How I Pull Off Homeschool And Working From Home

Homeschool and Working From Home Routine

Sometimes finding a realistic routine that allows us to take care of all our responsibilities is harder than it sounds. For someone like myself I thrive on organization, routine and predictability in my daily life. Without those things being present, I don’t think I would last a single second. Especially since I have been taking on the added roles of homeschool teacher and freelance writer to my repertoire. So how do I do it? Is it even possible to pull off? Yes, it is possible and in this post I will explain how I pull it off; and trust me, I’m no supermom. With a little organization, scheduling and the willingness to go with the flow at times, I found simple changes that allow me to take care of all my responsibilities. With that being said, no matter how efficiently I organize my time, I still feel like there are not enough hours in a day. Sometimes the hardest thing for me is sticking to the routine. I can tend to be a workaholic, but I know the routine I have in place is there for a reason and once I venture away from it I end up getting burned out.

Homeschooling

I have just wrapped up my first full year of homeschooling my daughter. She just completed the 4^th grade and in September we will start 5th grade homeschooling. At first it all seemed so overwhelming, but the slight changes I made to my routine have kept me from feeling burned out. If there are areas of your homeschool day that drive you absolutely nuts, or areas you feel discouraged in, try something new. Switching things up and trying new ways of doing things means your being innovative and customizing it to work for you. Homeschool is something that is meant to be tailored to your child, yourself, and your life.

• Staying organized

No matter what you hear, organization is and always will be the best thing you can do for your homeschooling. Everyone has their own ways they like to organize and you can do whatever works for you as long as your implementing organization into every part of your homeschool routine. Keep a record of attendance, completed assignments, projects and reports, and test and quizes. It’s all too easy to get distracted and we end up forgetting what work got done and what day they completed it, so avoid the guesswork by staying organized. You know somehow, somewhere down the road years from now, you will (out of nowhere) need to show records relating to your homeschooling. So, to avoid any future headaches, get yourself and your homeschool organized. 

• Grading Tasks

Me and my daughter have been using a mix of online Christian homeschool programs like Monarch alongside material that I find or create myself. So grading tasks will differ depending on the homeschool program you are using. Monarch does the bulk of the grading, but any open-ended questions, reports, and projects still require me to check and grade before calculating it into her final score. Additionally, any supplement materials I give her outside of Monarch needs to be graded. Keeping up with grading work daily hasn’t worked for me, so I go over all the week’s work over the weekend and grade everything at once. 

• Being Available

When it comes to juggling writing, teaching and everything else, the most crucial thing is delegating my time properly. With homeschooling, it’s necessary that I take time to be available for my daughter. Whether I’m available to answer questions, teach, or go over something she is struggling with, I make sure I give my full attention to it. This means ensuring that I am not writing, working on my website, or rushing back and forth doing housework. What we have noticed working for us is during the first half of her school day my daughter will work on everything she can do herself, all of her independent work. The second half of her homeschool day will then go to anything that demands my attention. This may mean working on Monarch assignments she needs help with, working on supplements I assigned or making crafts, doing activities and reviews for upcoming tests. Likewise, I use this time to do our chapter book readings and educational videos and documentaries. To be honest, I am learning right along with her and I have genuinely enjoyed the process of it all.

• Having A “Fallback Folder”

No matter what you do or how organized you are, you will have times when everything seems to go wrong. The kids don’t understand the work they are learning; they are lacking motivation or maybe you feel a migraine coming on. Instead or getting frustrated and forcing yourself, your child, or the day to go a certain way, it’s easier to have a strategy in place for days like these. Sometimes taking a break from our routine and lesson plans to hit the reset button is exactly what we need. I do this by incorporating my “Fallback Folder”, a pre-prepared day’s worth of work and activities that will keep my daughter learning while switching it up.

In my “Fallback Folder” I have printed out worksheets that consist of things my child has learned to serve as a review of sorts. You can get creative here, and print out some fun activities like: crossword puzzles, creative writing prompts, drawing and coloring, journal entries and more. I try to incorporate work that allows for more creative learning to allow my daughter the opportunity to express herself through different mediums. Along with the worksheets in my “Fallback Folder”, I will list some educational online game websites to break up the written work with some tech time.

Freelance Writing and My Website

There are a few things that fall under this category because writing is a process. Especially when you take into account running a website and using SEO tools to optimize your site. What is working for me is splitting up my work. No matter what part of the process I’m working on, I dedicate however many hours available that day to one specific part of the writing process. Most of the time I work 7 days out of the week, this allows me to stay on schedule and keep from falling behind. However, this is just a guide I try to stick to because there are times when I am experiencing writer’s block and instead of writing I will edit some work waiting to be finished and posted. I have found that it is helpful to have unfinished writings in the wings for those days I just can’t seem to get into the groove. I will choose one of those pieces to work on, to switch it up. Because of this I can still work on something rather than wasting valuable work time trying to force away writer’s block. Mostly I try to stick to this schedule while making a few tweaks here and there depending on what my week holds.

• Topical Research and Keyword Research

Before I write any content, I research. I research whatever topic I am writing about and I research my focus keyword for my websites SEO. Without moving into a separate topic, a focus keyword is a term or phrase you assign to your post that you would like that post to rank for in searches. This is a crucial step when you are coming up with your post topic because this word needs to be in the title and throughout the content. Trying to assign a focus keyword after you have written your post will be more of a hassle than its worth. Picking your keyword during the first step of your writing process makes it a heck of a lot easier in the long run.

• Outlining and Content Writing

Because I am a visual learner, tools like outlines and mind maps really help me organize my thoughts. So after I have conducted my topical and keyword research, I build an outline. This is when I figure out what headings I will use and how I will format it all. Having this helps me while I am writing because it allows me to go back to ensure that I am remaining on topic. If your brain is anything like mine, it is an endless carousel of thoughts and ideas spinning and circling around, so staying on topic is vital for me.

After I have my outline completed, I will finally begin my favorite part of the process, the writing. Most of my work on my website range between 1,500-2,500 words on average. This may sound like a lot, but it isn’t. Fortunately, when I was in highschool, I took speed typing courses and that has come in handy. If I commit all my work hours for one day to content writing, I can have it completed in one day. However, when I am hired to write for a client, I will spend days writing. The most recent writing job I was hired for consisted of writing chapters for a book that was being published. I worked on one chapter at a time and devoted my days entirely on writing. So it all depends on what I am working on, but like I said, this is the format I use when it comes to writing for my blog.

• Editing, Acquiring Links, and Citations

Once I have finished writing I will begin the daunting process known as editing. I have never been one who enjoyed editing, nor am I good at it. Thankfully, with the help of editing software it becomes a little less painful to do. Even so, there are no editing programs that can detect all your mistakes, so it’s important to still proofread your work after you have used the editing program. Besides editing, I will gather up all links I am using for that specific post. This can be internal links to other posts on my page, links to scripture I am using, or links to information being utilized. If I am working on something that requires me to list my sources, I will write up my in-text citations and my cited sources list all with links to appropriate information. The last thing I do in this step is to find the image/images I want to feature in my post and download them to insert into my post later.

• Uploading Finished Work and SEO Data

The final and last step in the writing process is uploading it onto the server and filling in the appropriate SEO data. This is the quickest step in the writing process, just a few clicks to copy and paste texts and insert post images. The rest is typing in the SEO data for that post, going over my post settings and setting up my post to be published on my social media platforms.

Everything Else

Because I work from home, I have to delegate my time between work, teaching and my daily responsibilities as a wife and mother. Because of this, each of the above steps in the writing process gets broken down into hourly increments timed around my other responsibilities. I usually wake up in the morning between 430 and 6am. The time before the sun comes up when its quiet and peaceful is devoted to prayer, scripture and sermons. Once I do that, I will use whatever time is left before my daughter wakes up on working. I can usually get a solid hour or two of working in before I prepare breakfast for my daughter and start our day.

Like I mentioned, the first half of homeschool will go to all of her independent work and while she is working on her schooling, I will work on my writing. After a few hours we will break for lunch and get into the second half of homeschooling, the half that includes me. After we finish homeschool, my daughter will run through her chore list while I either straighten up or make dinner. This is when my husband gets home from work and we have dinner together as a family and hang out. After dinner, my evening is a free for all. I may run errands with my husband, watch a movie, do some self care, the list goes on and it could be any of those. Since I am a workaholic, I will bust out my laptop here and there to get some work done. After my husband and daughter fall asleep for the night, I will stay up and work however long I can.

Cut Yourself Some Slack

Life is hectic and we honestly just try to do our best to get through each day in one piece. So there are days when all of my schedule goes out the window, the “Fallback Folder” is opened and not much of any working gets done. That’s just how it goes, there’s no point to fight the inevitable. That is when my “Fallback Folder” shines and I just accept that it’s a reset day. When days are running accordingly, having the schedule as a guide keeps me from working too long on one thing therefore falling behind on others. Honestly, it’s all about taking something that’s overwhelming and intimidating in and of itself, and simplifying it into smaller, more obtainable portions. So breaking down my days in this way makes it seem a lot less overwhelming.

The most important thing you can do is to cut yourself some slack. You’re not perfect, I’m not perfect, and we will never be perfect. Here’s the amazing part, you don’t have to be perfect, just do the best you can; that’s all you have to do! There will always be awesome days that make you feel like you caught lightening in a bottle. There will absolutely be days that are mentally, emotionally, physically and spiritually draining. It’s okay to switch things up and hit the reset button. I’ve had my fair share of those tough days, so much so I came up with the whole “fallback folder” hack. Remember, you don’t have to be perfect, enjoy the process, the time with your child, and the lessons being learned along the way.