5 Steps to Homeschooling Success As A Business Owner
Since I started my business in 2015 after delivering my first daughter, I knew exactly what I wanted at the time. It was simple. I wanted a way to work from home and raise my children while also helping other women business owners do the same. Marketing has always been a long-time love of mine and something that just clicks for me. I’m good at it. I understand it. And I have experience in it. So I took the jump and started my business – Splash Owl Media (Burgess Marketing Solutions at the time).
Fast forward to today, we just started our fourth year of homeschooling and we’re a little over our first year homesteading. Many people ask why. Others ask “how do you juggle it all?”
It’s simple – we made the choices that best support our family and the lifestyle we want to live.
More and more people and families are making one or both other these shifts in their lives as well right. It’s hard to predict what’s to come. The purpose of this email is to address those families who are looking at the homeschooling option and wondering how to build a business with your kids at home and essentially do #allthethings.
It can be done.
Here are 5 Steps for Homeschooling Success (even as a business owner):
1 – Schedule is key: In order to do it all without causing a massive amount of overwhelm, a schedule that works for you and your business is necessary. For us, we do homeschool in the morning between 8-10 am Monday through Thursday. Fridays are set aside for field trips, library adventures, and science/STEM projects. My husband and I both go to “work” at 10 am when the nanny gets here (no we didn’t always have a nanny). Fridays are also half days for us so we can spend that extra time doing the fun projects with the kids.
And now that we’re about to welcome our 4th baby into the world in just a matter of a little over a month, we are heavily relying on a schedule to help us with this new life adjustment.
2 – Creating a routine that works: Something to compliment a schedule is a routine. We have three kids with one on the way. We all have chores each morning and evening. And certain days of the week mean it’s either laundry day, cleaning the barn, mowing, etc. I grew up with an Army dad. I love structure and routine. And the more family members there are, the more I realize how important it is to establish a good routine where everyone in the family does their part and we all help one another. However, our routine may look different than yours. For example, we have school at the same time every day during the week. If they don’t finish the assignments, they do it during “quiet time” or push it to the next day. They know we have spelling, writing, reading, and math every day. Most of the time our 9-year-old and 6-year-old just grab their workbooks and get started.
Your routine may look slightly different based on what’s important to you and what works for your family.
3 – Getting creative with your time: As I mentioned in Step 2, routine is great but when things happen (sickness, vacation, storms, appointments, etc.) it’s good to have flexibility and work when it makes sense and do school when it makes sense. I know several homeschoolers that don’t do school until the evening because that makes sense for them. It’s important to get creative with the time you have available. My Kindergartener only does school for about an hour every day. Our 4th grader is doing his school for about 1.5-2 hours every day. A homeschool day should never take as long as a public school day. It’s vastly different in so many areas. It’s also important to know what works for your kids. When they are more likely to pay attention and when their attention starts to wane. Some days our 6-year-old is just not in the mood to sit down and do workbooks so we shift and play educational games. One of her current favorites is Bingo with her sight words.
4 – Setting proper goals and expectations: Parents who are starting their homeschooling journey tend to get overwhelmed by trying to do too much in a short amount of time. This leads to them getting frustrated and leads to the kids getting frustrated.
When we set goals we break them down monthly. Kids learn at different speeds so I find it’s easier for us to go month to month versus looking at the entire year. For example, in one month we know we’re going to focus on certain multiplication tables with our son. I set the goal that at the end of the month we will evaluate where he is and if he’s ready to move on to the next lesson. Sometimes it takes him longer to learn something and sometimes it takes him a week. We adjust based on their child, never the state test or public school evaluation.
5 – Giving yourself grace: Homeschooling isn’t always a walk in the park. It can be frustrating. We give ourselves grace on these days. Versus me becoming a drill sergeant with my kids to get them to get their school work done, I just say you know what today is not our day. We will go to the park, go on a walk, snuggle and watch shows, play a board game, or something else. This is a much better approach and leaves us looking forward to another day of homeschooling versus dreading it.
I sincerely hope this breakdown has helped you. I’m an open book so if you have any follow-up questions, please feel free to hit reply and ask away.
Have you been considering homeschooling? Or are you already homeschooling?
