Help with routines/schedules...please!!!

[terra-pip]

Hello homeschooling mamas.

I barely have time to even look at this forum but maybe I can get some good advice here!

We are homeschooling our oldest ds (7yo) and he is at the 2nd-3rd grade level. I am trying to move away from unschooling after a stint last year with radical unschooling. That level of chaos just does not work for our family. And my son is on the spectrum and if I don't plan/schedule things then his motivation for learning during the day will not ever get past the DVD or computer. He has some OCD so unschooling just does not seem to work for us...I call it "crazymaking."

Last year I started getting into a routine that was still relaxed but somewhat organized and things were getting done and we were learning and having fun. This year I have my 2nd ds (3 yo) and a 3 month old dd and no matter what I try to do I feel scattered, disorganized, unplanned, undisciplined....unschooled! lol!

(please unschoolers don't take offense..I have a special place in my heart for the unschooling method etc, but it just doesn't feel right for my family.)

I've attempted sitting down...sometimes late at night...to write a plan for our year or something, and I can barely find the time to do that. With everything lately, not just homeschooling. I stare into the fridge wondering what is for dinner and then try to make some sort of meal plan but even those efforts get derailed in the daily nursing, diaper changing, laundry mountains, mediating the boys arguments etc, picking up of toys, trying to keep the health dept out of my house.

Basically what do other moms do about planning...everything? We've made chore charts and other daily things but the time to make them and then implement them take up our time and then they just get ignored and I find myself having to remind the kids a million times what I expect to happen daily....which takes time And right about now I'm feeling that there needs to be some order or I'll never survive this year.

What to do with the 3 year old? And then there's the baby...most days I feel like I'm stopping and starting a million things. I last about three seconds before the baby is crying. I try to do things (read a book, play a game, or do play doh...if I ever find the time to make the playdoh...anything!!) and I am always being distracted. I feel like the baby is put in the bouncy seat too often for too long and then I'm trying to find the time to play with her and talk to her beyond nursing and diaper changes. And then there's the housework, meals, etc. Oh did I mention I would love to find some time to get into fitness again? And I'm pretty sure I have a husband but he's pretty much ignored.

Okay...so. help!

[phathui5]

What we do on mornings that we don't have something scheduled is put about an hour and a half to two hours in on schoolwork. If we have something in the morning, we do our schooling in the afternoon.

Today, our morning looked like this:

8:00 Breakfast

8:30 9yo ds and 7yo dd both did CLE Math. Dd helped 5yo ds with a page in Counting With Numbers from Rod & Staff. After math, I sent the kids to straighten up their rooms (10 minutes). Then 9yo and 7yo both did a lesson in CLE Language Arts. 9yo ds spent 20 minutes working on Latin for Chilren A

11:30 Fed kids

I went to a meeting from about 12:30-2:30. While the babysitter was here, the 9yo and 7yo both did some more math, all 4 kids spent time drawing and playing with clay.

At 3:30, I read them a chapter of Story of the World, and now they're watching an episode of Timeblazers from Discovery Kids.

What works best for me is taking some time on the weekend to make up a list of what I want the kids to get done in terms of schooling in the coming week. Rather than stick to a time schedule, we make sure we get the things on our list done every day (ok, most days).

For the housework, I have periods during the day where I set the timer and clean the house with the kids. Not counting laundry, I put about half an hour a day into housework.

[MyLittleWonders]

A couple of ideas for you ...

In terms of planning for school, this blog on the file crate system might give you some ideas of ways to organize your teaching and planning. This year I am the most organized I have yet to be (prompted by being pregnant and knowing I wouldn't be up for planning every day/week once the baby is born), and doing it all ahead of time was a lot of work at the time, but has paid off dearly. I did not file any workbook things (math, spelling, grammar), but did photocopy/print out everything for science, nature study, history, Latin, and writing (Writing with Ease or IEW). Then I put it in files by week and pull out 6 weeks at a time to keep in a small file box by our kitchen table. It is a huge lifesaver for me. I also printed off weekly planning forms from Donna Young and planned each week in terms of what chapters we are reading for history, what pages for Latin, and what labs for science. I also printed off 6-week at a glance type plans from her website to do larger chunks of planning. Like I said, it is a lot of work at first, but in the long run it has saved me many stressful Sunday evenings (when I would normally try to plan our week) plus many scattered days when in the middle of a lesson I would realize I forgot to copy something we needed.

For housework, I decided to ditch chore charts (we could never keep up with them) and instead we try to consistently have 2 "clean sweep" time periods - in the morning it is usually making beds, putting away any clean clothes that I folded the night before, emptying dirty laundry into the hampers in my room, and straightening up their bedrooms. In the evening, we go through the house and put away shoes, jackets, toys, etc. that were left out during the day, and often have a load of laundry to put away as well. We put on fun music for each period so we have some motivation. I think it takes less than 15 minutes to do each time period.

Meals ... well, we are working on that. Dh's and my plan is to have 10-15 meals that we can rotate each week. I cook every meal (breakfast, lunch and dinner), so I'd love to know each day what we are eating. The plan is to have this in place before the baby is born!

Now for our actual school schedule - I don't have set times (before I was big and pregnant, we started school at 9:30, but that was because I was up by 7:30 at the latest; now that I'm not sleeping well at night, I let myself sleep in and we've been starting school around 10:30 or 11am). But we do have a set order that we work from every day:

-Latin
-Math/Reading (both my older two are doing Master Reader from Hooked on Phonics, which is computer based, so they alternate between that and math with me; when they were still learning phonics, they alternated reading and independent work).
-Spelling
-Writing (if it is Writing with Ease, one is doing copywork while the other is doing narration; if ds#1 has dictation instead, ds#2 can work on independent work)
-Grammar
Lunch break
-Memory work (together during lunch)
-Michael Clay Thompson language arts (together - first a sentence on the board and then reading on the couch)
-Elective (M & T are history, W & Th are science, F is art and nature study)

It helps us all to keep the same routine each day ... the boys like knowing what is coming up and how much is left to do, and I like the consistency in getting our work done.

[zjande]

A place to start may be to decide whether you are a schedule person or a routine person. If you are a schedule person than researching something like the Managers of Their Homes deal might be for you. There are samples there that you could experiment with & just draw up your own instead of buying the book.

If you're a routine person then maybe printing out some of the sheets from DonnaYoung (PP linked above) would work better. Or, try Fly Lady, she sends out emails reminding you to do things. Or, large family logistics.

Personally, I am a routine person. I use The Basic Household Cleaning List, about 2/3 of the way down on that page. I took that & tweaked it to my own life so much so that it's barely recognizable, but it's worked awesome for me.

Since I'm a routine person, I take that sheet linked above, & list all the things I'd like to accomplish at the bare minimun for morning, 2pm, 3pm, and evening. You can organize your routine times however works best for you of course. Then, I can just glance at my morning routine list to remind myself of anything I've forgotten. I also don't forget to get dinner started because I remind myself to plan it during my "2pm-ish routine". Besides that typical routine list, I use the weekly planner as well. There I list the specific things I want to accomplish each weekday. Mondays I want to bake a bread & a snack, & update my checking account & financial info. Tuesday is "100% laundry catch up day" which includes mopping the laundry room. Stuff like that.

You may want to experiment with a Household Chore sheet that you can check off each day as you accomplish each thing. Or just a master list you look at each day. Sometimes I am more productive when I have a nice little box to check mark after each chore for some reason.

Although this blog is aimed at Christians with large families, I have found her advice on schedules, cleaning, homeschooling, organizing, everything (!) super helpful! Raising Arrows. <-- I linked to a page with tons of organization links to start surfing around.

As for meal planning, you can find all sorts of sheets to print off & ideas at Donna Young & the other places I've linked to. Personally, I do something super simple. I just use a notebook paper. Every weekend I flip through my recipes & write a list of the meals, snacks, etc. I plan to make that week on the right side of the paper, with the cookbook name & page # next to it. On the left side of the paper I list the ingredients I need to buy to make all the meals. Then I go to the store. I keep this list in the same binder as my Household Chore sheet, financial notes, lists of things we need, the kids' shoe sizes, holiday planner, & all that stuff.

Regarding chores, my 12yo also never would remember what I asked him to do. If I didn't remember to remind him all day long they'd just never get done. Soooo, I made him a pile of "chore cards". I just took index cards, wrote the chore on the front, & a detailed description of how to do it on the back if necessary. Every morning, as soon as he's finishing up his school work, I give him a little pile of the cards. I just flip through them & pick out which ones I think should be done that day. That way, he has those cards sitting right there in front of him so he can't forget to do them. He's not allowed to play games or whatever til they're completed & the cards are put back in the box. That's working well for us. Some people do similar things for younger kids with a picture of the chore on the card.

Kids are needing me!

[MyLittleWonders]

zjande - awesome post!

[sweetmama3]

I just got my own version of this system, and I hope to implement it starting monday. http://confessionsofahomeschooler.bl...ox-system.html .
You have a separate box for each assignment for the day, and put everything needed to complete that assignment into it, down to pencils and paper. You label them so the kiddo knows which order to do them, and in the last one (just an idea) you can put a small treat or a prize. i think it looks like a great system.

Instead of the big bulky cabinet, though, I found some collapsible fabric storage boxes (4 for $10 at Big Lots) and I am going to use those.
At the website she had one box for every subject, but there is NO WAY my kiddo will get through 8 subjects in a day, so 4 is plenty for me.
I like the idea of the collapsible box, because when it is empty, I can put them out of sight, as we have a very small house.

[LemonPie]

I think with a 3 month old baby, you need to cut yourself some slack You have a lot on your plate mama!

I'm HSing my 7 and 5 yo kids and trying to keep a very, very active 2 yo occupied in the meantime. I'm not a hard-core workboxer, but I do have a cabinet in the dining room that I use to store the materials for each subject (it's some of the Trofast furniture at IKEA. LOVE it!). The kids know where to find the things they are supposed to work on as they are in the same place every day. I try to keep somethings in the very bottom cubbies for my 2 yo to pull out and I often find that she's happy just joining us at the table with crayons and paper.

I found it REALLY helpful to choose curriculum that is mostly pick-up-and-go without much teacher prep involved. I know myself and I value my time in the evenings. I don't want to spend every evening prepping for the next day.

As for meals, I depend heavily on my crockpot. My family is okay with leftovers, so I'll often make a lot of a couple of meals and we'll eat them 2 or 3 nights throughout the week. Or we'll do 'planned' leftovers. One night it's pot roast. A night or two later, the leftovers are french-dip sandwiches. Things like bottled pasta sauce and prepackaged meatballs are not the healthiest options in the world, but they're lifesavers for those nights when I just need to get *something* on the table.

Housework. . . honestly, I find the deep cleaning is what suffers and I finally just broke down and hired someone to come in and handle that twice a month. I know that's not an option for everyone financially, but if you can swing it, consider it. It was a HUGE load off. As for the rest of it, I just try to stay on top of it as best I can. I get the laundry washed and dried. Folding it is another issue (what I should be doing now, ha ha), but at least there IS clean laundry available, even if we have to dig for it . I keep a central hamper that has dividers by color, and my kids do a pretty good job of sorting as they take things off (I keep it near the bathroom where they bathe), so laundry is mostly sorted and just needs to be dumped in the washer. I try to unload the dishwasher very soon after it finishes running so I can immediately load dishes as we go. I keep a sink of hot soapy water so I can wipe surfaces as I dirty them. When the weather's nice, I let my kids 'picnic' in the backyard frequently because it reduces the in-house mess We try to go through and have a 'pick-up' session every night before dinner or bedtime and just put toys and clutter away.

So anyway, that's what works for me here

[terra-pip]

Originally Posted by sweetmama3

I just got my own version of this system, and I hope to implement it starting monday. http://confessionsofahomeschooler.bl...ox-system.html .
You have a separate box for each assignment for the day, and put everything needed to complete that assignment into it, down to pencils and paper. You label them so the kiddo knows which order to do them, and in the last one (just an idea) you can put a small treat or a prize. i think it looks like a great system.

Instead of the big bulky cabinet, though, I found some collapsible fabric storage boxes (4 for $10 at Big Lots) and I am going to use those.
At the website she had one box for every subject, but there is NO WAY my kiddo will get through 8 subjects in a day, so 4 is plenty for me.
I like the idea of the collapsible box, because when it is empty, I can put them out of sight, as we have a very small house.

thank you for that link. I've heard of workboxes but really didn't know there was a whole system involved. I've tried to set up boxes (magazine style storage boxes) with my 7 yos daily stuff...but then we always have the problem of deciding what to do when, and I get the arguments "not right now", and then I'm trying to entertain the 3 yo and keep baby happy. I was just talking to dh today that I was really feeling ps for the first time, big time. But what it comes down to is discipline for my kids, and discipline for mommy! I am not a very organized person and that was fine when it was just one kid and then one kid and one baby...but now it's one kid, one preschooler and one infant I'm feeling beyond to the point of tears overwhelmed.

I honestly think I need to find an organizational system that works and stick to it with some sort of religious fervor if I'm to survive. I think it would help the kids feel more secure in these crazy baby times as well. I like that blog post and I think I'm going to just do a 180 and try to figure this out and get it started. Thanks!!! This may help!

[CCJWGM]

For help with routines/schedules (non specific to homeschooling) I would recommend the book Simplicity Parenting. This book has helped me simplify my life to the point that I can add in other activities (homeschooling) and not be stressed. Seriously, it's an A++++ must read book. I honestly thought my life was simple before but this book has helped tremendously.

I also personally think there needs to be a book called Simplicity Homeschooling. But that's just me.

[lmonter]

I'm not a lot of help, I just have a feeling I know where you're coming from. My house... well, it's in such chaos that it burning to the ground almost seems like it'd be a relief to me. Mine are 7yo, 4.5yo, 2.5yo, 7mo. Finding the time to organize anything while still getting at least 3-4 hours of sleep myself a night... sigh. My sympathies.

[AngelBee]

First off.....hugs to you. It is hard to find your groove with littles and especially with a new baby. Be kind to yourself. Right now you need to prioritize what is MOST important to you. (Following coming from a Christian slant as basing this on what works for me. Please adjust to fit your spiritaul beliefs. )

1) Take at least 5 mins. maybe twice a day to center yourself. Just sit, sip on tea/coffee, pray, read.....anything that is like a mini pickup for you. Be it playing play dough....that works. Or peeing in private. That will do too! Consciously do it though. I have a little divotional type book that I will just read the day. Takes maybe 1min then I reflect on it. If I have to, I lock myself in bathroom or bedroom. Just 5 mins can do wonders.

2) Smile. Sounds dumb, but I can not believe how much smoother my days goes when I just decide to smile. Smile through the poopy diapers, fights, split milk, attitude issues. My children and I deserve joy, even during stressful times. I want my children to remember me as magical, not a crabby old rat.

3) Do one thing that makes you feel good. Post partum can be a tricky time. Even if it is chapstick, make sure you have a supply and you use it! Right now my thing is day and night face lotion! Hey...it is not much but it makes me feel pretty and important while I am running in circles and growing bigger by the second!

I too was an unschooler. Due to life circumstances, we found ourselves fitting much better into a Charlotte Mason/Classical Education mix. I had become a bit lazy unschooling and did not have the energy to do it the way I believe it should be done. My kids as a result went batty. They were restless and bored (NOT unschoolings fault.....totally MY issue ) I still love many of the ideas that are behind unschooling and we still use them in our schooling/daily life. (Ironic...... )

1) Use a timer! Decide to commit ___ mins to something, set the timer, and do it. STOP when timer beeps. That is it. Then move on to next thing. For first two weeks, it felt like we were getting nothing done, but suddenly we got used cruising. It has made life 10 times easier. If you dont have a timer, you probably have an option like it on your computer or cell phone. It has worked wonders for my family!

2) Utilize short lessons. No more than 20 mins if you can. Keeps childrens attention better and makes it seem like it does not drag on.

3) School year round. This is crutial for us. We start in July and end in June. That way if we have an off day or even week, we are never behind.

What else can we help you with? Like any more specific things?

I know it can be hard having litlles under foot.

[AngelBee]

What curriculum are you currently using? What type of homeschooling?

I have more ideas.

[mich]

So many wonderful ideas, I am going to re-read the thread and take notes!

Every year we get a little more organized. I usually use a date book to make notes and track work. This year I made a homeschool planner with a binder, a package if tab seperators, and pages printed off Donna Young's site. I always think I will plan the week on Sunday night, but year after year I fall into the routine of planning the next days work as I check that days work.

We use a curriculum for math and handwriting, so as I check todays work, I look at the next pages and then write down in my planner what that child will do tomorrow. If they struggled with a math concept, I will plan another review page for them. If they got it easily, I will plan for them to move on to the next lesson.

I also will fill in what other topics or tasks we will do for the next day from a list of ideas I keep in the planner. One thing that I find very helpful is to plan Mondays with work the kids can do without a lot of help from me. Mondays are hard for me, for many years we did nothing on Mondays because I couldn't get my act together. Now they know how to find their assignments in the planner and can work independently from me.

There is a lot to said about habit. We have a habit in our house that mom gives out the page or assignment and the kids are expected to do it. It takes time to set that up. If you are getting feed back like "I don't want to do that page" then I would suggest starting out very small (meaning small assignments, even half a page, or one line, ect.) tasks. For us, every year we start small and I look at September as a routine setting time.

This year our routine has evolved into, breakfast (around 10am) and one 30 min. cartoon. Then screen go off and we start bookwork. We spend around 2-3 hours. Then a chore, usually empty the dishwasher, then they can have an hour on the computer or tv. Wed and Fri we have morning classes out and about, so we come home, have lunch and a little down time, then start bookwork around 1pm and go till around 3pm.

We also do "clean sweeps" and I will pull the kids from what they are doing and rattle off a list of things that need to be done. 10 min. and they can be back to what they were doing. Again, this is a habit we have so I (usually) dont hear any complaining when I ask them to do this.

Dinner is where I fail miserably! Almost this entire year I have been off track with cooking dinner. The time I was in a grove and doing it well, I had a weekly plan, shopped for the plan, and had a 2:00/3:00 habit of putting my attention on what I was making that night. Now 6:00 rolls around and I am scrounging through the fridge to put something together. Planning is everything, but I cant seem to make myself do the planning!

Above all remember to go slow! You don't want to overwhelm yourself.

[PGTlatte]

OP you sound overwhelmed. I will share what makes it do-able for me.

I would start by setting aside one hour per day for structured homeschool work. Plan your other commitments around that hour. One hour does not feel so overwhelming. The hour can include a couple of short breaks if your child is not up to an hour of straight through work. You can increase the time for structured work as he gets used to it.

For that hour, I would recommend using "open and go" workbooks for core subject areas, with a focus on math and language arts. This is the type of workbook that provides all that is needed to teach a lesson, with no other materials required.

For language arts, I am using materials from Evan Moor (Language Fundamentals, Vocabulary Fundamentals, Basic Phonics series), Remedia Publications, and Flash Forward Reading (available from Barnes and Noble). For math I am using Evan Moor Daily Math Practice and Daily Word Problems, Singapore Challenging Word Problems, MCP Math, and Spectrum Math. (I use the Marshall Cavendish Singapore math textbook as a reference text for guidance in how to explain things but he doesn't work in it.)

I leave social studies and science to be less structured. We catch those in the afternoon a few days a week. I have geography ebooks from both Evan Moor and Teacher Created Resources; I check out Step Into Reading books and similar type books that get into some social studies and science topics; I read Magic School Bus book and discuss the science topics; we watch DVDs from the library that cover science and social studies topics, by Schlessinger and Bill Nye.

Our library has an online search and reservation system and I can put materials on hold; they email me when they are ready for pickup; then all I have to do is stop at the desk and pick them up. If your library has a similar system, it makes it easy to get a lot of materials into the house without putting in a lot of work to take multiple kids through the library to go round them up.

HTH !

[terra-pip]

Thanks for all the tips. Discipline and habit. That's the key and of course I know with the new baby and my middle getting bigger our routines have gotten screwy!

Someone asked what I use in homeschooling.

Daily I expect a spelling list from AVKO (not a problem since my son loves this and will ask for it, we usually start our time with this.)

We do HWT, usually 4 pages. We've started Wordly Wise this year. I haven't used a phonics program with him, but we learn phonics rules as we read out loud. Her reads out loud to me and I read out loud to him. We read a TON of folktales in this house! We talk about what we've read and my son will usually give me some response, writing about the story, a drawing, or the boys act it out. This lang arts stuff happens fluidly throughout our day.

I usually throw a lang arts project weekly into the mix as I find ideas that intrigue me and the kids would like. We try to use Writing Strands but that book just keeps getting ignored.

We use a combo of Miquon, FamilyMath, Kumon wkbks for math.

Geography and Social studies/history is usually pretty loose too. We just read and talk.

Science is where I feel FAIL. I can't seem to find time to set up and execute experiments so a lot of science is just hit or miss in our reading and talking. I would like to do more in this area.

For my 3 year old I have a lot of Montessori (most homemade) materials and I just try to take time to talk, read and play with him.

I do a daily Itsy Bitsy Yoga with the baby and I thought about getting the book Slow and Steady Get Me Ready.

Art is no big deal because my oldest loves to draw so he's his own art lesson. And I have paints and an easel etc out for their use whenever they want. I haven't found the time to get in a directed arts and craft project and I feel lacking in the arts appreciation area. (Although my son did paint a Van Gogh recently )

Music is a FAIL in my mind too. We listen to music during the day. Classical Kids (although we don't have the books) but my oldest doesn't have lessons or instruments of any sort that aren't just toys. I worry about that, but then again he doesn't really show any interest.

He's finally shown some interest in a sport and has been playing tennis with his dad, and he's looking forward to doing tennis next spring.

Anyway writing all that out I just feel like I don't do enough. That by the end of the day I have worked on the house like a maniac, cared for the baby, and mediated a million fights. We have wondered about public school because the boys are always at each other and I'm feeling like we don't do enough.

Talk me off this ledge! lol.

[violet]

Sounds like some great tips. We are similar - 8.5, 6, 3.5 and 10 mo --- so busy busy. I have hanging file folder pocket chart for each child
http://www.orientaltrading.com/ui/se...allpartial&N=0

that I keep filled with our current curriculum. I made my holders so they are strong enough to hold our books or items/workbox games in them. I have to have it all in front of me or I will forget it. So this is a visual way to sort and keep current our work.

My 8 yo is used to our "blocks" -as in block of work- she knows that when we start work we intend to keep working until a few subjects are complete and if I get called away it is in her best interest to keep going so she can finish the block. It took us from K until about last week for her to really get this concept. But she does. I typically do certain subjects together (phonics, spelling, grammar in a block, etc.) So I can look at the pocket chart, pull the books, and if we get interrupted I know what we need to get back to.


I hear you with the always getting pulled away for the baby. But don't fret. they are learning so much. And the baby's needs will ease up. And think of how much your kids are learning from seeing you care for the baby. Mine are so intune with the baby's needs -- I love to see them make him laugh and their love and excitement at their influence on the baby and their relationship with him is so powerful.

good luck

[AAK]

Originally Posted by MyLittleWonders

A couple of ideas for you ...

In terms of planning for school, this blog on the file crate system might give you some ideas of ways to organize your teaching and planning.

This link is awesome! I am using the method kinda I am not pg or anything else, so I decided to plan for a month at a time using this method. A quarter at a time might be better for some people too. So, I got the files and labled one Kayla A, Kayla B, KaylaC, Kayla D, and Kayla Completed. I did the same with my other children too. Even the child who isn't yet school aged has folders because she is four and often wants to be included. I didn't rip apart our math workbooks, but I used 3x5 cards with pages listed. I did this same thing with anything I didn't/couldn't put individually in the folder.

My older girls each have one of the 14 pocket folders. These are much handier than I expected! They have a spot for a legal pad of paper in the back and a pencil holder. . . so we always have our basic supplies ready. On Sunday, I move the contents of Folder "A" (or B, C, D, whichever is next) into the pocket folder. We labled our pockets for the days of the week. So, the first sleeve is for Monday. I put the stuff in the front, they move it to the other side of that sleeve when it is done. Like I said, we use 3x5 cards to list other stuff--assignments from books, videos, reading with mom, playing games, even a chore or two, and piano practice.

We store their pocket folders next to a magazine box that has their workbooks in it. In the morning, they grab the folder and the box and get to work.

It is truly AMAZING how much more we accomplish this way. It greatly reduces my stress load too, because I am not worried that I am forgetting anything.

We usually start "school" around 9 or 9:30. We try to be done by lunch. Sometimes someone isn't motivated in the morning and they will do their work after lunch. In the morning, I let them know if anything else is "scheduled" into the day. Then I try to not interfere much so that they can learn their own time management strategies. They do have to work with my schedule a bit though so that I can help/teach certain things.

I know this is lengthy, but if you made it this far. . . then I have one more thing to say: going from unschooling to a more scheduled/planned approach doesn't mean it will be rigid and strict. You can plan out the most important things at first, and then add as you and your family adjust to this way. Teaching moments may just be available during baby's naps. Or, maybe the 3 year old still naps (I find the 3 year olds to be more challenging that the young babies to work around). I would allow some dvd and computer since your child seems to like that--if he sees in his file that there is a dvd waiting for him once his other work is done, he might become eager to get to it. An assignment with blocks or legos is fun too.

Good luck mama! Just because my children are older doesn't mean I've forgotten.

Amy