New Year - New Adventures

2016 Goals And Changes

I love the start of a New Year! There is HOPE, WONDER, CURIOSITY of what is to come. I can say 2016 is going to be a BIG year of adventures for our family.

As a working parent who co-teaches with her spouse who also works outside of the home, we realize that scheduling and planning is a big part of our lives. At the beginning of each year My Husband (Hubba) and I do the following:

PREP FOR OUR NEW YEAR: We go out, eat and discuss the following

• Review of 2015 'the positives and negatives'
• Hopeful list of improvements for 2016
• Marriage check ups 'What made us happy, What we need to work on, How to feed our marriage this year'
• Parenting challenges to tackle in 2016, new method, new direction, new hopes
• Finances in review and ways to improve, coming big purchases, expenses and payoffs
• PLANS - the big one, small one, or none

NOW FOR OUR HOMESCHOOL CHANGES

Of course we made changes. We are on a BLOCK schedule where we change up every 16 weeks or so. Especially now since TIGER LILLY is in Dual Enrollment College Classes.

SPEED RACER (age 12yrs) my Blended-Middle Schooler

Homeschooled at 4th grade on.

Course Lineup for 2016 Spring
We are changing gears and adding back on for Speed Racer:

Also, we hired a personal TUTOR from FunCation Academy - to help with Algebra1 and Spanish

Jan-Mar 2016 (Daily Courses)
English, Grammar and Spelling  (Abeka) *will end in March
Biology, History (Abeka) *will end in March

Jan-May 2016 (Daily Courses)
Algebra 1 (Teaching Textbook and Abeka)
Basic Math Review (CTCMath)
Spelling Review (Sequential Spelling)
Spanish (Middlebury Interactive)

Jan-May 2016 (1 day weekly)
Scratch Programming (Landry)
Electricity Science (Landry)
Robotics (Landry)
Vocabulary Building (Membean)
Python (CodeAcademy)

All the classes were discussed with Speed Racer and he is on board to stay on task this year. We went over his REPORT CARD for his 1st 2 quarters and made some adjustments due to our discussions. He enjoys feeling as though he has a personal say so in his interest and what he is learning.

TIGER LILLY (age 14 yrs) the Dual enrolled High Schooler

Homeschooled at 7th grade on. 

 Artwork done by Tiger Lilly for my presentation

She had a great end to her Fall Semesters with a 3.5 gpa and completion of 15 College Credit hours! Woot! Total hours completed: 21 college credits.

She is enrolled in a University as a Full time student now.


Jan-Mar 2016 (Spring 1 Semester)
Java Programming 1 
College Math 1 (this is a redo since she dropped the course with the other college to do this online)
Illustration and Computer Graphics

Mar-May 2016 (Spring 1 Semester)
Java Programming 2
Pre-Calc
Economics

Landry Homeschool Classes: (Jan-May)
C Programming Pt. 2
PC Pro
Japanese

Personal Interest Homeschool Classes:
Animation Part 2: Animation Course.

Tiger Lilly loves this new college experience. It gives her more freedom and she's able to fit in classes during the days she wants to.


WORKING PARENT's LOG


Meals Revised meal planning since Momma is going on a New Year's diet (wish me luck).

Cleaning. We are clearing out our basement in preparation for our move/house sell and it is not fun. Causing lots of 'disagreements' between my hoarder hubby and me who likes to just toss stuff away.

Work & Life Balance. Finally, I think it will be controlled. Had to closeout things with a rather difficult customer and am thankfully transitioning to another. God is good, because the difficult customer actually apologized to me for his behavior and then sang my praises at a close out meeting. "God will do it!"

Also, I am working with my company to transfer my job to Hawaii. It is a rather frustrating experience as I am having to do more legwork than I anticipated, but I know it will work out with due dilligence.

Did you know, I had a part-time business? Well I do, that was suffering some in 2015, but now it's back on track and I revamped my product releases so this will be a promising endeavor. Besides, Tiger Lilly helps me out with this business and loves it.

Lesson Planning. I finished just 1 week so far. Just in time for our coming school semester.

Rest. I am getting more restful sleep now that I am the proud owner of a Sleep Apnea machine. Didn't think I'd ever need one, but it is helping me tremendously! 

Marriage Check Up. Well this moving, and parenting has caused us to have some BIG arguments lately. More so than typical. We decided to have a truce, to stay in our lane, respectfully not argue but redirect. It's been working these last few weeks. Also, we did a few date nights - even locked our bedroom door to be able to watch a movie and eat in bed without the kids bothering us.