Homeschooling Nights and Weekends as a Working Parent

Yes, this is the FREEDOM of homeschooling as a WORKING PARENT.

You have permission to break all rules and do Homeschool during the NIGHTs and WEEKENDS

THINGS YOU MAY HAVE TO GIVE UP

Tons of sports and extra-curricular activities.

A formal curriculum that is to rigid for you to augment around your varied schedule.

Your perseption that school can only be done during the day and the weekday.

CRAZY TURNS OUR SCHEDULE HAS TAKEN

We virtually homeschool year around.

The core of our curriculum is taught from Mid-July to the 1st week of April.

Why? So my kids can take advantage of all the Spring Break weekly camps offered in our area and get the opportunity to play with their traditional schooled friends.

We don't finish homeschooling work til 10:30pm! Yep, you heard me - 10:30pm.

We homeschool every other Sunday or Saturday (I alternate which allows both my husband and I who work outside the home to make up work hours without sacrificing school work).

We do a 'Block' school schedule similar to a college schedule where the kids learn or focus on certain subjects every 8-9 weeks, then a new subject is introduced. Math, Science and English is consistent though.

MUST HAVEs for NIGHT and WEEKEND SCHOOL

Let your kids sleep in late. And stay up late.

A schedule and/or Lesson Planned out. We do sports every season, I make sure the sport only takes up 3-4 days out of our week. Those days we have a condensed schedule of rotating subjects.

An open mind.

Car schooling ability. Make your curriculum and homeschool work - mobile - so you can take it on the go! Therefore if you have a kid in a sport, your other kid can be working with you.

A curriculum that pretty much teaches most of the information independently. That allows your kid to do some on their own.

Workbox system has helped us immensly!

WEEKLY WRAP UP

Great weekend recap!

Tiger Lilly's cheer team won 1st place and Grand Champion - ending her Fall cheer season. What a way to end the year!

Speed racer had a blast at his cousins ALL BOY birthday party at Skate Zone then back at his house for a nerf gun battle. Twenty boys - one large basement - my little guy had a ball.

Work this week.

Speed Racer is doing so well with getting his independent online work done in the afternoons before I start working with hime. He finishes: Xtramath, Mango Languages, IXL, Music Learning online, Tynker, Minecraft Homeschool (his new favorite class) all before 2pm. Then I checked his work to find he is doing well on each independent topic.

Monday was a bad day for him considering he only got 7 hours of sleep. But he turned his day around (after a quick review of his Calm Down List).

He likes to work on his Saxon math independenly, and he and I only do the Mental Math portion together. He reads the lesson, does his drill, then his 25 questions. After we did some corrections to wrong answers, we move on. Then him and I tackle his Speed Reading, Spelling You See. He does the online/computer daily test for Sequential Spelling. My husband (Poppa Bear or Hubba) worked with him in the evening doing Abeka DVDs that instruct him in Math, Bible, Reading, Penmanship, Language, Science and History (We only review the Abeka Spelling words daily but it's no longer our core Spelling program).

Tiger Lilly has been studying for her CLEP and Accuplacer test. [GAME CHANGER ALERT] As with everything in homeschooling - I have to be flexible. So we made a change to our study plan - again (only the 2nd time this school year!) We had planned on doing all these back to back CLEP test and both her and I think it's making things way too hectic. She told me she doesn't want to go about it this way any longer. Instead, she just wants to take the classes for some of the subjects. We are adding 2 college courses for her Winter Semester and 2 for her Spring Semesters in subjects she enjoys. She can take them at the local Community College online. Therefore, she only plans on taking 1 CLEP this school year.

Since Cheerleading is over, she has time to catch up on some of the subjects she only worked on 2 times a week. We added them to her daily schedule now. (Econ, Physics, American Gov't). Her independent courses were on hold this week til Wednesday while she studied (Java Programming, Python (through Landry), Logic (through Currclick), 3D Animation (through Youth Digital), French (through Middlebury Interactive) and Teaching Textbook Algebra.

She worked through her other Abeka subjects via her DVD school and talked to her tutor on Algebra 2, Chemistry, and US History.

I was so proud of how much more independant the kiddos are getting. However, they still need A LOT of accountiblity.

Days we schooled? All week long in the evening til 11pm on Wed and 10:30pm the other nights, and there will be a Sunday school day of 2 hours for make up work or working with a tutor on subjects where help is needed.

WORKING PARENT's LOG

Meals. Didn't plan this week. So Tuesday I stopped at the store and picked up already seasoned meat (Chicken, Fish, Beef). Viola! One less thing for me to do. Frozen veggies (don't judge) with more of that yummy Goya rice, fried potatoes, macoroni and cheese complements of Velveta.

Cleaning. My homehelper, daughter Rose, did the folding for me. She felt bad for me since I was planning on staying up late Sunday night to get them finished. The rest of the house is in need of a deep cleaning. Still haven't found a cleaning lady. But the deep cleaning is scheduled for...before we leave for vacation in December (that's my hope!).

Work & Life Balance. Yeah, and I volunteered to run a homeschool event that oh, only 3 kids showed up for. I believe that will be my last coordination for awhile. I find just inviting my kids friends from recreational sports activities tends to be more of a benefit of my time. However, I do this so my kids can build friendships. It's hit or miss.

This week didn't go as planned. I ended up working less hours than I wanted but thank goodness for paid vacation. My side business had some needs crop up and I worked on those while my kids were homeschooling in the evening with my husband.

Lesson Planning. I actually finished planning for next week early (so what if we are only doing school for 2 days). Thanksgiving break we have off from the 26th to 29th. Then back on the wagon. So I hope to get all of December (only 2 weeks of plans) done by the end of the weekend.

Rest. Failed at this on Monday. Even though the kids were finished I stayed up working on my part-time business stuff. I regret doing it, lol! Tuesday through Friday I still got up at 4 am, but made sure I took my power nap on Wed and Thu 30 minutes each day. Thank goodness I get to sleep in on Saturday!