Nursing and homeschooling 3 kids

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I start my first semester of Nursing tomorrow. It's a 2 year ADN program through my local community college. During the orientations they drilled in us that our life and even kids will be put on hold. If anyone has a job to quit it and to expect to not spend much time with family. I home school my 3 children. They are 12, 10 and 8. My mom and mother in law will watch them during the day and they will do lessons on their own and what they have problems with I will teach them in the evenings. Does this seem impossible? One of the nursing instructors looked at me with such sad eyes when I told her I home school. Anyone else here been down this road?

I will read the other comments soon, but I just wanted to write a quick "You can do it!" I am entering my third semester(not counting prereqs) in my ADN program. I have 4 kids, ages 5/9/11/14, that I have always homeschooled. We have definitely had to adjust how we do things, but so far, so good. When I am with them, I focus on Math and Science, and when I am at school/studying they do lots of field trips, outside classes/sports/music lessons/watching documentaries/reading good quality books. I also signed up for Time4Learning, an online program where things are already preplanned and they can be more independent.

I am fortunate enough to have great family support, or I wouldn't be able to provide adequate learning opportunities for them AND manage my own school. I am pleasantly surprised with how it's going so far. Planning is KEY. I plan out my week for my homeschooling time, study time, grocery shopping etc. I think your success will have a lot to do with how flexible you are willing to be in doing what works vs doing things the way you always have done them. I don't know what style of homeschooling you favor, but if you are normally very school-at-home and formal, you may have to flex for a couple years.

Things are less formal for us that I would like right now, but still rich in learning. The kids have learned a lot about whatever I am learning in my classes, and they see mom tacking new challenges and growing. When I graduate, we will reassess and adjust.

OK this is not really such a quick post, but I am excited to see someone else homeschooling and going to nursing school! You can do it!

Thanks so much for this. I'm so excited to see a response...lol. We are definitely NOT "school at home" We are very Charlotte Mason-esque. I don't know how familiar you are with that style of homeschooling? It can be a bit involved, especially at younger ages because they are not yet ready to read their own material. That being said, there ARE options we can look into, such as using audiobooks and free sources like Librivox (online free audio for lots of classic literature) that can help with proper planning. I go back and forth and back and forth on this decision and whether or not it's the right thing for my family. My kids really really miss having mom at home as much.

BUT this year has been crazy. I can't remember if I went into this or not in my post. Hubby is finishing up his RN (he'll be done after this coming semester starting in a week) and so I'm currently working two part-time jobs (equals full-time hours) PLUS taking half-time courses (nursing co-reqs). I actually think I might be home MORE when I start the nursing program because I get to quit both jobs once hubby has his first RN job...lol! But of course much of my brain power and time will be sucked away by nursing coursework. But I will have ALL non-nursing coursework done save one class (Microbiology - that would've been done this summer, but I'll be having a baby then instead - hehe), so that will I think help with keeping things manageable while I homeschool.

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I love Charlotte Mason style homeschooling! It's what I have always done, with occasional brief forays into other curricula. I dislike workbook style learning and as soon as I am done we will definitely chuck the Time4Learning. I second Khan Academy recommendations for kids older than 10 or 11, we will be keeping that for math. I do think CM has stood me in good stead with the stage of life, by remembering that learning happens all the time, and the goal is to provide a rich environment. We do lots of audiobooks, Librivox.com for free and Audiobooks. All my kids have their own headphones/kindles and assigned books to listen to, and my oldest reads to the middle 2 siblings every night from approved books(she loves it. I definitely don't make her!) every night before bed. I have had to cut back on the Nature Study and outside time, we still do Artist and Composer Study and poetry. The kids narrate to me but not as regularly as I would like. I am looking into having them record their narrations right after they read, for me to listen to later. My husband and I would also like to travel when I am done with school, he is an RT. I think that travelling/homeschooling would be an incredible opportunity and experience! It's so great to come across someone else with similar experiences/goals!!

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I love Charlotte Mason style homeschooling! It's what I have always done, with occasional brief forays into other curricula. I dislike workbook style learning and as soon as I am done we will definitely chuck the Time4Learning. I second Khan Academy recommendations for kids older than 10 or 11, we will be keeping that for math. I do think CM has stood me in good stead with the stage of life, by remembering that learning happens all the time, and the goal is to provide a rich environment. We do lots of audiobooks, Librivox.com for free and Audiobooks. All my kids have their own headphones/kindles and assigned books to listen to, and my oldest reads to the middle 2 siblings every night from approved books(she loves it. I definitely don't make her!) every night before bed. I have had to cut back on the Nature Study and outside time, we still do Artist and Composer Study and poetry. The kids narrate to me but not as regularly as I would like. I am looking into having them record their narrations right after they read, for me to listen to later. My husband and I would also like to travel when I am done with school, he is an RT. I think that travelling/homeschooling would be an incredible opportunity and experience! It's so great to come across someone else with similar experiences/goals!!

Oh wow. OMG - this does NOT happen often! Do you plan to take full-time travel contracts when you travel? Given my hubby is also a nurse, one option we're considering is having him take the full-time travel contracts and maybe I'll just try to find PRN/per diem work as an RN in my niche at whatever location we happen to be at. I've actually been trying to ask around to see if this is feasible, i.e.. will a temp/medical agency hire me for PRN/per diem work if we're only going to be in town for the 13 weeks that hubby has a contract? OR we may alternate contracts and then each of us gets a nice 13 week break. Once the kids are older and/or we're at the empty nest stage, then we can just both work. I'm curious given that you and your hubby are looking at this also! I actually just posted a thread on just this topic too...lol!

And yes, Charlotte Mason schooling is AWESOME!!!! I LOVE it and am so happy that I was lucky enough to stumble right into it before we began our homeschooling journey!

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I'm not in nursing school yet, but we're in our 5th year of homeschooling, and I'm in school full time. We use Oak Meadow, which is very "whole child". My kids are 9 and 11. At the beginning of each week, I print out a check list of things they need to take care of - when they do it is entirely up to them, they know it has to be done by Friday (they are usually done by Thursday, because once they've finished they can play Minecraft and watch YouTube). When I'm at school, they work independently, and when I (or my husband) get home, we help where needed. We're part of a co-op with friends, so we do science experiments and stuff like that with them. We also supplement with Time4Learning as needed (if I'm especially busy, or I don't feel there is enough to do that week for our lessons). Most of their learning is literature based, which I really like.

The thing I think people tend to forget is that one on one learning takes FAR less time than the usual teacher to child ratio. We spend maybe an hour a day on lessons. We can learn in the park, or in a parking lot. At the library or at the doctor's office. At 7pm or at 9am. It doesn't really matter. My kids love it.

So yeah, I think it can be done, and done well.

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Specializes in Mental Health, Maternity & Well-Woman Care.

(For ItsThatJenGirl): Hi there! Would you be able to answer a few questions about oak meadow? Have you used their program since kindergarten? Also, are your children enrolled in the school or are they only using the materials?

TIA :)

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(For ItsThatJenGirl): Hi there! Would you be able to answer a few questions about oak meadow? Have you used their program since kindergarten? Also, are your children enrolled in the school or are they only using the materials?

TIA :)

This is our first year with Oak Meadow and my kids are absolutely thriving with it. We don't use the online school, but that's our plan once I hit nursing school.

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Hi there chalsa, I'm wondering how it panned out, nursing school and homeschooling? I homeschool my kids, and I am considering doing nursing school/becoming a nurse in a few years. I have 4 kids, and in 5 years they will be 11, 9, 7, and 5; so as of now I am only officially homeschooling the eldest. But one thing I wanted to point out, and to encourage you- challenge your (and others) paradigm of whaT education looks like. Before I started homeschooling, I had dreaded and imagined days and years of being tethered at home, books, and worksheets, and nonstop being with my kids; I unfortunately learned this from watching only a few moms I knew homeschool. I wasn't going to collapse under the pressure and just send them off to public school, so it drove me to explore more homeschooling styles, and I discovered the Charlotte Mason method. But in short, it totally shifted my thinking that school would be worksheets and being at home, to a more organic/learn while you do life style. The reason I say that is that, with a little shift in thinking, it may take only a fraction of time for schooling, therefore making it totally possible to work AND homeschool. Obviously nursing is different in the sense of hours are atypical compared to 9-5 job; now I'm not sure how one would pull that off without endless coffee drinking ;). Anyways, I know u posted this long ago, so you probably made your decision already. But how did it go?

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