Our first-ever, “Back to School” Homeschool Success Hacks Blog Hop is here! Today we are discussing “Planning/Scheduling.” (Be sure to check out and sign up for our Homeschool Success Hacks Giveaway below!! There will be three great prize collections given away!)
One of the first questions people often ask me is HOW. How can you actually homeschool AND work at the same time?
And what they mean is, how and when do you do everything? How do you schedule your day?
The real answer is “whatever works for your family; just get it all done.” But I know that’s not the most helpful of answers!
Well, I thought today might be a perfect time to show you how we have actually scheduled our days throughout the years!
When I first started Working While Homeschooling, and our girls were small, this is what our schedule started out like. As you can see, we did homeschool work in the mornings, and then I worked from home in the afternoons.
Now, as they got older and stopped “resting,” our schedule adjusted a bit more.
Then we moved; they were a bit older and wanted to do more “outside activities” – playing on the playground wasn’t cutting it for them anymore. So we flipped my work schedule so that they began to do their schoolwork while I was working. (It was about 3rd grade for our youngest.) We moved to “more independent/less-mom-driven” type homeschool materials. I would give them assignments and instructions on my breaks in between calls. And check all schoolwork after lunch when my office hours were done. Afternoons began to be filled with various therapies, etc as diagnoses came into play, or we were busy with dance/swim team (depending on the year).
When we moved back to DC in 2017, and our oldest was entering “6th grade,” it was necessary for me to start building my “client hours” back up and work more hours. And with more “special needs diagnoses” entering our picture, I became a carpooling ninja. I was booked every single second of the day. The Homeschool Co-Op we found was one I didn’t have to volunteer and could drop them off. We absolutely loved that experience. We also had American Heritage Girls on Monday evenings, and Church Youth group on Wednesday nights, giving our girls all the “socialization” they could possibly handle.
And finally, our most recent move has upended everything once again. It’s going to allow much more flexibility in my schedule, but we haven’t figured out what that is going to look like yet. Just being here two-ish months, we’ve been able to figure out our homeschool stuff and not much else. So everything else I’m still working on and is up in the air.
And I wanted to share that with you guys, just to show you that it’s okay if you don’t have everything figured out completely before you begin! Your planning/scheduling will evolve as you go! I recommend you start slowly and then try to roll in new things slowly.
Give yourself PLENTY of time to adjust (I find that I seem to need more time for “adjusting” when I’m trying to work and homeschool!)
And as the homeschool year begins, I would really recommend giving yourself that extra time to get fully operational. I often try to get the homeschool work adjustment done before the extracurricular activities begin. If it takes the entire first month to get completely in-the-swing-of things, THAT IS OKAY!
Be sure to check out and sign up for our Homeschool Success Hacks Giveaway below!! There will be three great prize collections given away!
This post is a part of the Homeschool Success Hacks: Back to School Blog Hop series. You can find more posts and more participating blogger articles by going to this link. You can find my other participating posts here and here. You can also search by #HomeschoolSuccessHacks online!
This was super reassuring, and I loved all the spreadsheets! I am also trying to work from home and homeschool, and I feel “guilty” that my daughter goes to a local preschool part-time and that we have a nanny to help out so that I can work. It may not look like traditional “homeschool,” but it’s what we’re doing for this season of life. I kind of love it, but hesitate to share what we’re doing, fearing that traditional homeschool families would tell us “that doesn’t count!”.
Looks like a great system. Thanks for the chance.