Depending on where you live there are a multitude of home schooling business opportunities available to you.
Provide an Answer to a Growing Need
Although it is difficult to count the exact number of homeschools in the United States, the Census Bureau estimates that there were about two million children being homeschooled in 2005. That number was forecast to rise by twenty percent per year.
The truth is that homeschooling is not a trend, or a fad, it affects a large part of society and homeschoolers are also consumers. Over the decades, as homeschooling has grown, the homeschool business opportunities associated with it have grown too. Whether you are interested in teaching, sales, consulting, or any other business, there is a niche for you.
Homeschooling Business Opportunities in Consulting
If you are an experienced homeschooler, you may want to consider consulting. There are many families just starting out that would be interested in having a more experienced homeschooler discuss requirements, options, schedules and all of the other decisions a new homeschooling family must make.
Consultants will help with the following areas:
- Choosing curriculum for each child
- Making sure state requirements are met
- Helping with transcripts and diplomas
- Coming up with lesson plans, scope and sequence, and other academic plans
- Organizing and scheduling the homeschool
- Record keeping
- Many other areas
Generally a consultant will charge about $200.00 for the initial consultation and follow up. After that the fee may be anywhere from $35.00 to $50.00 an hour depending on where you live.
Teaching
There are a number of parents that are uncomfortable teaching a certain subject whether it is Algebra or French. They may be looking for someone to teach those subjects to their child, and be willing to pay for the service. Other parents may be going through a transition of some sort and need someone to teach their child for a season.
Depending on which state you live in you may be able to teach the child in your home with your children. Like consulting, fees vary depending on where you live. Any subject may be of interest to someone. Consider the following possibilities:
- Art
- Music
- Crafts
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- Sewing
- Spinning
- Knitting
- Crochet
- Quilting
- Speech
- A foreign language
- Photography
- Cooking
Writing Unit Studies
There are many people who have been long time homeschoolers that started writing their own unit studies and then offered them to other people. If you like the unit study method, then this may be the business for you. Keep your notes from your unit studies and then type them up in a word processing program. You can either submit them to publishers, self publish, or release them as an e-book.Some of the homeschoolers that have been successful at this include:
- Kym Wright
- Margie Gray
- Jessica Hulsey
Sales
There are at least two ways to be involved in sales pertaining to home schooling.
Brick and Mortar Store
Opening a store can be risky, but if you have a large homeschool community then it can be quite lucrative as well. It is nice to be able to go and look at the books that you would like to buy. Since there is also a savings on shipping expenses most homeschool book stores can thrive in the right location. It is a good idea to carry used curricula too. In fact, some homeschool stores also have tutoring, classes, consultants, and test administrators on staff to make them even more valuable to the home schooling family.
You can also open an online store, which will mean you have less expense but more competition.
Sales Representative or Affiliate
There are book companies that sell their products through in home parties and sales representatives like Avon does. One of the foremost of these is Usborne Books. The representative sells books at book fairs, home parties, homeschool association meetings and through other venues and receives a percentage from the publisher. You can also set up a blog or website and sell items from Amazon or eBay, as well as others. These affiliate programs pay you a percentage of what was purchased from your site.
As in any type of business you will need to do your research and find out all of the specifics before you make a commitment. Homeschooling business opportunities are out there for those that are willing to work hard. Having a family business allows a family to not only support itself but to create stronger family ties.
