Sometimes one income isn’t enough and you, as a homeschool mom, need to find a way to help out with the family expenses. One way to do this is to watch children in your home. This is always my fall back. I actually went to college for early childhood education, to work in daycare centers. Homeschooling and having a home daycare is challenging but definitely doable.
Homeschooling and Having a Home Daycare
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We knew that when we made the move to the Maritimes I would need to have an enough income coming in each month to cover our rent. Providing childcare allows me to stay at home with my kids so we can continue to homeschool, and have an income.
It is not always easy. It is not always something I want to do, nor is it necessarily something I want to do long term, I want to get out of the house again during the week!
Making it work
Have a homeschool plan. Know what you want to accomplish each day in your homeschool and be realistic about what you can actually do. Math is simple for my older girls because they do math online and need very little help from me. Getting a planner and using it makes the biggest difference.
Reading is easy as well. 1. My girls can read to themselves. 2. Gauge (and my girls) can read to me any time – while we’re on the floor, on the couch, while I’m making lunch, etc. 3. Me reading to my homeschool kids is me reading to my daycare kids.
Science and history are little more tricky, I’m not going to say hard or difficult, because it’s about planning. We either do these on the weekends, or on days that I don’t have a lot of “extra” kids in the house. Also, documentaries. These can be watched and everyone is learning. We were watching one about large cats and the three year old was asking what animals would bite, she was learning along with us, at her level.
Life skills
Having a home daycare while I have my kids at home for school has been amazing for learning life skills! My 10 year old wants to be in charge of lunch three days a week. With little babies and a child with allergies she’s learning to think about what she wants to make to make sure everyone can enjoy it before she starts in the kitchen.
How Parents Feel about Homeschooling and a Home Daycare
I have had parents come to meet me and see our home that couldn’t understand how I could provide care and homeschool at the same time, and decided we weren’t a good fit because of it, or I got the “you must have so much patience and be so organized!” comment. Both responses are OK. The parents of the kids I have now, love that I have “helpers”, they love that their little ones have older kids to watch and learn from, and for the little ones that are just learning to walk – someone to chase. 😉
Starting a Home Daycare
I’m not going to touch this one as it is different everywhere. You need to look into how many kids you are allowed to have, what you need to do in order to provide care for kids if you are wanting to set up a Home Daycare.