Whether you are an experienced homeschool parent considering taking on a remote job or you are an established careerist working from home during COVID-19 and thinking of homeschooling your children, there is good news for you—both homeschooling and working from home are possible with the right preparation and scheduling. Take it from Michelle Oliver, a homeschool mom experienced in the art of homeschooling while working from home.
Insights:
- Get out all the games.
- Wear your children out.
Get out all the games.
Michelle and her husband collected many board games over the years. Brilliantly, Michelle would only take these games out for her children to play when she had to work from home. This would consume her children’s attention for several hours, giving Michelle enough time to get some work done.
Wear your children out.
The second thing that Michelle would do when she knew she needed to work from home was to wear out her children. She would take them for walks in the park and neighborhood, exhausting them of energy so that they would be too tired to bother Michelle while she worked later in the day. This gave her about two to three hours of uninterrupted work time.Â
How can I homeschool while working from home?
Follow Michelle’s suggestions! When considering which games for your children to play, games like Candyland and Go Fish are a good deal of fun, but their gameplay time is short. Rather, have your kids play games requiring hours to play, like Monopoly, Settlers of Catan, Risk, and Life. In regard to Michelle’s second bit of advice, you might not live near a park in which to take walks. However, you could send the children to play in the backyard or coordinate with another homeschool parent to look after your children during specific times of the week so that you have a children-free house in which to get some work done.
For more answers to your questions, visit our blog or our video series Ask a Homeschooling Parent!
