How?

Okay, suppose you've decided to homeschool, you've bought your curriculum and supplies and you've decided on a date to begin.   If you're like me, you get up that morning and think "how do I do this?"  There are the obvious things to consider, like how to work with more than 1 child at once, where to set up shop, how much time to spend on each subject, how to deal with distractions and basically, just how to start!  I gathered my kids up at the kitchen table and just went for it, reading out of the curriculum book and doing the activities.  I quickly discovered that my kids couldn't just sit and listen to me read, they needed to draw or play with a quiet toy while listening.  At first, I had a sixth grader, a third grader and a first grader and I planned for us to do some things together (for us it was Konos),  the 6th grader would go work in his room on things while I worked with the third grader and the first grader on a few things we could all do together and then the third grader would go do some things on her own and I'd finish up with the first grader.  Unfortunately, this method involved the first grader to be the one who sat still the longest in one spot and didn't work as well in practice as it did in theory.   There was quite a bit of whining.  I tried to do a schedule and post it on the wall, but the youngest was very, very schedule resistant and that didn't work.  Finally, we settled on our current checklist system.  Each child does the things on his or her list in the order that they prefer, asking for help from a parent when necessary and if they're not done by 6:00 p.m., they don't get any screen time that day.  It works for us.  I have also heard of a method called the Work Box system that a lot of people have success with.  It seems like it would work better for younger kids than a list.  Whatever your family situation, just keep tweaking it until you find a method that works for you.  It takes a while to get a routine going.