Can I Homeschool Three Children in Different Grades?

Question: I have three children, ages 7, 9, and 11. I want to begin homeschooling them, but can't imagine how I would teach a second grader, third grader, and fifth grader at one time. How do most homeschoolers handle this?

Answer: Most homeschoolers have multiple children in a multitude of grades. I can't tell you how must homeschoolers handle it, but I can give you some ideas that you can use. In my case, my kids were always two years apart, and I found that they could do a lot of their homeschooling together, with a few subjects taught separately.

Let's start with the obvious. Children two years a part will most likely be at different math and reading levels. The good news is that if you purchase your curriculum carefully, and don't let your kids write in the books, you will get your money's worth as the curriculum will be used multiple times. Also, where the kids are clearly not able to work together, in subjects like in math and perhaps grammar, I like to use programs where they can work independently, and at their own speed. If you think about it, even if they identical twins, they would not be learning every single thing at the same speed from day to day. It is important to be able to individualize their education. Because my kids used online curriculum for math and language arts, they were able to learn independently and I was able to help each one as they needed it, which they rarely needed at the exact same time.

With that said, if you structure other subjects, like history and science, in units, all three kids, from grade 2 through 5 can most certainly work together at least until the oldest reaches high school, at which point they can work independently.

Purchase a curriculum that teaches history and or science in projects, or based on time period. You can follow a timeline and have each child study the same time period and subjects at the same time, but each at his or her own level. For example, all three children can study the ancient times together. The youngest might work on making art and projects from the time period. The middle child might memorize facts and get quizzed by the older child. The oldest child might write a paper that shows what they have learned. In addition, the oldest two read novels and textbooks to the younger child who can listen and follow along and maybe even read the captions in the textbook or resource. They can watch videos together and go to related field trips together as a family. They could then do reports and projects that reflect their level of learning. Then each year, they would all move to the next time period.

I like to group literature into the timeline too, preferably the same timeline and history to avoid confusion. The children would read age appropriate books about the same subject matter. For example, the youngest two children might read "Roughing It on the Oregon Trail" for ages 5-10. The older child might read "Westward to Home: Joshua's Oregon Trail Diary", which is for ages 9-12. Each child vould also do a presentation to the whole group, which would enrich each child's education, because one would come up with ideas and discoveries that the others didn't think of.

This idea of following a timeline follows a classical homeschool approach. The idea of each child working on the same thing, but at their own level follows a unit study approach to homeschooling, so be sure to familiarize yourself with these concepts.