child spacing and home schooling?

[BaaBaa]

i really want to home school DD (who is now 17mo). I also really would like more children (not sure how many, i want to see what life is like with 2, dh wants more)

so can you please tell me how you do home school with 2+ kids? is it easier if they are close in age, or better further apart? Why? do you pool them and teach the same stuff, or are you running several "classes"

Also, I would like to know about the first 6 months, do you stop school around the birth? how do you juggle a newborn who is very needy with an older child who also needy?

any insights would be great!

[moominmamma]

I say it all depends and you can't predict based on spacing.

I have a 2-year gap between my second and third, and more-than-four-year gap between the third and fourth. You might predict that #2 and #3 could be homeschooled in tandem a lot of the time, because they're close in age. In fact they're very close in ability, but the younger is very eager and much easier-going than the older, meaning she appears to pick things up quicker, which is very demoralizing for the elder, who has anxiety issues and easily loses confidence. So in reality I keep these two doing totally different things as much as possible. You might predict that my 6-year-old and my bright, eager 11-year-old would be miles apart academically. In some ways they are, though my 6yo is incredibly precocious, but temperamentally they're very similar, and they have a lot of similar, easily-guided interests. So the reality is that they do a lot together -- for instance, they're doing a survey of world history kind of in tandem, and using the same handwriting program, and the same 2nd language program.

I couldn't have predicted any of this based on their spacing.

I don't really "teach" or "run classes" for my kids. I'm a facilitator. I work with each kid as appropriate. They drive most of their education themselves.

Miranda

[simple living mama]

Mine are 18 months apart and I have to say I have really enjoyed homeschooling them together and having them work pretty much on the same level. It's made it very enjoyable with playing learning games and watching documentries since they are so close in age.