Need to go back to work...how can I still homeschool??? Please help...

[cyndyinohio]

Unfortunately, I need to get a job. I REALLY want to still keep homeschooling, if at all possible. Do any of you work and still homeschool?? Would you recommend it?

 

What kind of jobs could I do and still homeschool?

 

What kind of curriculum is better suited to a mom who works??

 

My kids will be ages 3 to 15.

 

Any advice/encouragement would be appreciated.

 

Thank you.

[Tap]

How many kids will you be homeschooling and what ages?

 

Are you a 'light a fire at both ends person' or an 'I need 9 hours of sleep and a couple of hours of downtime daily' person?

 

Do you have any specific job skills? Any previous experience? Education?

 

 

 

 

I homeschooled my kids for 5 years while I worked. I am a very active person who doesn't mind missing sleep to live the life I want to live. I work as a pharmacy technician. I used to work the evening shift so I could homeschool in the morning before I went to work, then then last year, we switched it up. I was only homeschooling dd13 who was a night owl. I would work until 8pm and then she homeschooled from 9-midnight, then she did independent work until 3am. She would go to sleep and then get up in the afternoon to play wiht her friends in the neighborhood.

[Samiam]

Consider working from home. There are several legit companies that hire at home workers. There's been many threads regarding this. If you don't have any skills that you can translate into "creating your own job" (and that's me....perhaps I have skills, I just don't have an inkling to create a job from them, lol!), there are many companies that hire at-home workers to do "call center" type work.

 

LiveOPs, Working Solutions, Teletech, VIPDesk are all legit companies I know off the top of my head. Arise, the company I work with, is as well. All companies that hire you to work at home, taking calls for customer service/sales. Most don't hire full-time, it's not get-rich $$, but it is certainly "help pay bills and put food on the table and maybe even pay for some fun things" $$. A few of those set your shift for you, and a few let you pick your own schedule each week (Arise is one of these).

 

Arise is what allows me to stay home. My other options would be get a full-time corporate type job, which doesn't bode well for homeschooling. Or get a part-time in the evening job. That' almost not worth the $$, with having to worry about my children being home (DH works at night as well), not being able to get to evening activities, having to work THEIR schedule around my life. With Arise, I set my own schedule so I work around my life, when it is good for me.

 

http://www.ratracerebellion.com has great (and free) listing of real legit companies.

hth

Edited June 16, 2012 by Samiam

[Bang!Zoom!]

Daycare interest you?

[cyndyinohio]

How many kids will you be homeschooling and what ages?

The kids I will be homeschooling would be in grades K, 2, 4, 6, and 10 (although the 10th grader can do his schooling on his own for sure). The 6th grader still doesn't read that well, so I'm not sure he could do his on his own...unless there was lots of audio/video. I also have a 3 year old.

 

Are you a 'light a fire at both ends person' or an 'I need 9 hours of sleep and a couple of hours of downtime daily' person?

I normally keep myself pretty busy...need about 7 hrs. sleep and just a little down time at the end of the day. But I've not worked outside the home and homeschooled before. If it were a super stressful or demanding job it might not work well.

 

Do you have any specific job skills? Any previous experience? Education?

I have a Bachelor's in Elementary Education but am no longer licensed in Ohio. It would take my getting 12 credit hours to become licensed again. I wonder if I should...although my being a teacher doesn't seem conducive to being able to homeschool. But it would enable me to do homeschool assessments in Ohio. I have all this time done (unpaid and very sporadic) administrative assistant type of stuff for my husband's painting business (designed his webpage and business cards, typed up invoices and other papers, did his taxes.) I've worked as a naturalist, sub teacher, daycare worker, and waitress before leaving the workforce.

[Quiver0f10]

 

Do you have any specific job skills? Any previous experience? Education?

I have a Bachelor's in Elementary Education but am no longer licensed in Ohio. It would take my getting 12 credit hours to become licensed again. I wonder if I should...although my being a teacher doesn't seem conducive to being able to homeschool. But it would enable me to do homeschool assessments in Ohio. I have all this time done (unpaid and very sporadic) administrative assistant type of stuff for my husband's painting business (designed his webpage and business cards, typed up invoices and other papers, did his taxes.) I've worked as a naturalist, sub teacher, daycare worker, and waitress before leaving the workforce.

 

How about tutoring? You could set your own hours around you school schedule.

[Wabi Sabi]

I homeschool by day and work nights/weekends. It's tough but can be done. Given the number of children you have and their ages is it safe to assume that you'll need something with a non-traditional schedule anyhow? I would imagine that childcare costs would eat up all of your income if you worked a traditional 9-5.

[MiniBlondes]

I was also going to recommend visiting ratracerebellion.com. I have worked from home for West at Home before. I took inbound customer service calls. It was great and I could basically set my own hours.

 

Good luck!

[black_midori]

Wow - with 7 kids and so many grade levels being homeschooled, I can only imagine how tough that will be. If you are willing to work Dr hours (80+ hour weeks with lots of activity & little downtime), maybe, but definitely not someone like me! lol

 

How many hours a week are you planning to work? Anything over 20, and I think it will detract a huge amount from your ability to focus on your kids' education. Even under 20, you are talking about 20 hours a week that you will no longer be able to either teach, review, or plan - and that is a HUGE deal for the grade levels you are talking about. If kids are all young, school & planning can be fairly quick & easy - all old, and most work can be independent if planned well - huge mix and you are talking about non-stop days of planning, teaching, organizing, reviewing, etc.

 

Do you have someone to watch the younger kids while you are at work? Or do you anticipate the older ones doing babysitter duty instead of school while you are gone?

 

Ideally, you would have a job that can be done at home or work and pays a lot for a fairly small amount of work (accountant, lawyer, etc), but most of those will require large amounts of schooling. Even if it is something from home, though, you will have to decide if you can really DO it at home! I do accounting, and my original plan was to do 1 day at the workplace and 1 day at home. It is set up so that I can work from home, but I do 95% or more of my work at the workplace now, because even with just 2 kids I can't work well from home (constant interruptions drop my productivity by an astonishing amount - I am a "focus & do it" person and can't stand the back & forth, even over the course of hours).

 

Can you cram all work into a shorter number of days? I really like working 2 solid 10 hour days & then having the rest of the week free. I think that working fewer hours over more days interrupts my days more radically and makes it harder for us to keep on track (just me, though, and everyone is different!).

[Tap]

I can't imagine trying to homeschool those ages and working. That would be extremely hard!

 

Does your partner work 8-5 hours or something different. Is this person willing to watch the kids alone if you are working weekends?

 

 

Even working from home would be hard with that many distractions.

 

I would maybe look at jobs that would have you off work before time that you would start school. Maybe a coffee place like starbucks, working the early morning shift? Or just working weekends?

 

Currently I don't homeschool, but I need to be around a lot due to dd5s issues. I work Friday afernoons, Saturday and Sunday. I work about 25 hours. Dh has his schedule set to get off early on Friday, and he has all the kids on the weekend. I could see something like that working for you, but it would take a big commitment from your partner. The way it works, neither of us really gets much freedom each week, because dd5 requires so much work. But it works for us, and we realize that we choose this life style to have my extra income/benefits.

[Desert Rat]

I would look into tutoring. I don't know about your area, but licensed teachers get up to $60 an hour.

I work 3-4 afternoons a week cleaning houses. I do very well for the time spent. It's hard work, but I'm good at it. I also help people declutter and organize. This is what I love! I only have 2 kids. My parents live 2 blocks away and the boys stay there about 4 hours every afternoon.

I school in the mornings and my oldest works independently at their house in the afternoons. My little guy has spelling words to go over with Papa and handwriting to practice.

Good luck!

[AngelaNYC]

I work evenings (20hrs/week) around dh's work schedule. I started 6 years ago after being a SAHM for 12 years. I'm a sales rep in a call center for the cable company. The good thing about that is they have late hours, weekends, and part-time is available. It's really great money, I have all day to spend with the kids, and I'm home by 9:30pm. See if that's an option for you.

[3peasinWa]

I know some people with degrees grade SAT's from home for $.

[bettyandbob]

You can start your own tutoring business or work for a tutoring center. Tutoring is generally late afternoons, evenings and weekends. So, if you are very organized you should be able to keep up lessons with your kids and then you can probably leave your oldest in charge for some time while you and your dh are not home.

[violingirl]

I work full time and homeschool. It's not so much about what job you can get, but what hours you can work so that there are enough hours to get everything done for both school and work. Housework fits in there somewhere too. I definitely couldn't do it if homeschooling weren't equally important to my husband- he works on school with them and helps out a lot with housework.

 

I own a music studio so I set my own hours each school year. We start school by 8 a.m. every morning and I don't start teaching at the studio until noon or 1 p.m. but then I teach until 8 or 9 p.m. most nights. I don't work on the weekends, but we do sometimes need to finish up the week's school work on a Saturday. My husband works an overnight shift one week and then is off the second week, so on the weeks he's off he also works with our kids in the afternoon if they need to finish school things. He also takes care of making sure they get to any evening activities and helps me keep the laundry and dishes under control.

[LucyStoner]

How about getting the 12 credit hours and then opening your own business tutoring and doing homeschool evals for other homeschooling families?

 

We have always both worked while homeschooling but we only have 2 kids and 1 of school age. For the first year and a half my husband worked Thurs-Sat (with the occasional 4th day thrown in) and I worked a FT M-F job that was salaried. I usually put in 35-50 hours a week but had the option to do some from home as needed.

 

We switched in Jan 2012 and my husband works 4-6 days a week (if he can get OT, he takes it) and I am home but I run a consulting/freelance business that takes between 10-20 hours a week. I try to do most of that work in the evenings and when my husband is home. I am a non-profit fundraising person.

[Rose in BC]

How about tutoring? You could set your own hours around you school schedule.

 

:iagree:Tutoring in my necks of the woods fetches $25 - $30 per hour.

[OnTheBrink]

I work 10 hour shifts, 4 nights a week at a hospital. We homeschool during the morning and dd continues her lessons after I've left for work. I have Wednesdays off as a catch-up or do-the-hard-stuff day. It's hard, but I have no other options.

[hmvaughan4]

I work with our state's Early Intervention. It's perfect for our family. I am able to make my own therapy schedule, only working in the evenings after DH gets home, or Saturday mornings.

[thefragile7393]

I have a 40 hr week job but I work 3.5 days a week, 3 12's and a 6. I use AO with some other elements.

[Closeacademy]

Some things that I have worked for me. I only have 2 dds.

 

When my oldest was preK to 1st grade, I sold things on e-bay and made decent money. Almost as much as my dh. But then the recession hit and my sources for product dried up. But there are lots of things that can be sold on e-bay or etsy or artfire or other sites. (books, used items, arts & crafts, etc.)

 

Then one year we tried daycare. I had 2 part time and 1 full time child. It was a disaster for us for a number of reasons:

 

1. certain children didn't want to be there and were disruptive

2. the part-time child was loud when he came in at the end of our schoolday

3. we made no progress in homeschooling and it threw us off track for not only that year but it has taken me 2 full years to gain ground and recover.

 

Now that my children are older, I am working part time in a bakery. I tell her when I am available and I am able to work so that my children are home for a minium amount of time before my dh gets home. Catering places can be very flexible as well. If you are able to work out of the home you may look into local catering and/or bakery type work.

 

Good luck. It is a bit to balance homeschool, work, and keeping up the house but if you need to money to make ends meet it is very rewarding.:001_smile:

[cyndyinohio]

Thank you for all of the replies! I will check them out. I am hoping to only have to work 20 hours/week...but it really depends on the pay and also what my budget is going to work out to this coming year. I am hoping to either find a curriculum that doesn't require lots of planning/hands-on time from me, or I could do my planning now while I'm not working yet. I wondered if there was anyone near me who might pay me to home-school their children? But then, that would only work out if their children were a good match for our family.

 

I wonder if I can get my 12 hours to renew my license online somehow? And maybe that would be cheaper than attending classes somewhere??

 

This is all very overwhelming....

[cin]

Thank you for all of the replies! I will check them out. I am hoping to only have to work 20 hours/week...but it really depends on the pay and also what my budget is going to work out to this coming year. I am hoping to either find a curriculum that doesn't require lots of planning/hands-on time from me, or I could do my planning now while I'm not working yet. I wondered if there was anyone near me who might pay me to home-school their children? But then, that would only work out if their children were a good match for our family.

 

I wonder if I can get my 12 hours to renew my license online somehow? And maybe that would be cheaper than attending classes somewhere??

 

This is all very overwhelming....

 

 

I've been toying with Subbing one or two days a week, but I'm just not sure about it. I'm in the same boat, degree wise. And my certificate is SO outdated. If you lived close we could sub on opposite days and teach everybody on the off days ;)

[cyndyinohio]

Has anyone here tutored before?? Do you do it at the person's home? At the library?? I could not do it at home because my kids would be distracting.

 

I thought about maybe becoming licensed to teach Simply Music?? I am not an advanced pianist, but can play enough to teach beginners.

 

I am also thinking maybe I could teach group classes to homeschoolers?? I had my son in a Spanish 1 class locally here and paid $200 for the year. There were 10 in his class or so and they met at a local tutoring place. If I taught 14 classes of 10 students each for the school year that would be a great income for me, and would only take up 2 teaching days during the week...which on one of those my 18 year old might be able to teach my own kids for me, and the other day could be an off day for them.

 

Hmmmm....

[Twilight Woods]

I work overnights Fri-Sunday at a hospital ER. I find that this is the easier shift for me to work so I can still do what I need to do during the day and still get some sleep. I also try to work when I know DH will be home so I can get some uninterupted sleep. DH is super helpful and supportive. It wouldn't work otherwise. My schedule is changing soon and I will be working 4 overnights one week and 3 the next... but the hours will be easier on me. I wont have to be at work till 1030p. :)

 

My older DD doesn't like to school in the AM so we typically do not start till 10am or later. My younger is flexible and her lessons are short so it does not take that much time to do her school stuff. I prefer "open & go" programs with already made lists of any supplies I may need for projects/labs.

[sheryl]

Oh Boy, do I have a suggestion for YOU!

 

You are 12 hours away from being re-credited? Is that right or close to it?

 

Can you complete these hours on-line? Is it do-able?

 

Why don't you tutor? Tutoring can be:

 

1. You going to someone's house and offering tutoring to child/ren in 1 or more subjects - supplemental - fill in the gaps.

2. You bring child/ren to your home to be tutored in 1 or more subjects - supplemental - fill in the gaps.

3. Start a "small" 5 student co-op/academy where you provide most of the teaching, but call it tutoring. That's what I just set up, but I am paying another Mom to teach my dd and 5-10 others. This will be good for socialization, submitting to authority, budgeting time (homework), group work, etc. Ours will be 2 days a week on M/W and this Mom will cover math, science, history, writing and literature/vocab. for $600 - 800 per semester per student. She will have the other 3 days to do what she wants. You may be surprised that this could work if you're plugged in to the homeschool community in your area and start marketing it. You would be getting paid to tutor/teach others. Maybe your other kids could join in if you had the space. We are meeting in a very small 9 x 9 ft. room. I don't know how much you need to make, but this may be an option!!!!!!

4. Offer skype tutoring.

 

HTH!

 

 

ETA: I skimmed the first 3 or so posts. I posted mine, then from the back I skimmed a couple when I just noticed (after posting my original reply above), that you asked about tutoring. HMMMM..... :)

 

 

 

 

How many kids will you be homeschooling and what ages?

The kids I will be homeschooling would be in grades K, 2, 4, 6, and 10 (although the 10th grader can do his schooling on his own for sure). The 6th grader still doesn't read that well, so I'm not sure he could do his on his own...unless there was lots of audio/video. I also have a 3 year old.

 

Are you a 'light a fire at both ends person' or an 'I need 9 hours of sleep and a couple of hours of downtime daily' person?

I normally keep myself pretty busy...need about 7 hrs. sleep and just a little down time at the end of the day. But I've not worked outside the home and homeschooled before. If it were a super stressful or demanding job it might not work well.

 

Do you have any specific job skills? Any previous experience? Education?

I have a Bachelor's in Elementary Education but am no longer licensed in Ohio. It would take my getting 12 credit hours to become licensed again. I wonder if I should...although my being a teacher doesn't seem conducive to being able to homeschool. But it would enable me to do homeschool assessments in Ohio. I have all this time done (unpaid and very sporadic) administrative assistant type of stuff for my husband's painting business (designed his webpage and business cards, typed up invoices and other papers, did his taxes.) I've worked as a naturalist, sub teacher, daycare worker, and waitress before leaving the workforce.

Edited June 16, 2012 by sheryl

[kroe1]

I work in an ER weekend nights, 12 hour shifts. It's easy to get in 36 hours a week with that schedule and your school can go to 4 days a week if needed.

 

:)

[BugsMama]

I teach art classes to homeschoolers (well, anyone, but it works out to be mostly homeschoolers). It sounds like tutoring/teaching would be your best bet :-)