Classes and Debating

HIGH GEAR AND STEPPING OUT

of our comfort zone

Part of me wondered why I put my son in all these social justice and debating programs this year. It only makes his ability to 'debate' his point against what I want him to do much easier.

Hard to be the only kid homeschooling now, that's what my son complains about lately. He is looking forward to working this summer and hoping to keep doing so when the new school year starts. I am concerned about the distractions, but will let him try it this summer.

He misses the days he got to hang around with his sister who is now working. Now his schedule is to sleep all day, and work on stuff in the evening, then stay up all night playing video games.

Not Working, but fell asleep playing online Games

He was supposed to be doing Computer homework

KIDS PROGRESS

SPEED RACER has a mildly packed schedule
He literally hardly gets anything done while I am at work and his dad or sibling that works from home is there.

Basically, I get home, I tell him to get off the video games and lets get to work. We work for about 3 hours on Tuesdays and Thursdays. On Monday and Wednesday only an hour or so. Most work is getting done on Sundays afternoons where it's our finish everything for the week. He will do the work, I check it, give it to him to revise, he fixes it, then turns it in.

Homeschool Classes 
Bible Study (online) with discussion with mom or dad
Pilot Training (online) mom reviews his test and quiz success and helps
Java Programming (online) sister reviews his projects and CompuScholar checks his test and quizzes


College Classes

C Programming
In week 1 of 8
-Finished Lab Project
-Finished 3 paragraph discussion
-Finished 1 page paper

Information Technology Ethics
In week 1 of 8
-Finished Ethical Analysis 5 page Paper
-Finished 3 paragraph discussion
-Finished Current Event Review paper

Foundations in Information Systems
In week 1 of 8
-Finished 3 paragraph discussion
-Finished 1 page paper

WORK and HOME BALANCE Working and Homeschooling 

MEAL PREP: This is on schedule. Thank goodness. My kids help with meal prep and planning for the week, then we do actual prep on Sunday for breakfast, lunch and dinner. This has been working well the last two weeks.

HOUSE CLEANING: Chore chart is being used for a reference and if they aren't done, they don't get to do their fun stuff...most times. I'm a softy so I have to work on this.

LESSON PLANNING: I now do it on google docs and share it with him. We get through it for the most part, now less then when both kids were homeschooling. 

MARRIAGE CHECKUP: We've been setting up a weekly game night with friends and family, not much alone time, but we are having some fun since the kids spend time playing with the other kids.

SELF CARE: My coworker bought her neck massager to work and gosh, I love it! Every morning I massage my neck for a good 10 minutes. Best way to start my day!

Planning The Next Semester

LESSON PLANNING IS NO FUN

But Someone's Got to Do it

We do lesson planning for the year, then a weekly plan, and a re-evaluation plan for the 2nd semester. It's usually when we clean out curriculum that isn't working, add curriculum we want to try or pause curriculum in place of adjustments to schedule or the child's progress.

Breaking down the school year into 4 quarters and 2 semesters has helped our family make adjustments as needed. Filling in educational gaps is something the shorter quarters or block times help us focus on. As working and homeschooling parents, it gives clear time frames for us to make adjustments and to deep dive into subjects.

TIME FOR CHANGE

It never fails, we always need to drop a curriculum item, condense something or elongate lessons. We've learned to expect it and not get too upset about it. Math and Writing are always an issue for our current student and we have had to prolong lessons in certain areas in order to strengthen and solidify understanding and skills in these cornerstone subjects.

THE QUICK AND DIRTY WAY

Creating a topic list with the subject, page/reading or videos to watch is a fast way to add a new subject or curriculum into the mix. Setting a weekly review of the student’s accomplishments of the list we do with the student’s weekly presentations to the family.

BREAKING IT DOWN

After taking note on how long it may take to finish a subject for the semester, we review areas that can be combined or removed in order to fit the shorter timeframe. We make sure to focus on the key points of the topic. Also, using visual aids and posters to show the information in a condensed manner. This is a great approach for Science, History, Language Arts, Grammar, Reading and Remediation of subjects.

PLAN IN BREAKS

Never forget to plan in for time off. Realistically planning for a four day week with one day of makeup work is doable for most working and homeschooling parents. However, we planned for a five day week with the kids having the weekend as their ‘homework’ period to finish any work they haven’t completed for the week or to review any work that they had problems with.

DON'T OVERBOOK ~ I MEAN IT ~ DON'T

This is one of the major mistakes we made early on in our homeschool and working adventures. Slowly, we learned what our challenge was and fixed the issue (mostly). Once we 'underbooked' it was easier to have time to focus on topics and skills that the students really needed the most help in.