Combining multiple ages is ridiculous!

[MelissaM]

I decided to make life easier for myself and combine the kids for history. What a nightmare! The oldest needs so much more than the youngest that they are both being short changed. The middle dd doesn't like history so she doesn't care one way or the other.

 

I was banking on being able to combine them all for history and the older two for science. They are way too far apart in ability to combine at all.

 

What do I do?

[Kelli in TN]

I have kids spaced like yours and I combine them for history. We use SOTW and we read the lesson in that and do the map work together. My 7th grader does the extra reading from Kingfisher, my younger one does the extra reading from Usborne. I look for videos that will appeal to one or both of them and I find library books at their levels. It works for us, I can't imagine juggling two completely different histories.

[Haiku]

I haven't been in your situation, but I would imagine that you would pick one spine that works for all of them and then schedule extra books and activities that fit their ages. It would be more work, but probably less work overall than juggling three completely separate history curriculums.

 

Tara

[MicheleinMN]

Breathe In, Breathe Out

 

I hit that same place a couple of years ago. It was hard! Hard on me, not them. I had to adjust to working with each child individually. I also went to narrations and individualized reading plans for history and science. The only thing my dc do together now is listen to a history read-aloud, and I still have to have 2 of those as my ds 16 and dd 14 have a different book than the 4 younger children.

 

It was when I reached the point where you are that I had to go to more of a MOTH schedule to get to everyone daily.

 

HTH,

[mom31257]

Oh no! I'm going to do history with my dc next year. I'm doing MOH Volume 1. She'll be 6th and he in K. My best friend is doing the same book next year with hers (dd in 7th, dd in 1st). We plan on getting together to do some fun activities. I hope that will help the younger ones appreciate it more. I also purchased History Pockets of Ancient Civilizations for ds and History Pockets of Ancient Greece and Egypt for dd.

 

Does anyone have suggestions of things I "shouldn't" attempt?

 

Amy of GA

Darin's wife for 17 years

11yo dd

5yo ds

[KIN]

Why don't you take a look at Biblioplan? It schedules readers for K-3, 3-5 and 5-8. You all do the same spine - SOTW or others (it lists Famous Men Series, History of US, A Child's Story of America, Usborne, Kingfisher and more), then add extra reading in the Kingfisher for older plus readers on her own level. So easy!

[Shelly in VA]

I had a 7th grader, 5th grader, 1st grader, and 2yo this past year. We tried to do history together, and it was hands down our WORST year of homeschooling yet (I've been hsing for 7 years). It just didn't work, for exactly the reasons the OP stated, and I felt like no one was getting what they needed throughout the year.

 

So, MicheleinMN, I appreciate your post, because all year I kept thinking I needed to MOTH schedule, and I didn't, so I need to commit to setting that up this summer for our upcoming year.

 

I will say that things that worked for us were for me to read SOTW aloud to the 1st grader, and sometimes the older kids listened in, sometimes not, then to have her work on activity pages while I shifted to Kingfisher with the older ones. I worked (sporadically) with them on outlining the sections, and putting those written pages into their history notebooks, and I did see some improvement in their outlining skills. Another thing I did with the older kids was to have them do their writing assignments and vocab work to correspond with history, while my 1st grader made lots of mini-books on various topics. My 2yo basically lives to disrupt everything the rest of us are doing... haha!

 

HTH!

 

Shelly

[Guest MamaMycah]

Hmmm, I'm new here.... so what is MOTH?

 

I have some spacing in my kids' grades (9th, 6th, 4th, K)

Sounds interesting....

 

~MamaM

[Kate in Arabia]

I combined history and science for my boys last year. History went pretty well, I did the intro reading and mapwork/coloring with them together, then my older had additional work to do while my younger was free to do his own thing. We'll try that again this year.

 

Science was another matter. We did combined physics, which was great for my older but not a good subject for my littler, I'm afraid I seriously impacted his attitude towards science :( This year I'm planning to do separate programs with them individually for science.

 

Kate

[Mama Lynx]

I have kids spaced like yours and I combine them for history. We use SOTW and we read the lesson in that and do the map work together. My 7th grader does the extra reading from Kingfisher, my younger one does the extra reading from Usborne. I look for videos that will appeal to one or both of them and I find library books at their levels. It works for us, I can't imagine juggling two completely different histories.

 

Same here. We do exactly the same thing that Kelli does, and it's pretty easy and low stress.

[dragons in the flower bed]

The oldest needs so much more than the youngest that they are both being short changed.

 

I learned to differentiate between combining the children in history lessons, and combining them in history periods. When the kids are doing the same period, they all benefit from certain movies, read-alouds, recipes or field trips (though certainly they take different things from these). I can study the period at my level, too, and use the insights I gain to enhance our conversations. I don't expect them to do the same lessons, though. The 5yo will play out the history chapter with action figures. The 8yo will orally narrate and make a sketch for his notebook page. (Before I lost him to public school) the oldest, at 10 or 11, would do independent research and write about his findings.

[Chris in VA]

MOTH stands for Managers of Their Homes. It's a scheduling book that details how to "get it all done."

I think how the posters are using it is to break the day into half hour increments, and have the olders help with the youngers.

So (quick example) you might have your teen work with your youngest child (either doing something connected to school, such as reading aloud, working a puzzle, or helping with flashcards; or doing something not "school-y" for that half hour, like supervising a chore or two, or going for a walk, or just playing together--basically babysitting for you) while you work one on one with the middle kid. You let your kids take care of each other for short periods while you work with the other ones. With MOTH, everyone has their own schedule. You also use the time effectively and intentionally--so, when someone is resting, someone else is doing something--everyone in their place, doing their thing--it's relaxing for many people to know where everyone is, and what everyone is doing any time of the day.

It also involves writing out what you need to do everyday, sticking to a schedule, and letting go of the need to have big chunks of time to do things.

MOTH works well, imo, if your kids can pitch in with each other, if you are organized at all (you can learn as you go), if you can learn to leave some things unfinished and come back to them (as opposed to needing to finish things all the way before you can go on with something else), and if you work well within structure. It can be used by people like me, who need structure but don't like a LOT of structure, if you just use it for part of the day, or otherwise adapt it to fit your own needs.

[Kelli in TN]

I learned to differentiate between combining the children in history lessons, and combining them in history periods. When the kids are doing the same period, they all benefit from certain movies, read-alouds, recipes or field trips (though certainly they take different things from these). I can study the period at my level, too, and use the insights I gain to enhance our conversations. I don't expect them to do the same lessons, though. The 5yo will play out the history chapter with action figures. The 8yo will orally narrate and make a sketch for his notebook page. (Before I lost him to public school) the oldest, at 10 or 11, would do independent research and write about his findings.

 

I started to come back and add this same thought. My high schooler is studying the same time period but she certainly does not do history with her siblings. You can only combine so many levels before it will get crazy. But at least I know that if it is time for the Civil War, it is time for the Civil War for everyone in the house. It's nice to know that all I have to think about is the Civil War!!!

[katilac]

I learned to differentiate between combining the children in history lessons, and combining them in history periods. When the kids are doing the same period, they all benefit from certain movies, read-alouds, recipes or field trips (though certainly they take different things from these). I can study the period at my level, too, and use the insights I gain to enhance our conversations. I don't expect them to do the same lessons, though. The 5yo will play out the history chapter with action figures. The 8yo will orally narrate and make a sketch for his notebook page. (Before I lost him to public school) the oldest, at 10 or 11, would do independent research and write about his findings.

 

:iagree: yep, what she said.

 

I think that trying to have kids of disparate ages or abilities WORK together can do both of them a disservice. Mine are only two years apart, rising 3rd and 5th, and the oldest can do far more work, in more depth, than the youngest.

 

It's not a whole lot more work for me as teacher, though, because most of the additional work the 5th grader will do on her own - - writing outlines and reports, extra reading, timeline, etc.

[angela in ohio]

I think keeping them in the same materials is over-rated. We follow the same topic (time period, science area, etc.,) but they use different materials. What I usually see when people are determined to do this is that their oldest dc is the one who loses out.

 

Even in a one-room school house, the different grades were in different books and did their lessons separately!

[MicheleinMN]

I learned to differentiate between combining the children in history lessons, and combining them in history periods. When the kids are doing the same period, they all benefit from certain movies, read-alouds, recipes or field trips (though certainly they take different things from these). I can study the period at my level, too, and use the insights I gain to enhance our conversations. I don't expect them to do the same lessons, though. The 5yo will play out the history chapter with action figures. The 8yo will orally narrate and make a sketch for his notebook page. (Before I lost him to public school) the oldest, at 10 or 11, would do independent research and write about his findings.

 

EXACTLY!

[Rhondabee]

I think it's hard to combine, too.

 

Even though both my kids used SOTW-3 last year (4th and 7th), they didn't even use it at the same time during the day. It was an independent assignment - and I usually had to read it with my 4th grader. So, we were all studying the same topic, and we could meet and I could use the questions in the AG to guide our discussion, but other than a few times when I read and they both took "notes", their history assignments were completely separate.

 

Next year they will both be in logic stage and will have virtually identical assignments. I'm curious to see how that goes.

 

=)

Rhonda

[Colleen in SEVA]

:bigear:

 

Just marking my spot to listen.... I tried to formulate a plan for history long-term and gave up.

[bettyandbob]

do a portion together and then have older students do more. This year I couldn't combine at all--SOTW could not be stretched to oldest dc needs. However, I still kept them in the same cycle --late modern history this year. That way I did not have to think in different time periods. Ds was doing most of his work independently anyway. He oftened listened in to SOTW and added his $.02 to discussion though.

[frogpond1]

I know your pain. I don't try to combine curriculums now, just keep the time periods the same and we do some read alouds together. You just have to do something different with that older logic age child. It makes life so hard as a homeschool mom. That is why I co-op.

[Hot Lava Mama]

I have four kids, but only two are doing "school" right now. I tried to combine my 3rd and my 1st together. You would think it wouldn't be that hard, but my oldest wasn't getting what he needed, and was getting jumpy sitting there during all the questions my dd 1st had. Granted, my first is probably advanced for his age, and my second is probably a little behind (in ability to understand) for her age, so it went over her head, and he was starting to loose interest. Now, I just schedule history on/off. Ds does it M/W/F with F map and test days, and dd does T/TH/F with F map and test days. Granted, I am hoping by the time #3 is up on the schedule, my oldest is on his own for history. We will see. But I just can't seem to be able to make it work for us like some others can. I envy them! :tongue_smilie:

 

Hot Lava Mama