Whether you’re considering homeschooling your children or have already started, you’re not alone. As of March 2021, the United States has more than 4.5 million homeschooled students in grades K-12. This number has been growing rapidly, particularly from 2019 – 2020 to 2020 – 2021. Many parents decide to homeschool their children for a number of reasons, from wanting to enhance family relationships to wanting to teach their children a particular worldview and set of values.
As families consider this option, another question generally surfaces — what about work? Many people have the image of full-time homemakers homeschooling their children. But, this isn’t the only way. Working parents have the option to homeschool their kids as well. It is possible and in this article, we’ll show you how to homeschool and work without getting overwhelmed.
Strategies for Homeschooling While Working
These strategies should help you devise a plan to conquer homeschooling while working full-time. It may seem impossible, but trust us, it’s not. It just takes careful planning and continual effort.
Build a Routine
Building a strong, consistent routine is one of the keys to homeschooling while working full-time. The good news is, there’s no one size fits all routine. You may be interested in homeschooling and working part-time. In this case, you may have the flexibility to set unique school hours. If you’re working full-time, you may choose to homeschool in the evenings. Whatever you choose, it’s important to set the schedule and stick to it. Structure is important and will help you and your children know what to expect each day.
Arrange Childcare
It may not be intuitive that when homeschooling, you’ll still need to arrange childcare. But, it’s important for your sanity and your child’s. You want to be able to dedicate your full attention to your children while homeschooling and your full attention to work when you’re working. To make this work, arrange childcare for your working hours. This may vary depending on your children’s ages. You may have them spend time with their grandparents while you work, go to daycare, or attend special programming.
Find a Pre-Planned Curriculum
When homeschooling and working, you may not have time to plan lessons from scratch. Luckily, there are a number of pre-planned curriculums available for homeschooling. You can take your pick from different programs based on various educational philosophies. Do your research to understand which one will work best for your family’s needs. We’ll share more about this later on in this post.
Hire a Tutor
Homeschooling allows parents to spend personalized, one-on-one time with their children. This is one of the many benefits of home-based education. However, if you have more than one child, a tutor can help assist you in providing individualized attention. You can each work with each child and tag team your approach so that everyone gets the time and attention they need.
Consider Job Sharing
If you feel overwhelmed when considering how to homeschool and work full-time, you may want to consider alternative work schedules that offer the flexibility you may need. Job sharing is one of those arrangements. Job sharing allows you to split the full-time responsibilities of a job with another person. This gives both people more flexibility and allows them to share the load. If both homeschooling and working are important to you, be sure to explore your options and look into job sharing.
Now that you know some of the strategies to utilize while homeschooling children and working, let’s look at homeschooling resources.
Homeschooling Resources
These homeschooling resources can make planning loads easier than starting from scratch. Some of these resources are even free!
Khan Academy
Khan Academy is a nonprofit organization that’s passionate about providing a “free, world-class education for anyone, anywhere.” They have free resources for parents along with videos, practice exercises, and an online learning dashboard for learners.
Project Gutenberg
Project Gutenberg has a library of more than 60,000 ebooks. And did we mention that they’re free? Parents and students can find a wide variety of literary works for all ages through this awesome resource.
Reading Eggs
Reading Eggs has more than just a fun name. It’s a trusted online reading program for children from ages 2 to 13. Reading is one of the most important parts of early childhood education. Explore Reading Eggs’ comprehensive program to help teach your child to read at home.
K12
K12 is a company dedicated to empowering students to learn at home at their own pace. The company has online schools and programs that support personalized learning.
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