

What? I've almost always had a housekeeper come on a weekly basis. They pick up toys, do my laundry, and organize. They do whatever I want for $15/hour.

[CadenceSophia]

What? I've almost always had a housekeeper come on a weekly basis. They pick up toys, do my laundry, and organize. They do whatever I want for $15/hour.

 

 

Oof send her to my house!!  We stopped with ours because she wouldn't touch a dirty dish on the counter or pick up some stray toys in a corner for $45/hr.  I haven't had any luck finding someone who would do light housekeeping and regular cleaning. 

[SeaConquest]

Cleaning services are a ripoff. Check Craigslist or ask for referrals from friends/mom groups/church groups. You want somebody independent.

[CAtoVA]

You gals are so funny. Thanks for the tip about looking at Craigslist instead of just cleaning services.

[BlsdMama]

Cleaning is not something I enjoy. Hubby is very understanding that my cleaning occurs in random waves that most days the bare minimum of a load a dishes maybe a load of laundry gets done. He tolerates this because when I get in a cleaning mood things get very clean and lovely. These cleaning moods can last a few hours to a few weeks. The last thing I want to do when the cleaning mood strikes to proctor lessons. Most of the curriculum I have is teacher intensive so continuing without me isn't really an option.

 

Eldest is 8 and reads at a Boxcar Children level.

Middles is 5 and now his letters and sounds but hasn't started blending and reading

youngest is 2 and is a tag along

 

Hit me up with your favorite workbooks, apps, websites, amazon/Netflix shows, anything. Just don't say let them play lol.

 

 

I will be honest in that you are at a direct teaching age and will be so for at least another 10 years or so.  Mid elementary to mid middle school is fairly intensive teaching.  Cleaning is a second place deal and best dealt with through minimization.  Just a heads up so you have a realistic map.

[Finlandia]

I agree with all the others that homeschooling is my job and that cleaning, running errands, etc are very low on the list of priorities during our school days. But people are different, and different families have different values and different reasons for homeschooling.

 

I am pretty anti-busy work. A lot of the suggestions for what your DC could do independently strike me as being busy work. I personally wouldn't assign something for my child to do just so that I could clean or do chores. I feel like it would be more worthwhile to simply let them play.

 

One thing you could do is to adopt a year round school year but to not schedule your breaks in advance. Instead if you get in the mood to start a project or do a deep cleaning of your house, you could call a two week break from school. After the break, just pick up where you left off. Maybe that approach would fit your lifestyle better and give you the flexibility you're wanting.

[fralala]

I am pretty anti-busy work. A lot of the suggestions for what your DC could do independently strike me as being busy work. I personally wouldn't assign something for my child to do just so that I could clean or do chores. I feel like it would be more worthwhile to simply let them play.

 

Totally agree with this, but as someone who has 3 kids at almost exactly the same ages mentioned in the original question, I also understand the urge to tie kids to chairs in front of a screen so they won't pull down and out the entire contents of 3 closets in the 10 minutes that I manage to fold 1 basket of laundry. (This does help me think of something helpful, though, which is that I actually caved and one of our closets is really now just a "pull stuff down and make a mess closet." It's the one with all the outgrown clothes and I don't care if they pull them out, dress up their dolls and themselves, throw them around, stomp on them, and so forth as long as they shove them back in the closet when they're done. That activity can usually keep the three of them entertained for at least 15 minutes before I begin to hear screaming and crying.)

[AdventuresinHomeschooling]

Make sure they are reading every day. Then, you need a fun, supplemental math that's independent. I use Star Wars math for littles, Life of Fred and Beast Academy for my older son. I understand "life" days. I've had babies and done cross country moves.

 

Maps, Charts and Graphs are great workbooks for map skills. Keep them doing penmanship and their spelling workbook.

 

Add some art, Magic School Bus, and some history shows like Liberty's Kids. This is also when I let them do Magic School Bus kits if they can do them slightly independently. P.E. in the backyard. You can also pull some great worksheets off of Enchanted Learning.

 

Apps: hooked on phonics app is pricey, but well done. Reading eggs, abcya, xtra math, prodigy math, Duolingo, and Starfall.

 

Don't feel guilty if you're getting your 180 days in and finishing your assignments. Plan for cushion in your school year. But this will get harder to cancel lessons when they're older, but they should gradually get more independent.

[OnMyOwn]

Www.sheppardsoftware.com is great for learning geography.