Homeschooling While Working Full Time

I have had a lot of people lately asking me how I manage to homeschool the kids and work full time.  I thought I'd spend a few minutes explaining it since this blog IS supposed to also be about homeschooling which is a HUGE part of our lives.

I'll be the first to admit it takes some time and dedication and I surely couldn't have done it well when the kids were little.  We were fortunate to begin our homeschooling journey when we were able to piece together a network of babysitters and ourselves being home during the day when they were pretty independent but not quite able to stay home alone for a couple of years.  Now they are both quite responsible and we just seem to make it work.

One of our big keys to making it all work is this chart:

This is actually Equestrian Girl's chart from last week.  Although I have the columns labeled Monday through Friday, neither of the kids ever follow it like that.  My only rule is that all the work has to be done by the end of the day and I really prefer that at least 1/5 gets done EACH day so it's not all piled up at the end of the week.  Giving due dates for assignments was an epic fail.  It was much easier to dictate how much needs to be done each week and then let them plan how to get it done.  That's probably a pretty good skill to learn anyway in managing time.

The other key to being able to homeschool while working is the software we use for most subjects.  I've written about Switched on Schoolhouse before.  This software allows a lot of independent learning and does almost all the grading for me!  It also tracks all the grades and provides a multitude of reports include a report card.  That used to take me a LOT of time.  Now grading takes just a few minutes every day (unless a long essay needs to be graded).

Basically the kids work on their school subjects during the day and when I get home from work, we review anything that was a problem.  That's not much different than what most parents do when they get home from work - they help with homework instead.  Sometimes I am able to work from home and we can tackle a problem as it comes up.  A few times, Motocross Boy has packed up his laptop and headed over to the next door neighbor's house where Jeff ends up giving him a lesson in something totally unrelated to what he's studying but a lesson in SOMEthing valuable!

So what does a typical day look like?  It's fairly different for each kid.  Motocross Boy is a late riser and it takes him a while to get motivated.  We're talking close to noon or later.  But once he gets going, he is all work and can crank out 1/5 of the week's work in just a couple of hours.  More often than not, he'll do 2/5's worth so he can take a day off later but this also means he might work well into the evening.  Since he didn't get up all that early, this isn't a problem since he's still wide awake and motivated.

Equestrian Girl tends to get a much earlier start.  She'll be up by 8:30 and eat a little breakfast before getting started.  But she tends to do one subject then take a little break.  Then another one and another little break.  She can spread those 6-7 subjects into 8 or 9 hours or more.  But that's her choice.  She can also buckle down and pump out the work if she finds she's fallen a little behind the 1/5 per day plan and needs to get it done on Friday.

We don't get to do as many field trips as some homeschoolers but no less than what they had in public school.  It's difficult to participate in homeschool co-ops unless they have a drop-off fee (meaning I don't have to teach or work in some way) and I absolutely need someone who can drive and pick up when I can't do it.  But the thing is, where there's a will there's a way and we find it.  I will match up my kid's education to anyone in our local public school any day and am confident when the time comes, they'll be ready to go to college or enter the work force as good, valuable citizens.