Homeschool like a Lazy Genius, part 3

Kendra Adachi’s book The Lazy Genius Way and her Lazy Genius Podcast, on which she applies her Lazy Genius principles to all sorts of different decisions, scenarios, and topics, are brilliant.  You can learn more at her website: https://www.thelazygeniuscollective.com/. One issue that she rarely addresses is how to apply those principles to homeschooling. That’s because she was homeschooled as a kid, but she isn’t homeschooling right now.  But I’ve used many of her ideas in my homeschool, and you might want to use some of them in yours. (If you missed the first part of this series, here is part 1, and here is part 2.)

7. Put Everything in its Place

Now, the most challenging house rule to enforce is “Don’t put it down. Put it away.” Now that we are back to hosting multiple dinners and events a month, we’ll get back on top of that habit. Please don’t leave your sweaty socks under the coffee table because you took them off while watching Phineas and Ferb. No one else wants to touch them. You don’t even have to take them upstairs. Just drop them off in the laundry room next time you get up.  This rule finishes up the problems solved by Rule #2 and prevents the drama of someone (ahem, me) emotionally hunting for things like the TV remote or my husband’s car keys. We might have attitude problems to deal with, but I don’t want them to rear their ugly heads because someone moved someone else’s science book. It isn’t a problem if the original owner returns it to its home instead of leaving it on the couch.

8. Let People In

There is no perfect. You don’t have to have a clean and perfectly organized house to have company. You don’t have to be able to cook like a Food Network chef to host a dinner. You have to decide that your best is good enough and either order pizza or learn to make one or two “company meals.” Those meals don’t have to be fancy.  Soup or chili and bread? Hamburgers? Change-Your-Life Chicken with rice? None of those are complicated. Also, if you make the main dish, you can let your guests contribute also. 

We’ve had many backyard gatherings with a couple of other families as our children are growing up. The most common fare is hot dogs for kids, chicken salad or burgers for adults, chips, and watermelon. Summertime lunch is made. 

9. Batch It

Batching refers to just lumping together similar tasks. Like, I bet you try to pay off all of your bills in one or two sessions a month. You don’t pay the electric bill today and then the gas bill tomorrow. Grading is one thing in a homeschool that should be batched. Where is your red or green pen? Have you gathered up all the answer keys? Did you find all of the work that needs grading? If so, you can grade it. Don’t sit down to grade just one kid’s math. Sit down to grade all of the math and other subjects that your kids did that day (or week) simultaneously.

However, another way to batch grading would be to have the kid do the math and then grade it immediately. Instead of lumping all the grading together, you lump a complete subject for one person together. Voila! Math for one kid is completely done for one day. 

Another way to apply batching to a homeschool is to have everyone do math during the same hour. This, of course, assumes that they don’t all need your direct help to get their math done. 

You might organize your day according to what can be done in the same place. Maybe you all sit down in the living room for a little bit and take care of some particular subjects that you store near your chair. Devotions, history, and literature could all be completed there. Then maybe you move to the table to do subjects requiring a flat surface, like handwriting, math, and phonics or grammar. As you can see, there are multiple ways to batch your homeschool.

Part 1 Part 2 Part 4

You Might Also Like