Home school with 4

[Iloveponies]

Has anyone homeschooled 4, my kids are between 11-6. I have read quite a bit about homeschooling but no too much about doing it with 4. I am worried it will be too much.

I am favouring an autonomous approach with a few structured hours a week. How will a child led approach work,with 4 different children's ideas to follow?

Also anyone in Milton Keynes. We are thinking of moving there. We wont know anyone, and will not have school to find friends at.

I home educate four, but they're younger than yours - between 1 and 7. We are also autonomous and have no structure whatsoever. DD1 has recently asked for more structured groups to go along to, like Badgers, so I've organised a weekly structured home ed group, which will start in September, and require a little bit of (for want of a better word!) homework - only something to give us a bit of focus.

I'm not in Milton Keynes, so can't help you there, but search this topic for the thread about finding local HEors, and you're bound to find a HE community with groups and such like where you can go to meet other people.

With child-led with lots of children, it works fine as usually the learning is done through visiting places, talking, reading books etc. It just kind of happens!

the famous Grit is in Milton Keynes

here

though I think she's about to head off to Hong Kong with her triplets for six months, or something. but anyway, she will be able to get you in contact with the local goings on. There are a lot of them I think :)

and home educating 4 isn't that uncommon-I think of several families I know personally who have four or more home ed children.

and there is one family, that home educates 12 children.

and yes as far as I know as well, there is an active home ed group in MK.

Thanks everyone that has made me feel better.
:)

Milton Keynes has an excellent HE network and are on very good terms with their LEA.

I've HE'd four children (and am expecting a fifth) tho my eldest is just eight. I would have thought it would be easier to start when some of your children are older, as presumably their reading skills would enable them to do lots of reading and researching on their own. Also, from their ages they seem to be nicely spread out , which will also help enormously - I reckon you could easily manage a couple of hours 'formal' work with each of them per week, if you wanted to.

In terms of child-led learning, conversation is our greatest weapon. If approaching a completely new subject (how are deserts formed? my eldest dd asked me the other day), even your eldest would need some basic info to begin with, which your six-year old could follow as well. As the conversation gets a bit more involved or technical, the younger ones will probably wander off, satisfied, leaving you and your elder ones free to follow it up in a bit more depth, if they want to. Your younger ones will pick up on loads just listening to bits of that kind of thing, and will gradulally make connections between it all in their own way.

'Educating childen at home' by Alan Thomas is a very good book, which might reassure you as to how much children can learn autonomously.

There is a separate group dealing with HE and exams, if your eldest wanted to go down that route - someone else will be able to give you details. Good luck!

Iloveponies - sorry, I mis-read the ages of your children - I thought it said 16-6! I'll soon have five aged 8yrs and under, tho, so I'm still envious of you

friend of mine h-ed 4. Rhe eldesr rwo are now at university and the two youngest are so used to it and old enough to work alone that it is not so bad. They use a structured curriculum though

I wish I'd HE my lot - we would have loved it.
I knew nothing about HE back then - I think life would have been a lot more calm, and the kids would have been happier.

I think HE is great, if you have the energy for it

Sometimes I'm so tired at the end of the day, I can hardly stand.
Keeping up with an 11 year old at my age is a full-time job at the best of times, but I love it. I see him learning and growing and doing things he was never supposed to be able to do and it all falls into place:)

he's lucky to have you

I don't know how you manage with HE 4, I suppose you just get on with it and try to group them maybe. So the two oldest do one thing and the two youngest something else?