How do you do it?

A lot of you have asked me just how I do it - that is homeschool Ben with two little ones under tow. I typically answer, not very well! Truth is, I don't know how most of my friends do it. They have several older children that require more than 2 or 3hrs a day of schooling and multiple little ones or newborns. I'm always asking them how they  do it!

Well, I thought I'd snap a few photos showing how I keep the youngsters involved. They typically school with Ben during Science, History etc. But when it comes to L.A. and math, I'm needing them to skedaddle. Here are some of the 'distractions' I attempt to use - of course, they are coupled with threats of being locked in their rooms till school is over. Just joking...but not really....

The option they chose today was to color. Of course, by time I was done with math it had become load the markers as cargo on the trailers hooked to toy trucks. But hey, they were entertained.

I think the boys favorite thing to do is to play house. I put a big bucket of stuffed animals, pillows and blankets down there and they role play with each other and make beds . They then like to read books to the stuffed animals. It is actually quite sweet. I typically push them to the book basket when I really need it to be quite and have Ben focused.

Getting Nicholas' tucked in

Now Nathan is getting in bed.

And while this is all going on, Ben is working hard on math number bond trees :-) He has actually gotten very good at ignoring them and focusing on the lesson. Probably a good skill to have down the road.

Today we got lucky as Ben had his final unit example in L.A. to take. Sam was home, so he kept the little ones upstairs so Ben could focus. He did great on his test and actually read a lot of sentences aloud without my assistance. A HUGE step for him. It is still very hard for me to watch him write the wrong answer and not correct him immediately. I've taken to sitting on the couch and finding something to read while he does it so I'm not hovering over his shoulder.