How to Keep Homeschooling Through Difficult Times

We are entering a difficult season in my home. It’s happened a few times before, mostly during early pregnancy morning sickness or after a new baby is born. This time it’s because we are getting our house ready to get on the market and then moving to a new home! So, I’ve come up with a plan on How to Keep Homeschooling Through Difficult Times.

Below is my list of ideas to keep my kids learning, even when I’m occasionally unavailable for a month or so. These ideas are perfect for other difficult times as well:

• chronic illness of mom or child
• therapy for a child
• cancer treatment
• death in the family
• care for an elderly parent
• transitions during adoption, divorce, new baby, etc.

Some of the subjects my younger kids will be doing independently are handwriting with Handwriting Without Tears, Spelling with Spelling You See, math with Teaching Textbooks, and practicing their musical instruments (violin, recorder, and piano). My older kids (middle and high school) do all their schoolwork independently.

Here are the additional learning resources for my elementary students that we will be using during our difficult time:

Video Learning

• Letter Factory (phonics)
• What’s in the Bible (Bible)
• Drive Thru History

Online Learning

• Online Unit Studies (enrichment- art history, biographies, holidays)
• Foreign Languages for Kids by Kids (Spanish)
• IXL for grammar and math practice (they also have science and social studies that I haven’t looked at)
• Chalk Pastel online course (chalk art, doesn’t require much in the way of art supplies, good for all ages, and is fairly easy to clean up)
• ABC Mouse for preschool
• Starfall for preschool
• Touch-type Read and Spell from Homeschool Buyers Co-op

Audio Learning

Here are some of my favorites for literature, history, and science:

• Jonathan Park (creation science)
• Stories of the Pilgrims and others by Jim Hodges
• A Thanksgiving to Remember (about the pilgrims)
• Jim Weiss (A Treasury of Classics, Shakespeare for Children, King Arthur, Stories of the Founding Fathers, Arabian Knights, etc.)
• Adventures in Odyssey- Bible Stories, American History, worldview
• Story of the World (4 volumes that go through all of world history)
• Maestro Classics (music appreciation)

Once we’re settled in the new house, I’ll resume my hands-on approach of reading aloud and working with them on notebooking, writing, and lapbooks for science, Bible, history, grammar, etc. But for now, they will still be getting a great education even when I’m spending my time packing, unpacking, and organizing!

Do you have some other great resources we could use? Please share in the comments!

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