Hi Church Family, I don’t know about you, but I’ve received so many emails with resources to help parents during the next few weeks at home with their kids I can’t keep up with opening them all! I’ve been sent everything from children informational E-Books about the Coronavirus, to online games for kids, to all sorts of educational apps, my favorite so far was Virtual Field Trips (Found Here).
BUT almost all the resources I’ve been sent are to be used in front of a screen. ‘Nothing wrong with that, but Neil and I like our kids to be more un-plugged, (video games and tablets only come out on Mondays in our house) so I decided to take you into the Hoffman house this last week to tell you how we’ve (so far!) been able to fully homeschool all our kids without strangling them, how we’ve played with them, how we’ve got them to play with each other without any deaths (accidental or purposeful), and how they’re being expected to help around the house with all the added responsibilities of all of us being home ALL THE TIME. Last Monday was a big challenge because I simply wasn’t prepared. The reality of that saying “failing to plan is planning to fail” slapped me in the face when I couldn’t seem to gain control of anything whatsoever; it seemed like I was always two steps behind where I should be. But from Tuesday on we’ve had more fun, peaceful and productive days, simply because I had a plan. This all may not necessarily work for you or your family, but hopefully it’ll spark some of your own ideas to keep things smooth within your own household:

Morning flow/routine:
I shy away from the word “schedule” because it makes me feel like I’m always running late! So our routine for a weekday morning now looks like this: I’m up at 6am with my coffee and Bible to get as ready as I can be for the day God has for me. At 7am I get (drag) the kids out of bed. On their own, the 3 big kids do their “Morning Checklist” which includes making their bed, cleaning their room and brushing their teeth BEFORE they get breakfast. If they do NOT do their Morning Checklist they have to do as many “extra chores” as there are items they left on the floor in their bedroom or bathroom. Dirty pajama pants & shirt on the floor = two “extra chores!” Extra chores are usually small that only take a few minutes to complete, but it’s enough motivation for them to not leave any messes, so on almost all mornings their Morning Checklists get done, and I didn’t even have to ask them to do it! After breakfast, each son reads their bible for 15 minutes for devotions. By that time, I’ve done some cleaning and have everything ready to homeschool our kindergartener, Ryden. While I homeschool him, the 3 big kids do their chores and practice piano. Each big kid has a different daily chore. For instance, on Monday, Gavin (11) mops, Tues he takes out the trash, Wed he cleans bathroom sinks & counters, Thurs he dusts furniture, Fri he wipes down kitchen cupboards, Sat he vacuums AND mops the back deck (Sat is a 2-chore day) no chores on Sun. Each of our big kids have their daily chores memorized so there’s no need for us I to remind them of what they are, they all know what’s expected of them. Our 2 older sons have “jobs;” we pay $5 a week for 5 days of work. Gavin cleans our pool and Josiah cleans our cars, which are also done before homeschooling. If they do ALL these things with excellence and a good attitude they get rewards, like getting a treat or extra snack, the privilege of choosing the afternoon TV show, or their favorite is being able to stay up past bedtime to MAYBE even play video games on occasion, which is our big exception to the Monday-only video game rule. By the time all the big kids are finished with chores, jobs and piano, I’m usually done homeschooling Ryden, so an educational show or fun activity will begin for my little ones & I get the big kids set up for homeschool.

Here’s some tips I’ve found for homeschool success:
- giving them a finger-food snack keeps their chatting to each other at a minimum
- I give rewards to the kids that are doing their work efficiently and with excellence
- breaks are SO needed! For everyone! That’s why there’s recces at school! If there’s restlessness or whining I send them outside or do a quick activity to get the wiggles out. - Saying, “When we’re done homeschooling we get to _________________” works SO WELL to keep them motivated to stick to their work and get it done!

Afternoon flow/routine:
When schoolwork and lunch are done it is PLAYTIME! Somehow with ALLLLL the things my kids can do inside and out at our house they still get bored, and I’ve learned the hard way that if my kids get bored they get destructive (I have boys, remember?) so if I let it get to boredom it’s going to eventually cost us money in repairs! All of the below suggestions can be done at home, and there are lots of options that don’t cost a thing to keep your kids entertained and screen-free.

$20 or less

Slime Kits (available on Amazon)
Face-painting day (face-painting kits are also available on Amazon)
Glow-stick dance party in the dark (glow-sticks in the bathtub at night with lights off is fun too!)
Plant an herb garden
Buy balloons and get creative with games using them (I’ll throw a bunch in our trampoline, the kids LOVE it because the balloons stay in the net and every time one of them jumps all the balloons go flying)
Water balloon wars (you don’t even have to throw them at each other, throw them into buckets or at targets outside, kids love to watch them explode – or not!)
Food coloring squirt bottles – I bought small squirt bottles for my kids, filled them with water & a couple drops of food coloring, then sent them outside to “paint” the bushes, dirt, tree trunks, etc.
Nerf wars (set up your own barricades & bases in the backyard or even in the living room)
Bubbles! I spent $10 on a bubble machine & a few more bucks on a huge tub of bubbles and set it up either outside or in the bathtub for loads of long-lasting fun for my littler ones.
Pet Bugs: bug catching kits are cheap, and it’s so fun to have pet bugs to watch & feed while at home - Stick-Whittling competitions (for older kids).
Stick Whittling kits are on Amazon, you can even buy wood pieces they can whittle if you don’t want to hunt for your own sticks. My kids have made some quite impressive pieces and it takes them a good while to create their masterpieces.

FREE:

Paper airplane wars
Scavenger Hunt (even indoors)
All family game of Hide & Go Seek or Sardines
Costume Party (get some more use out of the Halloween costumes they’re about to grow out of!)
Make your own play-dough/silly putty/slime (Pinterest is full of recipes & you’ll likely already have it all)
Make your own music video
Stick them in the bathtub or shower with a tube of shaving cream! (just make sure the doors or curtain is closed! Clean-up is a breeze – just turn the shower on!)
Make your own puzzles by cutting up magazine pages or even family pictures
Get out Board games! They’re a great way to have good family fun and to teach your kids lessons about winning and losing (We always say “We lose with a good attitude and we win with humility.”)
Make forts using sheets & blankets (hair ties work great to keep the corners in place under chair legs or on table corners) See how much of your living room/bedroom you can get under the fort!
Build-with-a-box! Got old Amazon boxes laying around? Get some duct tape and scissors, cut and tape the boxes together to make a car, castle, a fort, whatever! We’ve brought our box-forts & box-cars into the garage and painted them, the little kids smothered theirs with stickers & colored them with markers.
A walk down memory lane: bring out your kids baby books, artwork from when they were younger, watch old family movies from when they (or you!) were babies, and get out old baby pictures.
The next ideas come with a disclaimer 😊
These need to be done with caution & adult supervision:
Couch Olympics. Ok don’t kill me. The first few years of having all boys we lived in a condo and didn’t have a yard so we had to get creative with all their energy, so if this idea isn’t for you I SO get it, but when our kids were younger & not so heavy we’d bring out their mattresses and put it next to the couch and they’d do jumps and flips off the couch onto the mattresses. Neil & I once even had score-cards ranging 1-10 for the Olympians trying to impress us! (Couch-jumping stops at age 7 in our house)
Outdoor destroyers: there’s been times we had to throw away old broken things like patio chairs the wind blew over or an old broken VCR, but instead of throwing them away we gave our kids bats or hammers to pulverize the broken objects into oblivion. WITH the understanding that they’d clean up EVERYthing after the destroying was over. And they had never felt so accomplished and so strong! 😊

Evening flow/routine: In our home meal-time is a family affair before and after. I’ll often try to get my kids to help with dinner prep, sometimes they want to & sometimes they don’t, but they’re always more likely to WANT to eat dinner if they participate in it beforehand. Clean-up is also shared. Two years ago I got so frustrated that I had to cook for an hour, we’d eat for a few minutes and then I’d clean up for an hour while everyone else played, so we created “Dinner Duties” for our 3 big kids. After dinner THEY clear the table & wipe it down, sweep the floor, wipe down chairs and push them in. Clean-up goes SO much faster now which means we get more time for family play!

A lot of fun memories have been created from the ideas I previously mentioned.  We’re also huge fans of the Tickle Monster Book for smaller kids (my older ones hate it now cause they’re over being tickled, but they now read it to their younger brothers) (you’ll want the gloves too) .
     We do family devotions around the table before bed. Right now, we’re going back and forth between reading the Picture Bible and Our 24 Family Ways. Every so often Neil or I will help one of our 3 older sons write their own bible study; that son will pick a topic, we’ll help him find Scriptures, an illustration & maybe an object lesson, and that son will lead family devotions with the bible study he wrote.  The brothers even get him a “podium” using a storage bench on its side (& I have every bible study they’ve done filmed on my phone!). I LOVE this because during a bible study who is the one who gets the most out of the bible study? The person giving the bible study! This gets our kids to know and teach God’s Word, it builds their confidence and it’s training them to be leaders.  Lastly, we all spend time praying together, and we’ll get vulnerable with our kids about things we want them to pray about regarding our church, the government, and what’s happening around them.  At the end of a long day at home I encourage you to tell your kids something you’re proud of them for that day.  Your kids need to know what they’re doing right because so often we spend more time asking them to change what they’re doing wrong. Reaffirm your love for them and how important they are to your family.
     You’ve got this, guys!  You’re not alone!  God will always give you what you need to be excellent in what He’s called you to do!