Homeschooling with Multiple Families

Written By: The Good and the Beautiful Published On:

Have you ever wondered how it would work to homeschool alongside another family or two? Jenny Phillips shares her experience of homeschooling with multiple families. Find out what worked and what didn’t work and how she managed to teach multiple levels of language arts at one time. Get a peek into Jenny’s experience and homeschooling schedule and explore one of the many homeschooling options available.

Hello, it’s Jenny Phillips! It is spring 2023 (at the time of this video). It is my favorite time of year. I can hardly keep myself from doing cartwheels everywhere I go because I love the season so much. This year we had what seemed like the eternal winter here in Utah, so spring is very welcome!

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  • Years ago, through this gate in my backyard, every morning our little neighbors came bursting through with their backpacks, flattening down a path in our grass. I have to admit, standing here, flooded with memories of little feet and voices that passed back and forth through this area years ago as we homeschooled with another family, I am so grateful for the homeschool memories I have. They are precious to me.

  • I am very passionate about homeschooling— you can probably tell—and one reason is because I feel that there is an incredible joy in being a mother and a teacher, and in raising children in light and truth, and in sharing the journey of growth and discovery with your children. I think a lot of women have lost that joy because they have lost their influence over their children and feel that natural longing to find better connection with their children. 

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This is one reason that I love to share my knowledge and experience of how to make homeschooling work for as many families as possible. There are so many options for homeschooling, but today I want to talk about the option of homeschooling with other families. 

I have such wonderful memories of this time when my family homeschooled with one other family, and then another family joined us as well. Throughout the years, as we have homeschooled, we have done many other things, all beautiful in their season. We’ve homeschooled with just our family; we’ve homeschooled with other families; we’ve attended a homeschool co-op; and now we run a homeschool academy where my children take classes twice a week.

Benefits of Homeschooling with Another Family

Today I will be talking about homeschooling with one other family or a couple families. And this is different from a co-op that has multiple families. First, I want to talk about the blessings of homeschooling with others. This worked really well for us some years, and some years it worked better for us to homeschool alone. 

1. A Routine Schedule

One thing that homeschooling with other families helped me with is keeping on a schedule. We did more homeschool and did it better when homeschooling with others than when we just did it ourselves. But it also meant that our schedule was less free and open, which I didn’t always love. There are definitely trade-offs. 

2. Mom Gets a Break

The second blessing I saw of homeschooling with others is that it gave me a break at times when my kids were at the other families’ homes, and I found that I needed that at certain times in my life. 

3. Children Enjoy Learning Together

The third blessing with homeschooling my children with other families is that my kids really loved it. They enjoyed having other children to play with and to learn with. When choosing a family to partner with to homeschool, think carefully about your family’s goals and reasons for homeschooling and ask yourself, “Does that family align with our family’s goals? Do their families teach and parent in a similar way or in ways that work well together?” You could consider doing a trial week or two to see how it goes. It’s a lot easier to say it doesn’t seem like a match after a short trial period than after everything is planned out for the entire school year. 

Daily Schedule

If you live close to the other family, you can do half the day at one house and half the day at the other house. This is usually what we did with the family that lived right behind us. In this scenario we would each do math on our own in the morning. Then I would teach language arts and handwriting and also have lunchtime and playtime in my house. The other family did science or history and electives at their house. The other mother taught science on Mondays and Tuesdays and history on Wednesdays and Thursdays. On Fridays we each did our own thing, which was usually field trips or electives. 

I’ll go over our homeschool schedule for each day. First, we did math with our own families. My family and the other family then learned together at my house. We started with an opening devotional where we sang, prayed, and I read a picture book. It really helped to set a peaceful, happy tone in the home. I then did language arts, which also included handwriting, typing, and personal reading. 

After I was done with language arts, the kids had lunch and playtime. Then the kids went to the other house for history or science. Two days a week was science and two days a week was history.

Sample Schedule for Homeschooling with Multiple Families

Mornings

  • Math – separate, individual courses
  • Opening – together, devotional, song, prayer, read aloud
  • Language Arts, Handwriting, and Independent Reading – together, individual rotations

Afternoons

  • Lunch and Playtime – together
  • Science and History – together, rotate two days of each in the afternoons

Fridays

  • Field Trips and Electives – separate, family day

How to Teach Multiple Levels of Language Arts

Let me tell you how I did language arts at my house. I actually taught five different levels of language arts in a little over an hour and a half. I had a schedule, and each child had a copy of it. We did 20-minute rotations. We did 19 minutes of work and then one minute to rotate to the next station. I set up stations at different places, like on the couch, at the table, at a desk, on the floor, on blankets. At each rotation station, the child was either doing personal reading, shared reading, handwriting, their independent sections of language arts, or doing language arts with me. 

When it was their rotation to do language arts with me, I had one child on each side of me doing a different level of language arts, and I would help them back and forth. Younger children typically take more parent/teacher time than older children, so I would try not to have two young children at a time. When I was working with the children, they each had a personal reading book with them at the table, and if they couldn’t move forward without my help, they would pick up their personal reading book and start reading. This helped them to not waste time, but it also gave me the cue that they needed my help as soon as I could give it to them. 

I had a timer set for 19 minutes. When the timer went off, they had 60 seconds to transfer to their next rotation. These rotations actually worked really well. Each child had a bin that had everything they needed for each rotation, and they took this bin around with them to the different rotations. The bin even included the pencils they needed. This schedule worked well for us. 

Teach 5 Language Arts Lessons at One Time

  • Independent Stations – Determine a spot for each child to work independently.
  • Teaching Station – Set up a table or desk where you will work between two students, teaching each of them their new skills in their individual language arts course.
  • 19-Minute Rotations – Children work independently on handwriting, personal or shared reading, and complete review pages in their course books.
  • 1-Minute Switch — This time of switching from one station to the next gives kids the chance to move and get some wiggles out.
  • Helpful Tips –
    • Set a timer to keep on schedule.
    • Make a bin for each child so they can easily carry their things from station to station.

Changes from Year to Year

The next year we had another family join us, and we changed up our schedule. I have found that homeschool can really change from year to year. Something to keep in mind is that you don’t have to do everything with another family, and you don’t have to do it every day. You could do two days a week or simply meet up one half day a week to do electives or a field trip. Because The Good and the Beautiful Math and Language Arts is open-and-go, it’s easy for another homeschool parent to pick up a language arts or math lesson exactly where the child is and do it with them on any given day. 

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If you don’t currently know of a homeschool family near you, consider praying for a family to homeschool with. Maybe even approach a family you love and ask them if they would be interested in homeschooling. You would be surprised by how many people are actually thinking about the blessings of homeschooling. One of the things that I love about homeschool is that there are so many options, and many homeschoolers today are fine to homeschool with just their family for their whole homeschool journey. Others find that they thrive doing it with others. 

Many of you will change how you homeschool every year as you adapt to your opportunities and your children’s changing needs. I hope this walk-through helps you find joy in your homeschooling journey. Thank you for letting me talk about a beautiful time of my homeschooling journey.

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