Are you overwhelmed with teaching your kids, having to clean and tidy your home, and cooking meals every day? I want to share tips that have helped me balance homeschooling and household chores.
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It wasn’t until my oldest was 4 years old that I was doing consistent homeschooling lessons. We started staying consistent with homeschool lessons from Monday to Thursday. The only downside was that I felt that I was constantly drowning in laundry, dishes, cooking, and cleaning the learning activities that we were doing together. I knew something had to change.
Back in January 2024, I decided to declutter each room of the house. Minimize every room to create a better-organized space. As well, I purchased a planner to write a daily to-do list to better manage chores and meals for the week.
Tips to balance homeschool lessons and household chores:
- Declutter and Simplify Household Chores
- Get Organized and Plan
- Flexible Homeschool Days
Before I dive deep into the tips that have helped me keep up with the house chores and homeschooling. I want to say that I am not perfect and there are some days I don’t do any housework. No housework gets done when my kids or I are sick or it’s one of those days that I want to have a relaxing day as a family.
You don’t have to be all or nothing when it comes to your house. But if you want to be in a place where you can feel 80/20 organized, 80% organized, and 20% where you can take days off or not do housework, I’ve got you.
This blog post is all about How To Balance Homeschooling and Household Chores.
Tips to Balance Both Homeschool and Household
Declutter and Simplify Your Home
Take the time to declutter each room of the house each season. Decluttering will help you keep your home organized and clean. Declutter the spaces that will make your pile of laundry smaller, the toy section more bearable, and the homeschool space organized.
Clothes
Each season, go through clothes and determine if it was worn in the last 6 months and if the clothing still fits. Also, think about if the clothing will be worn the following season.
Toys
Check which toys your child has been interested in and enjoying for the last 6 months to a year. Donate or sell whatever items don’t serve your child anymore.
Homeschool Items
- Donate or sell on your local fb marketplace any items that you have not used in the last semester.
- Make a pile of books that your children have outgrown.
- Get rid of old unused paints, markers, and crayons that no longer work.
Get rid of any items that you have looked over your shoulder and give you that anxiety or stress. Make your homeschool space an area for peaceful learning for you and your children.
Get Organized and Plan
My top suggestion is to get yourself a planner if you don’t already have one. Whatever kind of planner works best for you, a physical planner or a digital planner. Having a planner will help you stay organized with daily household chores.
Every single morning, I write in my planner what I need to get done. It helps me stay focused on what I need to get done, but also, I can reference back on what has already been cleaned the day before.
Household Chores Broken Up:
- Reset the Rooms (Morning Non-Negotiable)
- Make the beds
- Put away any clean clothes
- Clean up the dirty clothes in kids room
- Laundry
- 1 Load of Laundry every single day
- If clothes are clean and not a big pile I do towels, bedding, blankets, etc.
- Bathrooms
- Showers & Tubs cleaned every other week.
- Sinks and Toilets Weekly
- Kitchen
- Clean up After every meal
- Deep clean kitchen once a week
- Clean out fridge once a week
- Deep Clean fridge once a month
- Other Cleaning
- Vacuum weekly
- Sweep daily
- Mop bi-weekly
How I manage time to clean is before we start homeschooling or after. I also include my children with age-appropriate chores if they wish to participate. They will help me by cleaning their toys and cleaning their plates from the table.
Also, the days I deep clean are the days we don’t go out to do activities. When we do have an activity plan, I keep my household chores minimal. Be mindful of your time. Don’t overwhelm yourself if you have co-op, extracurricular activities, or play dates those days.
The planner I use is from The Dailee [not affiliated] but the creator of these planners is Type A and that is the type I am aiming to be!
If you are more of a digital planner girl or a planner you can print off. Briana, a homeschooling mom and part-time working mom created a Mom Planner that offers: Daily & Weekly Schedules, an Undated Monthly Calendar, Meal Planning, Budgeting sheets, Habit tracking, and more.
Flexible Homeschool Days
The beauty of homeschooling is having the freedom to do it however best fits our family, right? Well, if you are in the season of still trying to find the balance between your household chores and homeschool lessons. I suggest giving yourself lots of grace and breaking your days up when you feel like you are taking a step forward in both directions.
If you are in the early years of homeschooling, remember that lessons don’t have to be long. I currently have a 5-year-old and a 3-year-old, and we keep our homeschooling lessons at about an hour a day. We do extra activities throughout the day for example reading, crafts, and science.
I do give my children screen time during the day for about an hour and during this time, I am getting things done around the house.
Related: [Simple Preschool Homeschool Schedule]
Final Thoughts
When it comes to finding the balance between homeschooling and the house, it is not going to be perfect all the time. There will be days where you feel like you have it together and others where it’s just not working out. & that’s okay too!
I hope the tips that have helped me become a more organized stay-at-home and homeschool mom have encouraged you to create a routine to be able to balance both.
This blog post was all about How To Balance Homeschooling and Household Chores.
