Advice from Moms Who Homeschool

you've already gotten some great answers. just thought i'd add my experience:) i currently homeschool my oldest in 1st grade, one in pre k, and i also have a 2 yo and a breastfeeding 4 month old:) much of our day is spent learning how to play nicely with each other-take turns- be a good big brother and such. when the little ones take naps we do school work. it takes very little time to actually do any curriculum at this age and when we are done we read together or look up stuff on the computer or play learning games. it really should just be fun. also we try to do the same "routine" everyday albeit a very loose routine, but they always know what to expect at certain times of the day. if you set up a basic routine at the beginning of the year by the time baby comes your little ones will already know how their day will go regardless of new baby. also it's pretty difficult to "mess up" preschool and i bet you'll be surprised at how much they learn without much effort at all. also target has great workbooks in their $1 section right now. good luck and congrats!

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When the baby naps then do your sit down schooling.

Every moment of every day can be a learning experience.
Cooking can be a math lesson and reading, I had to teach mine to read by 4 because I can't read the cookbooks (bad eyes), so mine would say 3 slash 4, then I could say OK that is 3/4, they say c u p I say cup.

Before investing in a huge curriculum get some prereading -- early readers. Read every night to all of the children.

Count at dinner. Make setting the tabe a math lesson, We have 1 fork how many more do we need?
If I have three plates and take away one what do I have?
At dinner count by 2's 5's and 10's. We used to go around the table and it would be my daughter's turn to say the numbers, every one else whispered, So it would go like this
Whisper 1
Whisper 2
THREE
Whisper 4
Whisper 5
SIX
Pretty soon she could count by 2's, 3's, 5's, 10's.

Housework, if you truly want to homeschool all your kids, then housework will have to be scheduled.
We have chores every day, mine are older, but Saturdays; we do the big cleaning.
Homeschooling is a fulltime job once they get to 3rd. K-2 can pretty much be done in the mornings.

I homeschool 2. I pulled them out in 3rd and 5th.
My sister does 4. She has always had them out. I have friends with 6 and 8. THere lives are centered around the kids. THeir homes are a mess, not dirty, just always in shambles, as is mine. But their homes are filled with love and happy kids.

I started home preschooling my two year old, about a month before babysister got here. I also had an 8 month old at the time that I babysit 45 hours a week. They are now almost 2.5, 1 (on Monday), and 3 months (yesterday). It's tough but doable.

As everyone else mentioned preschool is more fun, play, and learning.

We sit and talk about letters, "draw" our letters, make them in play doh and shaving cream, go on letter hunts around the house, read a ton of books, etc. It's all about making it fun for her. It's also things we would be doing anyway, but now I just have a theme for the week and that's what our books and such are about for that week, instead of being a hodgepodge.

I'm not a homeschooler, but I will say my first 3 were 4 and under.... August 1982, April 1984, and August 1986. Yes, 3 little ones can be overwhelming at times, but I can't imagine life without them. (There is also one more.. born November 1991... born the day after my hubby was told he was being transferred from Iowa to Texas! Whew!)

As far as pre-school, you don't want to necessarily try to do things in big chunks.... there is a lot of play in a regular pre-school, also. The play time is usually geared around your lessons for the week, to help reinforce your lesson goals. Your infant will be doing a lot of sleeping, so there will be a lot of time you can spend with the 4 yr old doing the pre-school type activities.

Take a look at the different curriculum choices and see what they suggest for "scheduling" things. You can do things in 15 minute increments, or whatever your little one can handle as far as attention span. It isn't like you are sitting down for 3 hours solid with one child, trying to teach them all at once how to do something.

If you look at any pre-school schedule, you will see that they try to plan the week so that each activity re-inforces the lesson topic....

You will have a couple of months before the baby is actually born to start getting into a homeschool routine..... things may get a bit disrupted when the baby comes, but just plan that into the lesson plans! What a great way to incorporate the older ones into helping with the baby. Just make the baby care part of the lessons.

I homeschool my kids too. My daughter will start first grade this fall, my son will be in preschool and new baby #3 arrives in 6 weeks. So I know where you are coming from. Having little ones and doing school is overwhelming. I actually did preschool with my daughter and my nephew for 2 years before they started kindergarten. Her at home with me and him at a Christian school where his mom is a teacher. It can be challenging. I will be schooling my first grader, my son and another nephew this fall.

Preschool doesn't have to be an huge chunk of your day. Spend time reading to him, talking about patterns, shapes, colors, letters, ect. You can find a curriculum or just buy a preschool book at Wal-Mart that covers the basics of learning. Spend maybe 15-20 minutes a day on school, that is all he needs. I don't think I even did everyday for preschool.

My children are currently 2 and 3. I'm planning on homeschooling, but I haven't experienced what you're currently going through. All I can do is give you some encouragement: I think you can do it. :-) One idea is to teach your 4 year old how to care for an infant. Explain everything to him as you're doing it. (Maybe when he's all grown up he'll be the most helpful daddy ever!!) ;-) These discussions, in time, could get more and more detailed. For example, "I'm feeding the baby green beans today because they have a lot of nutrients. Green beans have a lot of vitamin K, which the body needs in order to clot blood and prevent bone fractures." (It might take a few minutes of research to come up with some cool facts, like I just did--lol--but you'll be able to teach WHILE caring for baby instead of separately.) :-) Good luck to you!!!

I didn't start homeschooling until my youngest was in 3rd grade. That being said, I would not worry too much about pre-school. He will learn so much just being with you and his siblings.

As far as managing your home life and homeschool, I absolutely love this system:

http://www.titus2.com/ecommerce/products/prod_listing.php... (Managers of Their Homes)

Steven and Teri Maxwell have 7 or 8 children, and this book teaches you how to schedule your day, even with a newborn. It does have a religious perspective so I hope that's OK. Even if I wasn't religious I would find it helpful though.

Good luck and God bless your family and the new baby.

It really doesn't take that much in the early years. At first just a few minutes at a time here and there, reading with him, doing some phonics, help him make some flashcards, teach him to use computer programs, watch some documentaries with him. I'm not saying all these things each day. Your son will be with you all day long. You need him to be busy and learn how to lengthen his attention span. I also think that sometimes we neglect to realize that keeping toys picked up, floors washed, walls wiped down, and chores in general around the house are part of homeschooling. Teach him to help.

I can't help with the breastfeeding. I hated it. I can't make myself sit for long myself. I have a terrible attention span for anything requiring me to sit. But since you'll be stuck sitting down it shouldn't be too hard for you to have him hold the pages to a book open while you read. Or have him hold up some flashcards while you nurse.

Right now you are psyching yourself out. You'll do okay.

If you are homeschooling then preschool is not at all necessary. NO good preschool is academic at all. It is there to reinforce social skills and classroom skills and to help the child develop through play and crafts etc while learning to relate with other children. So doing it at home with no other kids is really not possible and you obviously don't need to build classroom skills for a kid who will never sit in one. What most of us have done with our preschool age children is read to them, help them learn their abcs and 123s, shapes and colors. This is better done piecemeal than lesson style and in a fun way. So you have a couple of years to not worry about preschool.

I also homeschooled my son thru the 2nd grade, but I stopped when my daughter was born because I couldn't deal with doing school and a new baby. Having said that, I would still recommend the Five In A Row Curriculum. I think it is one of the most laid back curriculums there is. What you do is read one of the storybooks to your child everyday for 5 days. Then each day you point out something that you read and talk about it. For example, we read The Story About Ping and one day, for the geography lesson, we talked about where the story takes place along the Yangtze river in China. I put up a world map and we put a thumbtack in China. Then another day, for math, we counted all of Ping's family (Ping is a duck, BTW). And one day, for Literature, we talked about how to recognize a fiction story, that it sometimes starts with "Once upon a time". I think that's enough to give the idea.

The Five In A Row website lists all the storybooks needed, which I found at the library, so I didn't have to buy anything but the FIAR guidebook. I loved this curriculum and my son was always excited to sit down and read the story everyday.

You still might be too overwhelmed to do even this and its ok to put off school for a little while. But like I said, this curriculum is so laid back because its basically reading a story and talking about it. And these are things you would probably do anyway.