32 Homeschooling Tips For Every Parent!

So we are back to homeschooling. I can’t say that I am looking forward to it but it is better than worrying everyday about our children catching Covid at school, right?

At least that is what I am going to tell myself anyway. To help with the task of homeschooling, I ask fellow Parent Bloggers what their best tips for homeschooling are and decided to put them in this blog post so if you need them, then they are right here!

Here are my 32 Homeschooling Tips:

Try not to put pressure on yourself to get things done at certain times. Children learn best at all different times of the day, if it works better to go out and have a big run around first thing and then settle down to work, create your own routine! Some children work best in the late afternoon/early evening, whatever makes it easier! Pink Pear Bear

Make sure you take a break from homeschooling and get the kids outside every day for a walk and play in nature. Everyone, including parents, will be better focused for the task ahead. – Peak District Kids

Have a daily plan so your child knows what to expect each day and make it feel like a school week so the weekends feel like a real break and it doesn’t all just roll into one. – Time and Pence

Keep it short, maybe 30 minutes of concentration on an activity ( all depends on age and attention span of the children). – loopyloulaura

Plan ahead – decide the day before what you are going to do and be prepared for it. Remember learning styles vary – do things don’t kill kids with worksheets. Get them Moving around the house. – Emma and 3

For younger children consider choosing one topic per week and then building different lessons into that topic. Not all learning has to involve sitting at a desk, dress up, move around and discover new things. – Dirt, Diggers and Dinosaurs

My biggest tip would to structure your day with flexibility and give ownership to your children by allowing them to order tasks. I go into this more in my video. – View the video here

Having a good set up is key. – Emma Reed

Have your space set up for some independent learning – this is especially important for the younger ones. It will enable you to have a breather and do some work or have a hot drink whilst they get to use their own creativity and curiosity to explore. – Arthur Wears

Try to pick the best part of the day for your kids to do academic work. As long term homeschoolers, my daughter and I always work in the morning as that’s when she’s at her best. Leaving the rest of the day for free play, arts and crafts, as well as getting outside. Build forest school activities into your time. If you can’t be outside as much, forage for a short while, for pine cones, leaves and so much more to take home. The activities you can do with these are endless! – Travel Mad Mum

Make sure all distractions are away (no toys, tv etc) to help with focus. – The Mini Mes and Me

Ensure you have stationery and accessories easily accessible. Not only to save yourself having to go look for things at the last minute but to help stop the children getting distracted by disruptions to their work flow. – Boo Roo and Tigger Too

Check out Monkey and Mouse blog post about entertaining and educating children

Have a global pandemic so you don’t have much choice but to do it anyway 👍🏻😂 – Teddy Eva Scents

Have a weekly plan and switch it up! Pick themes/a focus study. Make it as fun as you can especially for younger ones to keep them engaged. Make play learning. Have snack breaks. Go out for walks and learn on the way. Learn a new dance move for pe. – Paige’s Preferences

Make learning a family activity and go beyond the “classroom”. – Mummy Wishes

Check out this Tales From Mamaville blog post about homeschooling.

Start school work early and do a max of 2 hours a day they don’t do much more actual focus time than that (primary) in school time you add in breaks and registers and the like. Also, if there’s a day the child isnt feeling it that’s fine call it an inset day, move on. We tried to skip ahead to the next online lesson and get ahead then we had wiggle room for less motivated days – Happy Mummy

Go with the flow and stay calm and positive. So much easier said that done but after trying to homeschool two school aged children with a 6 month old baby hanging off my limbs, I found it easier to let it go if it didn’t work some days and we were productive on other days. Make it fun for them and they’ll less likely resist you. Motherhood Diaries

We use the concentration per age strategy. They can focus for double their age at time my son is 5 so we do ten minutes on then break. – Trinimamabebe

Dont force anything or battle each other as it isn’t always easy. Children can learn in lots of different ways; through books, through walks, playing with play doh, even watching particular tv programmes for example, so don’t worry if you have to let them lead sometimes. – Rice Cakes and Raisins

Set a fix time for daily exercise. If the time isn’t fixed you are less likely to do it. And now more than ever the kids will need a physical break. Do an exercise video, walk, run, play.. whatever… but make it daily and at a set time! – RedTedArt

Prioritise. I found through the first lockdown we prioritised what was most important and got that done first so it was out of the way. Then we made sure we got some exercise, so joe wicks pe lessons or a long walk. Then I’d let the children choose something themselves so it didnt feel too regimental. I think just dont put too much pressure on them or you and you’ll be fine. – theharveyfamily5

Change it up every now and again – work outside, have a full on duvet day with eductaional movies, sleep in the garden and learn about stars,, home school allows flexibility so embrace it. – A Beautiful Space

Plan the night before. I got caught out a couple of times not having things ready. – Farmer’s Wife and Mummy

My personal advice would be to have a list of things you’d like to do that week, and go with the flow. We have a daily “rhythm” where we have set times for food and going out for a walk. Other than that, we see how we feel! – Simply Together

Using my kids’ interests as part of each task worked well for us. For instance, my son’s maths questions might be something along the lines of “if Spiderman is trying to stop 9 bad guys from robbing a bank, and has trapped 4 in a web, how many are left for him to stop?”.

We also managed to get him to practise his handwriting and spelling by writing stories that were prompted by the games he’d been playing with his action figures.

This really seemed to stop him from getting bored so quickly, plus we managed to get so much more work done. – Paternal Damnation

Create a schedule that also gives them some choices. There’s more in it here if that helps – Daddyilife blog post on Homeschooling

Don’t panic. Primary school kids don’t have a full day of academic work if you take into consideration, time taken to start and end a class (tidy up, put away work), assembly, break times, lunch, pe, art etc. A couple of hours of focussed work a day is plenty. The rest can be fluid and built around everyday life.
Keep core subject (maths English etc) at the same time each week but have flexible lessons for everything else. – Blue Bear Wood

Take learning outside if you can! I wrote down some maths and english activities that can be done outside- in a garden or small outdoor space here. – Thimble and Twig