Any other WOH parents doing homeschooling?

[kijip]

My husband and I both work out of the home. I work full-time (salaried, flexible position where I set my own schedule) and my husband works and studies a combination of full-time.

For a variety of reasons, we decided to home-school our 7 year old after 2 years of school. He is doing great with it and we love it so far over all. We split the instruction up- while we each work on everything at times, I do most of the math/logic/reasoning, history and language arts while my husband does most of the science, handwriting, music and all of the Spanish.

Because we both work at jobs outside the house, much of the instruction is evenings and weekends. We leave a list of things to work on when we are both gone.

Thankfully we only need childcare 2-3 days a week.

Please share your stories about homeschooling and ft employment. How do you make it work, how is is going after awhile and do you think it is sustainable long term for you?

[phathui5]

My husband works a typical schedule, usually 8am-5pm as a commercial lighting contractor.

I am a doula. My hour vary anywhere from 10 or 15 hours a week to days and days in a row.

Homeschooling works well for our family. Honestly, I think with my weird schedule, it's the better option for us. With homeschooling, we can have a babysitter come to the house and watch all of the kids (4) when our work schedules overlap, rather than having to figure out how to balance outside school and childcare.

[mom2ponygirl]

We have done a variety of work/homeschool combinations. This is our 7th year. The first 6 years I worked 10 hours/week at the university, and then spent 20-30 hours per week working on our horse farm - barn chores, training horses, teaching riding lessons, etc. Our daughter would hang out and play along the arena, do a little school work, hang out at horse shows etc. When I worked at the university she would stay with a grandmother, or come with me for short stays.

Eventually I had to cut down on the horse stuff. Prime lesson giving time was after school hours and that was also the time for activities for dd. It felt like I had to commit her to a horsey life or make some changes. I stopped teaching gradually and reduced my work load at the barn so I could take dd to more extracurricular activities and more playdates.

Currently I have taken a new position at the university and work 20 hours per week there. My farm obligations take another 10-15 hours/week. Dd comes up to work with me most days and does some online classes and some stuff we have designed together. She is turning 12 and I will leave her at home if I just need to do a couple hours at work. She takes part in all the barn activities and has now become an avid rider. We listen to and discuss a lot of literature while driving or doing chores!

It is a constantly evolving balance but one we've enjoyed!

[naturegirl7]

Dh is a FT student, at school Mon thru Fri froom 8-1 and soon to be starting up clinicals too. I work 3-11 shift (often more like 3-1am) as a nurse. I currently do Mon - Fri but with his clinicals next month I will be working weekends to have my 2 days off during the week.

I am the primary "teacher" in our house. But we both teach DS on a daily basis. And DS loves to study with Daddy. Or requests homework of his own for when Daddy is doing his schoolwork. We are doing an advanced Kindy right now - which thankfully is not overly time consuming. We arent much for the sit down and learn or worksheet format. So lots of reading books, hands on stuff, games, art projects, documentaries, etc. I definitely do all the planned teaching, but DH is good at making the most of teachable moments when they occur unplanned.

Typical day - up by 8am when DH leaves (DS gets up earlier with DH). We have breakfast and school time together and run to whatever the morning's activity is - swim, gymnastics, doc appt, speech therapy, library, food shopping, etc. Then lunch together, change of shift report to Daddy and off to work I go while DH takes over. They do park time, play dates, his two dance classes. They do the fun movies and crazy play time. And of course homework and studying. I talk to them during my dinner break (his bed time) and then around 1-2am I come home, shower and snack before collasping into bed for a few hours.

I have found that some days are just not good school days cuz the activity or class we have just doesn't give enough time. Or DS and I just need a snuggly lazy morning together. So we do alot of school work, projects, field trips, nature hikes, etc on the weekends. It is exhausting some weeks - but it is so incredible amazing and soooo worth it! I love love love having the opportunity to participate and guide DS's education.

Glad to know we aren't the only crazy ones opting to juggle work and homeschool!

[naturegirl7]

Originally Posted by mom2ponygirl

We listen to and discuss a lot of literature while driving or doing chores!

It is a constantly evolving balance but one we've enjoyed!

We take advantage of the car rides to/from activities every day too! Great time to listen to our Jim Weiss (and other) audio books And a great time to talk about stuff we are learning without distractions of toys, pets, other books, the computer, etc. Recently we had a great convo onthe way to, and agian on the way home from, swim class - all about how Cyclops and other mythological creatures were not really truly "bad" but just misunderstood. Apparently the Cyclops is really a good person deep down inside - But Odysseus broke into his cave, was rude to him, hurt him, and stole from him. Odysseus is really the bad one, the bully of the story. The Cyclops was a gentle shepherd and kind to his sheep - and he only ate those people cuz of the bad things they did to him. What an amazing out-of-the-box point of view!! All prompted by the Odyssey audio book we'd been listening to that week!

[NightOwlwithowlet]

DH works from home, but travels a lot with his job (up to a month at a time).
He's also in school several nights a weeks. I work one or two days during the week from 6:45 to 3:15pm or 7:15pm. I also work weekends or holidays.

I do most of the schooling, the planning, and the teaching. DH has recently started schooling on the week days I work. I leave the lessons and it's mostly review at this point. We do school stuff in the evenings, in the car, and on weekends. We listen to books on tape and just talk. Yesterday, we made a birthday cake and DS read the recipe, figured how to read the fractions on the measuring cup, and we discussed how the heat would turn the liquid into a solid.
We used a recipe he learned about watching "Super Why" when I was at work.

[bass chick]

I work at home M-F 7:30am-6pm but then I have a lot of work to do in the evening as prep for the next day, cleaning up etc. I have a very full dayhome and it creates a lot of mess and dirt. DH is never home.
This is our first year so I haven't figured out what we are doing. I was hoping our facilitator would help us, but it doesn't look like they do much other than record our plans.

Right now I am reading lots of books to ds. We do Math U See while some of the other kids are sleeping.

[NishaG]

I work fulltime from 3 PM - Midnight. It works for us. I teach school in the mornings.