Originally Posted by MrsSteinel'sHouse:
I have been doing childcare for 20 years and I homeschooled both of my kids. Dd is now a teacher and Ds is in college. I know this is not the answer you are looking for but we "home" schooled. Which meant we were at home. It takes time at home to get the work done. If we wanted any field trips, classes etc we did them in the evenings or on the weekends. Yeah, we weren't part of the "cool" homeschoolers but my kids got an excellent education and I still kept up the business and even put my husband through college. If we could make it to the monthly skating because of a fluke in the schedule- we would do that but otherwise I didn't worry about it. We hosted kids from Japan for a month in the summer (4 times) my daughter went to Japan. My son trained in an Olympic sport, traveled to compete, (dad taking him) and is in college now on scholarship for that sport. I could never understand how other families ran all the time to do cool classes because we needed that time at home. I never got in to the coop thing because if I wanted them to be taught by someone else I would have sent them to school. I am very grateful though that I had littles here when schooling though. It taught them compassion for the littles, patience, and how to care for little ones! I would not trade the experience. So, I guess what I am saying is that if it doesn't work out like you want it to, it may still be a wonderful experience.
We do the same thing! But seriously, this was so encouraging to read as we're just starting out
at the start of the year I was kind of bummed we wouldn't get to be a part of the things other homeschoolers are doing, or do a random feild trip during the day. But God really opened doors to so many evening activities, and weekends when we can still do feild trips. Also, my husband and I schedule our days off together so we pick a few random days a year to do a "feild trip" on a weekday. Not nearly as much as the other homeschoolers I know, but still a good amount. And both of us get to be there! Now as we finish up this year, I love that we do it this way. The only other option for income would be to get a night shift or weekend job instead of the daycare but my heart's not in that at all. But it is another option to keep the days open if that's really important to you!