Find a few practical ways to both homeschool and keep up with house chores.
Here are a few things to get you started in organizing your time in an effort to keep your housework from interfering with your homeschool and your sanity.
Not so great expectations
- obviously, if you want perfection in your home, homeschooling may not be the choice for you. Kids at home all day, learning in various ways in different parts of the house...well, it just does not lend itself to a magazine perfect home.
Make a plan
- the best way to keep a hold on this problem is organization. Make a reasonable weekly plan that allows for smaller bits of cleaning throughout the whole week. For example, clean bathrooms on Monday, clean floors of Tuesday, do laundry on Wednesday, and so on. Breaking it down helps take pressure off. However, stick to the plan! If cleaning the bathrooms does not take long, so be it!
Be Flexible
- If anyone ever makes a theme song for homeschoolers, I think the title should be "Be Flexible"! It is our anthem, isn't it? Like in everything else in life, be flexible with housework. Something may interfere with your cleaning schedule (illness, holiday, special event) - adapt. Either do a shorter, quick clean of that area, put it off for a day, or catch it the next week around.
Get Help
- If you can afford it, have a cleaning service come in once a week or even once a month. Even if all they do it clean the bathrooms, you will find it money well spent.
Alas! For many of us that is not an option. Even still, help it at hand. Our children, almost regardless of their ages, can help in our housework. Spouses, too, need to lend a willing hand. After all, homeschooling as a family lifestyle.
Our next article will focus on specific ways to get your children involved in daily household chores.
The copyright of the article Housework Tips in Homeschooling is owned by Christine Alcott. Permission to republish Housework Tips in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
