I never wanted to be one of those moms who had all of my older children do all of the work and take care of the little ones so that I could “have” my large family.  I just didn’t see that it was fair to them.  I see many older girls “stuck” in large families constantly taking care of their baby siblings and I think, “Where is the Mom?”  I know she is busy, I have been there, but I just saw it as unfair to have them constantly taking care of the little ones so that mom could do other things.  I even watched many of times and felt jealous because I was ALWAYS holding my little ones and did not get a break at all.

What do you do?  Is it wrong to have the older children taking care of the little ones?  I think you can have a balance.  As a Mom of lots of little ones I had to realize that my life was going to be busy.  There was no time to do things that “I” wanted to do.  Get on the internet for a few minutes…..forget that.  Take a shower every day when I wanted…..forget that.  Even when I was so sick in bed with the flu, I had to figure out how to do that with a nursing baby and a busy toddler.    I had to set aside my thoughts of what “I” was used to doing and start doing what my first job was to do….taking care of the little ones.

I do think that older ones can help with the younger children to a point, but I don’t feel that the majority of their care should be upon them.  I have no problem having my older ones help me take care of the little ones, especially if we are going to be doing something bigger—like getting ready for an event or even taking them all out of the home.  There was a time when if I was going to be taking them all out to even the park, I needed help or we were not going.  You have to do what you have to do, but a constant stream of older ones holding the responsibility is not good.

What we did was have times during the day that the older ones were to spend with the little ones.  This gave me a break from having to “do it all.”  As well as help teach the older ones how to be responsible, interact with little ones, as well as do something for someone else.

Some of the older ones I had to have a list of activities that they could play with the younger ones.  I printed it off and had it hanging by our activity shelf.  This way, when play time came around, they could look at the list and see what they could do with the younger ones.  I listed things that I didn’t have time to do with them (or things that were WAY too messy to do with all of them.)

• playdough
• coloring
• blocks
• puzzles
• Go Fish
• Candy Land
• Paper cutting and glue

I had them play in various parts of the home so that they wouldn’t be interrupted.  If I had to keep my eye on some of them, I kept them near me where I was working, but still enough so that they could feel they were “alone.”

I scheduled it right into our school day and divided it up for the week so that everyone had a chance to play with a younger one.  I even did a time for the baby.  I have many pictures of my older one reading books to my toddler.  I didn’t even have time to do that during my busy day.  I am thankful she enjoyed reading to them.

As my younger ones are older now, I can divide up the time that the older children spend with them as well.  Now they enjoy playing things like board games as a group, going outside to play catch, or playing red light green light.  My boys love when older brother Evan, builds them creations out of Legos.  It may seem simple, but it is a time that they get to build some bonding time with the younger ones and at the same time, I can get a break.

My little ones look forward to the day and often ask, “Who gets me today?”  If you haven’t implemented this before in your large family, expect your older ones to grumble and complain a bit.  I had the eye rolls, the staring at the clock—in hopes of their time to fly by, and a couple of verbal complaints in the beginning.  I just kept it positive and said, “Wow, you really did a good job playing with Stephen today.  He really looks forward to the time you spend with him.”  Things like that.  Build them up.  Let them know that what they are doing is making a lasting impression upon their younger siblings.  Be consistent. Continue doing it everyday.

Don’t let them feel that because they grew up in a large family that life is burdensome or that they always had to take care of a sibling.  Teach them to build relationships, grow bonds of friendship among each other, and to instill good character traits among one another.  We are training up our children to have compassion for one another, to help when there is a need, and to learn how to interact with little ones.  We are NOT having more children so that they can take the brunt of the work that God has given to us.  We don’t have large families so that we can still be “comfortable” and have “me time.”  All those things will come back as they get older, I promise moms of little ones.  But for now, we need to set aside our ideals and pick up our boot straps and just figure it out.

Be blessed as you go about your day.  Smile even if you can’t get everything done.  Put down your phone, turn off the tv, and dig into the work that is set before you.  Know that there are moms out there in the same situation as you are.

Amy

 

 

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I know it is only April………why would you say I am planning school for the summer?!?!? To be prepared.

We are actually almost finished with this year’s school.  Well, we have a few more math pages left and then it will be time to do testing.  For the most part we are done with our “core” and are just finishing up little things.  It is starting to reach 80-90 degrees here in the Carolina’s —time for outside fun!

I would love for my children to do absolutely no school all summer, but I find that if I don’t have them do some structured stuff each day—the day turns into —too much tv, tablet, or computer time.  This starts to breed anger and self centeredness among them—never good when you have 7 at home!!

We ALL need to have a plan to do something otherwise we start getting lazy and start doing things we shouldn’t be doing—thus my reason for schooling through the summer.

This won’t be at all like we did throughout the year.  If my children worked diligently, they could technically be done within an hour or so after starting.

Here is what we are going to do:

We will continue on with our XtraMath online flash cards.  If you don’t know about this—it is wonderful.  It is a free program, you sign up and choose which math facts you want your children to master and then each day they go and work for about 5 minutes to complete them.  About once per week, I receive an email that gives me progress reports.  It lets me know which days they did it—so I can check:)  and how many they have mastered.  It will completely replace your physical flash cards or written math facts quizzes.

I then evaluated my children’s school for the year and have decided we are going to work on our penmanship and writing skills more this summer.  I get lapsed, I let them be sloppy and don’t always correct.  Thus the reason for focusing on that this summer. I copied from Ruth Beechicks book You can teach your child successfully Grades 4-8.  Her ideas for writing.  This is a great resource book, I have used this since I began homeschooling 15 years ago.

Basically you give your child a passage to copy at the beginning of the week.  They then go through and do different English lessons with that passage.  Basic, simple, but still engaging.  They may copy it again later that week.  I will require that it is copied neatly, perfectly, or it will be written again.  This will be for my 4-7 graders.

Download writing practice for 4-7 th grader

I will also have my 1st-2nd grader practice with the same type of work.  It is not as in depth, but it will help her practice doing cursive writing more.

Download cursive penmanship practice for 1-2nd grader

Before we start this, I will have them perfecting their cursive lettering.  I will use this sheet and let them practice before we embark on our summer writing.  I will probably use this over the next month, using one quote each week.  I will have them copy it, correct any changes, and then have them recopy it again to look exactly as the model.

Download cursive writing practice

Spelling…….we do spelling lists each week, but I am not overly concerned with spelling.  It will come naturally as they read more and write more.  I took Ruth Beechicks list of the words she recommends for grades to know.  Most of them my children already know how to write, so this will be an easy lesson each day.  I am going to take the number of words they have to learn and divide them by the number of weeks that we have school.  I will then require that they learn that many words each week.  After I quiz them, I will highlight them on the sheet to know they are done.  They can choose any that they would like for the week.  Easy, just another way to implement some basic word spelling.

Download Spelling Word Lists grades 4-8.

The first page is grades 4-6, the second page is 7-8.

I will then have them choose some  reading books.  I will require reading for AT LEAST a half hour each day.  Some of them will want to read more but I will set a minimum.

Easy school.  I also found another resource from Scholastic that had a great download for writing prompt ideas.  It is FREE and gives ideas for writing based on special happenings on that day throughout the summer.  I may use this too, if I find that I don’t have enough school for them.  Check it out.

I will continue to check out books from our local library and do reading with the younger children each day as well.

Hope this gives some help or ideas for what you can do this summer with your children.   Be blessed and have a great Tuesday!!!!