Homeschooling while working full-time can feel like a daunting task, but with the right processes and schedules in place, it can be a seamless part of your day.
Disclaimers of Homeschooling While Working Full Time:
For a variety of reasons, I chose to homeschool my oldest this school year. It was a daunting decision because while I felt convicted it was the right choice for him, I'm also working full-time, and I'm a full-time graduate student. To say this is a busy season of life is an understatement.
Before we get deep into the logistics of this I do need to give a few disclaimers. I am only homeschooling one of my children. He is 11 and already knows how to read which is a huge benefit to me, and he is a very focused kid that is easy to teach. So there is a part of this that is going well simply because of the natural demeanor of my child, which has almost nothing to do with my parenting.
Things To Consider Before Homeschooling and Working:
My first recommendation out of the gate is, do you have any other options? Have all options been exhausted? We tried to make public school work for A LOT of years and finally got to the point where it just wasn't logical to send our son to our neighborhood school anymore.
We live in an area with no viable private school options that don't involve a 20+ minute drive one way. This wasn't practical for us because we have a daughter in another public school in our district that we have to drive to school each day, so driving another child to school didn't fit within our work schedules. We also don't have the money to spend on school.
There are charter schools in our area, but our son was also very vocal about the fact that he didn't want to go to another school. He wanted to do either half homeschool half public school (at the school he's always gone to), or fully homeschool. He wasn't interested though in starting an entire new school with all new people his last year of elementary school. When our neighborhood school was unwilling to accommodate our request for a half-and-half program, homeschooling was what we were left with in our situation.
How I'm Homeschooling While Working Full Time:
A major part of the success with this is that we have a well-organized homeschool room. My son knows where everything that he needs is located, he has his workspace with his supplies, and I have my workspace with my supplies.
We have a long shared work desk where I can be doing my work and on calls while he is right next to me doing his work at the same time. During the summer I made a daily schedule for him. I set up his schedule so that he does all his independent work in the morning. These are things like bible study, handwriting, typing, exercise, daily reading, and math. It takes him about 90 minutes or more to work through those things.
Around lunch time he is ready for me to be hands-on with him for language arts and history/science/art depending on what day of the week it is. At this point I have gotten most of my morning work done with calls, posting to social media, and catching up on any reporting I need to do for my job. I take this time during lunch to work one-on-one with Kyle.
While I'm working and he does independent work, I am here to answer any one-off questions that he might have, and it's worked well for us so far.
Choosing the Right Curriculum:
This is going to be very dependent on the family. For us very little of the work needed to be done on a computer, but for other families that might be something that makes homeschooling and working full time easier for you. A lot of the curriculum we're using is workbook-based so Kyle can read what he needs, answer the questions, and then Derek and I look them over to make sure they're correct.
Things That Make Homeschooling and Working Easier:
- You have older kids instead of younger preschool-aged kids
- Your child can work well independently
- You work from home instead of outside the home
- You're organized and have a set plan and schedule
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