Homeschooling Multiple Ages & Multiple Subjects

How to combine subjects

Combining subjects is called multi-disciplinary learning, or you may have heard it called "interdisciplinary" or "cross-disciplinary." Homeschoolers will often discover the kids are learning in one subject when the parents are aiming at learning in another subject.

For example, a child who is learning about wildlife may develop reading skills as they peruse books about snakes and turtles. That's language arts + science.

A child who is sketching birds on their nature walks is doing art + science.

You can begin to combine subjects on purpose. There may be times you find opportunities to combine keyboarding skills with language arts, coding skills with robotics, art with social studies, music with history or literature, and more.

Example: Put science and social studies together

Here is a little-recognized homeschool miracle: kids can learn social studies through science—and kids can learn science through social studies!

How does this miracle happen?

One way could be by learning about inventors and inventions—the perfect topic for experimenting with multi-discipline, multi-age learning.

Check out the top-notch links we've gathered on inventors and inventions. There are ready-made resources to help you teach your kids both history and science through inventions.

Learning about older inventions and their creators gives kids and teens insight about what life was like before electricity, phones, airplanes, and satellites—providing a chance to imagine "the old days" and how life has changed over time.

That's social studies! 

After all, these inventions affect everything from how wars have been fought to how people navigate on trips to how we communicate with people in the next town or state.

At the same time, a growing understanding of technological, engineering, and medical advances (to name a few) can introduce young learners to the workings of computer chips, suspension bridges, and life-saving drugs and surgical techniques.

That's science!

Cutting-edge inventions are often lodged firmly in current events— another aspect of social studies education.

Kids may also enjoy tinkering and trying to create their own inventions. Considering how they themselves might create something useful draws kids into their own personal immersion experience with the scientific method.

That's waaaaaay more exciting and memorable than simply listing the steps of the scientific method on a poster.

Inspiration for combining ages and subjects

You can combine subjects and siblings when you use a curriculum by picking part of one child's curriculum to present to all the children. You can adjust a lesson or topic "up" or "down" with specific resources and assignments. This happened naturally in my house (which is how I learned to do it), when a younger child began listening in to my older child's lessons on ancient civilizations, especially Egypt.

Once you get used to the idea, you may even be able to moderate your curriculum purchases by choosing one grade level that is aimed at an age or grade level between some of your kids' ages, at least for certain subjects.

And if you like the multi-discipline/multi-child idea, you can take further inspiration by learning how people homeschool with:

• Unit studies
• Interest-led learning
• Project-based homeschooling (affiliate)
• Rabbit trailing
• Unschooling
• Tidal homeschooling

All of these approaches to homeschooling have characteristics easing the way for learning skills or knowledge across multiple subjects. They also make it easier to "spread" learning across multiple ages in your home.

Benefits of combining ages and subjects

Multi-disciplinary, multi-age learning has benefits for children and parents:

• Kids make connections across disciplines, so they cement and synthesize knowledge.
• Siblings learn from each other.
• Kids learn at their unique level of readiness.
• Kids don't need to be considered "behind" or "ahead" to learn.
• Parents cover two or more subjects—or multiple kids—with one preparation. Saves time, energy, and maybe even curriculum money!
• Parents learn to develop cross-curricular thinking and learning—unit studies!
• Parents can enjoy the interesting rabbit trails of knowledge, too.
• Parents may be more able to detect a child or teen's special interest.
• Children's and teens' learning preferences may be revealed.
  • Loves hands-on projects or not?
  • Prefers documentaries or reading?
  • Likes audiobooks or read alouds better?
  • Prefers STEAM to STEM—by adding Art into Science, Technology, Engineering and Math?

Schools often find challenges in using these approaches to learning in an era of subject-specific and grade-specific testing. That said, these are time-honored educational methods that often increase the effectiveness of a lesson while managing the amount of prep time for the educator.

Win for the learners; win for the parents!