I felt my heart surge with excitement a year ago when I took a huge leap for myself and my family. We made a decision that it was time for me to start working from home full-time. It’s something I’ve always wanted and after nearly two years of working from home (during COVID), we realized then that it was the lifestyle we wanted for our family.
We were already homeschooling our two oldest ones for a few years and we had balanced it with me working out of the house, with some of their school being done during the day time with my husband and me fitting in other pieces in the evenings with them.
But now we’re all home together throughout the day and I was fortunate enough to find a company to work for that is fully remote and allows me to balance my home life seamlessly with my work.
Don’t get me wrong though, it is a lot to manage and keep things in some sort of order. If you’re wondering whether or not it’s possible to work full-time AND homeschool your children, then rest assured that it is absolutely possible!
One of the very first things I did was create a time block schedule. Some people immediately know what this is and others its a new concept. But essentially I use my Google Calendar and have created a color block schedule with everything I know I need to do each day. It includes reminders for my morning yoga and journaling, the hours I am blocked off to work and the time I spend doing school lessons with my kids.
Here is a great post about setting up Time Blocking with Google Calendar.
Having a schedule helps you to know what all the important things are that you need to get done and ensures that you allow yourself enough time for everything you want to accomplish. My work allows me a lot of flexibility with projects I’m doing, but I also ensure that I am utilizing my day efficiently to work and be there to support my family.
There are many different ways to homeschool your children and some methods require a lot more time for lessons than what you see above on my calendar. We utilize a very light curriculum, allowing our children to explore activities and topics that interest them. The time I set aside is to focus on their core assignments and then they busy themselves with self-guided activities the remainder of the day.
Now some of you may look at this and say, “Well that’s great, but I have smaller children that need more time than this.” I would agree and that was one of my biggest challenges to overcome. Our 10 and 7 year old do a pretty amazing job of keeping themselves busy throughout the day. But our 4 year old daughter needs a lot more one-on-one time.
For younger kids, I highly recommend letting them be a full partner in your day. Our daughter spends the majority of the day beside me, in her own seat, while I work. She has all kinds of activities at our desk and works on things and can talk to me throughout her day. She “supervises” her brothers and is kind of a little assistant to me. But really, she’s learning so much by being an active participant in all the household activity, that she stays engaged and is not usually looking for other things to keep her busy.
Homeschool and working from home full-time is an adventure every single day. Sometimes assignments do not get completed and other days we run ahead on things. But that’s the beauty of being able to manage our own loads the way we choose. We get lots of quality time together and all things get done as a team unit. Invaluable lessons are learned every day by observation and active participation.
I hope this helps to encourage other working parents that it is possible to work full time and educate your children in ways that you choose. It does not need to be a one or the other venture.
Adventures in Literature 