Copied from the Sonlight forums: (Originally written when my youngest were 2 and 1 years old)
As for the little ones running around, I have plenty of experience with that, but have yet to find the perfect solution. When I do, I'll let you all know that I've found it and charge 10,000 dollars each just to hear the secret and retire to a little spot in north central Mexico in a rural community. So, until then. . .
Sometimes we school in short bursts, just because that is about how long it takes before we get seriously interrupted. Other times we just charge right through. Since I work, my husband works, we don't do daycare, and I go to college, and we homeschool, we have no set schedule or routine. We just sort of hit it whenever we can. Which is not always so easy.
Some of the best things I have found for children this age include:
High chairs with seat belts in the schoolroom with plenty of non-messy fingerfood, especially if your child is underweight. Or, make homemade fingerpaints out of pudding or applesauce.
Locking all doors and windows all the time, so at least you know that no matter what else he did, your two year old didn't throw himself headfirst out the window. Again. Or push his baby sister out. Again.
Play with the little ones before even beginning school, so they know that you didn't forget about them.
Have special "school-time" toys that they can play with only during school time, so they don't get bored.
Give them only one special toy at a time. Each toy buys about 10 minutes worth of uninterrupted time.
Puzzles with huge pieces or other games they can do alone at that age, such as stacking blocks of different shapes and playing with (large) magnets on the magnet board.
A piece of paper and colors (if they don't eat so much that you are convinced that even if they weren't toxic, it couldn't have been good for them to eat THAT much), twist up color crayons (which also buy time as they figure out how to get more color out), washable paints, in said high chair with seat belt away from carpet with just a diaper or undies on and take off all the fabric from the high chair, or washable markers (which do temporarily stain skin, no matter how "washable" they claim to be, so don't make any plans to take them all to the grocery store unless you don't mind people staring at your kid's green mouth), or play-doh (homemade, the kind you cook in a pan with oil and cream of tartar comes out of clothing and carpet best, in case you were wondering), pencil (if you don't mind sharpening it every time they bite the lead off and don't mind that you can never find a pencil with an eraser on it) or pens (see comment about not being washable) or other craft supplies (a two-year-old or so can use a children's scissors and glue stick, if you give them a stick with just a little bit in it, so they don't eat it all, see comment about toxicity or not in products labeled nontoxic when they are overconsumed).
Make sure they are well-fed. Nothing like being hungry to make a little one twice as bothersome.
Use the library for books on tape and other resources, so the kids don't always have to have you there. Schedule any songs (Bible verses, books on tape, geography songs, etc) for about 1/3 of the way through and encourage the littles to dance and sing along, and schedule the videos (mathtacular, discover and do, movie of the book you are reading) the next 1/3 of the way through, so you have at least one interruption per day that can help to entertain the littles.
If at all possible, keep them in the same room as you, or at least nearby and check on them frequently. There is nothing like feeling good about finishing the day's worth of homework only to discover that not only did your youngest two figure out that if you unroll the toilet paper, more of it fits in the toilet, but also worked on the other toilet, and bathtub as well, and that your one year old has some of it in her mouth, but it is green, and her shirt is all wet. And they found your hidden stash of markers and decorated not only themselves, but the walls as well, which leaves you only hoping the green was from the marker. Plus managed to dump two open boxes of cereal on the floor because you forgot to put them up off the table. And now you have to run to the store for more toilet paper, markers, and cereal, and see above comment about taking kids out in public after they colored on themselves.
Save some of the more "fun" stories for bedtime, Lion Storyteller is a good one here.
Remember that most people, pushing themselves, never work more than three jobs at a time. So if you are being teacher, babysitter, and chief chef, not to mention mother, art director, principal, fight manager, task master, timekeeper, school nurse, guidance counselor and psychologist all at the same time, you probably aren't going to have much time left over to play housekeeper as well. That's OK. Save school time for school time and cleaning time for cleaning time. If you haven't finished yet, and dh (dear husband) comes home and looks strange, you could just smile and say "well, at least you don't have to go get the snake to unclog the toilets again" or "well, you can either cook something for supper, or help the kids clean up the living room, I'll leave it up to you to decide which if you want the meal to be on time tonight."
I know someone is going to think this is wrong, but Mathtacular on TV, or any movie starring a vegetable, along with a few other select TV shows and movies is fair game when I don't want to be interrupted. For anyone who holds the personal opinion that TV does rot the mind (which it more than likely does) can see above comments about windows, toilets, eating green paper like substances, as well as other such dangers that didn't make this list such as a 12 month old jumping on the bed and knocking two teeth out for comparable situations. In my mind, it is better to watch a little TV and risk rotting their mind that to risk having them climb up and knock the dresser over on top of their heads again and perhaps leave them without any mind at all after they dumped both the dresser and large TV on top of them.
Let dad do some. Especially if he is good at a subject. Here it is science. I am horrible at it. Got kicked out chemistry twice in high school while getting A's. Who knew very hot beakers over bunson burners exploded if you filled them up with cold water? And shot across the room, throwing glass everywhere, including cutting the instructor's face. And making him really, really mad. So dad does science. Probably better for all of us that way. And maybe even safer.
Looking back, I think I should have put this in the humor forum, but it didn't seem quite so humorous before I started. And, yes, I am speaking from experience here.
Some other suggestions are to realize ahead of time, that you are going to have to do your schooling in short "periods." With little walking the hall breaks in between. Kind of like public school.
So, you figure out what is the hardest/most difficult and plan to do that during the best/quietest time of day. Realize that the hardest might change from time to time, so keep evaluating. The best time is usually right after breakfast, lunch, or during naptime. Those are usually effective. You can have them do seatwork while you eat, and you can read to them while their bodies are slightly still and their mouths are too full to talk too much and they are eating if you need a bit more time.
Have the older kids go to their room to work on workbooks while you are cooking, cleaning, or doing something with the little ones. These are great for the noisier times of day. Math is a good one. We use Math-U-See, because then they can just watch the 5 minute or less instructions for the day, and go to work without me. If they have questions on how to do it, they watch it a couple more times. If they still have questions, then I help.
We use books on tape for some of the read-alouds, because they can do those when I am busy or at work or at college. Really nice. We also do DVD programs for some of the subjects.
Another thing we do differently from most families is we don't take time off, or if we do, as little as possible. Thanksgiving--Friday and Saturday (Saturday is our day of rest). Christmas? The 25th-27th. Summer? This year it was August 1st-15th. One of the reasons for this is that I find it is soooooooo much easier to get in that routine and keep it going than to take 2 months to get a good routine going, take Christmas break for a couple weeks, get another routine going, do really great, take three months off, get another routine going, etc. Just keeping it going cuts back on a lot of that stress. The kids know what to expect and when to expect it. There is a lot less whining and complaining this way. We do sometimes do less during the summer, because of all the other activities, and take more days off, but we just, for the most part, do some stuff every day, and lots of stuff at least a couple days a week. This is a good time to do all that stuff that you fell behind on during the year or wanted to do but couldnt' find the time.
I also "buddy them up." My daughters a buddies because my oldest is better with the baby, and then my boys are buddies. That means that while I am working with my daughter, my oldest son knows that he needs to try to keep his little brother busy, and sometimes the youngest follows them. But either way, I bought myself more time, and have at least one kid busy. Then my oldest knows she has to watch her sister. So we get breaks.
Do "family" read-alouds. The littles can sit in on stories way over their heads, and it hasn't hurt my four year old to do Core 2 as well as Core P 4/5, even though he's going to do it again in a couple years. The babies like to listen in as well. It makes things easier. And, they know what to expect.
I have found that the single most important thing to keeping my house sane is to have some sort of a routine. We don't do the same things at the same times every day. Our life is way too busy for that. But we do something every day. That cuts way down on outside behaviors that can interfere with everything else.
Last fall, when we had 11 children in our house at one point, all under 10, we found that we really struggled unless we kept our expectations almost the same every day. Telling the children, every day you will clean your room, take a shower, and do some schoolwork made it a 'normal' rather than an abnormal. Even on our day of rest, we did Bible and devotions, and Bible verses. Also, we did handwriting (our weekly verse from Reason for Handwriting written neatly on decorative paper).
We don't do every subject every day. We don't do every assignment every day. We have a hard time following a schedule. But as long as we know that every day we have to do something, it helps us move along just fine.
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