Remember being young and single? You just needed to worry about yourself. Then you got married and started a family. A few more things on your plate, maybe a house, now a few kids, or possibly a job.
All would be well and good (and still insanely busy) if you stopped right there, but then you went and decided to homeschool too! What were you thinking? (eye roll, wink, wink).
Yeah. This is the truth. We have all the normal “mom” responsibilities with homemaking but we’ve also added homeschooling. It is a lot to accomplish.
Let’s talk best practices for homemaking and homeschooling.
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Homemaking Tips for Homeschooling Families
Here are my three best tips for you in short, then we will flesh them out.
- Embrace planned neglect. You can’t do it all, so don’t even try.
- Adopt a simple homeschooling approach if you need some breathing room.
- Definitely involve the kids in all (or nearly all) the homemaking tasks and responsibilities (of course at an age-appropriate level)
Here’s what I mean:
Planned Neglect
There is no such thing as a homeschooling & homemaking superwoman! I know, we all think she exists and she makes us feel like we don’t measure up. But the truth is: no one is doing it all. Everyone is neglecting something – whether it’s the made-from-scratch meals, or the dusting, or the volunteering, or throwing elaborate birthday parties for the kids.
So the key is to know your WHY. Know your priorities as a homeschooling mom in this season. Your priorities will change through the years as the kids grow and gain independence. But what should you focus on this year? Now, you can neglect the rest without guilt. Your priorities don’t have to mesh with the other homeschool moms in your co-op. You do you and kick the FOMO to the curb.
As you decide on your priorities and start to work those in your daily life, you’ll want to know how to use tools and simple organization and planning to your advantage. I don’t have time for complicated systems in my home! Maybe you can relate. Here’s what I mean.
Simple Homeschooling Approach
Once I have a plan in place for the coming year – what grades are my children in, what does the state require this year – then we stick the plan on Trello and work the plan each and every day of our school year. Nothing fancy over here. No huge teacher binder with detailed lesson plans for my 5 kids. Just a plan and a way to access the list of daily and weekly tasks.
Here are some keys to our simple homeschooling approach:
- No lesson planning
- Finding and using tools that make you more efficient & productive: we love Trello – see HERE & HERE
- Combine multiple ages whenever possible
- Keep the goal in mind: raising independent learners
- As the kids get older, they are more responsible for their own education
- One-on-one tutoring (which is what homeschooling is) takes a fraction of the time to complete as compared to the traditional school model
- You might find that homeschooling without in-depth video lessons and curriculum gives you more breathing room, especially in the younger grades
Once you know your priorities in this season and have implemented a simple homeschooling approach, you need to automate the housekeeping and homemaking responsibilities.
Involve the kids in the homemaking tasks
I think when you’re homeschooling and trying to keep house, you have to have realistic standards of “clean” and “nutritious meals.” Don’t burden yourself with the expectation that your house will look like the one down the street that hires a cleaner or whose children are away from the house all day. When you’re homeschooling, there are people in the house. Making messes. All. the. time. Get used to it!
Here are some of my favorite resources and ideas:
- Balancing Housework & Homeschool: Practical Solutions that Work
- How to Get Ready for the (Home)school Year: Declutter Now
- Homeschool with Moxie Podcast #3: Mom Hacks – Work Smarter, Not Harder
- Homeschool with Moxie Podcast #1: The Superwoman Myth
- Our Kids Chore System & Why We Pay Them (free chore system set-up download!)
- Get into freezer meals!
