homeschooling while doing home daycare

[naturallymommy]

so i homeschool my 4 year old, but times have gotten hard to where i can't be a sahm mom anymore, which i can't give up so my friend offered to pay me to watch her two kids (ages 4.5 and 14 months) i've done home daycare before but my ds was a baby.  how do i not let it interupt our schooling or work around it? how do i incorporate the other kids in it when they arent used to hs or anything? thanks!

[bass chick]

I totally understand where you are coming from...having to give up being a SAHM but not being able to give it up! That's me! When my husband resigned from his job just over a year ago with no plans to go back to work I had to pick up the slack.

I run a dayhome 50+ hours a week and have 7 kids who come. Plus I have my 2 boys, ages 4 and 6.

I guess it depends on what you are doing with your son as far as hs.

We just started hs ds1 who is 6 this year. I found I had to "give up" a lot of what I would like to do with my boys and just do the basics with my oldest. My youngest is 4 and he just plays. I haven't done any "schooling" with him other than what just comes naturally. For example, he knows all his letter sounds and can string basic sounds together to make small words (cat, pup, etc) and he does learn some things incidentally through what I teach my oldest. We mostly just read lots.

I would say to give yourself a break as you transition into caring for 2 more kids and then incorporate things as you see fit.

It really depends on many factors...like what you classify as homeschooling and what sort of work your ds does. I won't start hs'ing my 4 year old until next fall when he would be in kindergarten if he was PS. Then we will start math and reading. With my oldest, I just do the barebones: math, reading & spelling. Soon we are going to be starting grammar and writing.

It also depends on the personalities of the kids you are looking after. Some kids are more independant than others.

You can have a box of quiet activities for the other kids to play with only during "school time". That way the kids view the toys as special because they only come out at certain times.

I'm sure others will have many other great suggestions!

Good luck!

[naturallymommy]

thanks so much!  we arent on a super strict hs schedule its weird unschooly type thing but i still have a routine in which we do things so i'm not sure but i'm ging to take the rest of this month  to relax and just see what happens like you said, good idea :)