Is the School Year Over Yet? Another Math Issue

WE HAD TO TAKE A MINI-VACATION for SANITY CHECK

And what did I figure out? That even though I thought I wanted to do Year Around School, I NEEDED THE DARNED BREAK or I was going to explode.

Things I had time to ponder on while on Vacation.

1) My kids would rather be PLAYING VIDEO GAMES than going on tours. That had to change.

2) I need more sleep in days.

3) I DON'T know how to fully relax and do nothing for long periods of time.

4) I don't like staying in the house, even though my kids do.

5) The Math curriculums weren't giving my son ENOUGH MATH PRACTICE.

THINGS I CHANGED AFTER MY REVELATIONS

1) Math - MY SON needed a MASTERY BASED program where HE WROTE OUT his math problems to slow down his MENTAL MATH capabilities.

He will be working with a tutor on Math this summer. I changed his MATH program to LIFEPAC for Algebra 1.

WHY did I SELECT LifePack ALG 1?

 - It's NOT online
 - Read and Do problems
 - Can be done Semi-independently
 - Hard to cheat
 - I can purchase tutor help if I need it
 - It's only $59 for complete program
 - It is different than is online CTCMath
 - It focused on practicing what you are taught until you REALLY know it before moving on. Mastery based learning.

SAXON wasn't working because their wasn't the MASTERY and Saxon is more of a SPIRAL that is just too wide for my son.

CTCMath is still a GOOD SUPPLEMENT but he needs to WRITE OUT HIS WORK.

2) NO YEAR AROUND SCHOOL, we will have 1 month and 1 week off. I NEED it, the KIDS NEED it. My Husband NEEDS it.

3) In PERSON CLASSES for TIGER LILLY. She is too much of an INTROVERT. I found an IN PERSON Japanese class, Art class, and Unity 3D coding class for High School Students after school.

4) Summer Camp for 1 month and 1 week for BOTH kids, even though I initially didn't want Speed Racer to attend since he had some challenges at camp due to his own behavior last year. His siblings pointed out, how will he learn what is acceptable behavior if he doesn't have opportunities to figure it out? Good points. So I am giving it another chance.

5) Our school year will end July 1st. Woot!

Other Good Happenings

I still love homeschooling. I wouldn't be able to give my kids chances to shine, redirect, focus, and revisit work they weren't 100% comfortable with if I didn't homeschool them.

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.

And It All Came Crashing Down

IT'S BEEN ONE OF THOSE MAD WEEKS

Where everything goes to pot, and you feel like you are losing your mind.

BUT....

I will recover, I did recover?

Well Maybe.

Why is it when you have a few good weeks, heck months, BAM! Something comes along and throws you off your 'A' game. You stumble, scream, jump up and down, then try to get back on steady ground.

Well, that's just life,and it wouldn't be half as exciting without all the drama, but darn, I hate drama.

So let's just give a tally of all the good stuff that happened to set off all the not so great stuff.

'WE ARE MOVING TO HAWAII!' Yeah, we are. It's one of my husband's bucket list items and we figured we would do it when we can both transfer with our companies to work there.

Then this happened:

1) Razor Ray and Rose Siblings got into a Loud - In - Your - Face Argument O-o
2) Tiger Lilly concealed she'd failed a test in her college math class because she hadn't been checking her homework.
3) Speed Racer has been having a VERY Disrespectful mouth and attitude that came to a head during a homeschool session where he ended up punished, and drove mom to yelling.
4) Mom found out she had high blood pressure (that's a surprise)
5) Mom's job had a snotty boss became a monster with a micro-management feast to the 10th degree and caused me to want to YELL at him too (but I kept my cool -which is another reason why #4 may have happened)
6) Thought my hubby got the job in the location of our #1 choice - but they cancelled the interview when they realized it was for Hawaii
7) Speed Racer slipped into a tantrum. I mean REALLY at 12 yrs old? I thought we were 10 months over that? Guess not.
8) Tiger Lilly will have to change Colleges for her Dual Enrollment - oh, but it will only set us back about $1K a year (eek!)
9) Mom had to work late a lot these last few weeks which made our workload more lax but caused Speed Racer to decide he didn't want to pick up the pace again.
10) Mom had to do a sleep apnea study, just because I have a bit of a snoring problem. That's what I get for having a physical after 6 years.

SPEED RACER (age 11yrs) my Middle Schooler

Homeschooled at 4th grade on.

It has been a horrible few weeks. BUT (this week has been better) Getting through school has been a major chore and biting, nashing of teeth through the smart, sassy comments, and comebacks. It has gotten progressively worse the last 2 weeks.

He barely finished viewing and taking notes on his Classroom DVDs with the Abeka curriculum for English, Grammar and Spelling , Biology, History, Economics and American Government he barely did the 'homework' and seatwork for each class.

We dropped Saxon. He started Abeka Algebra 1, with a Teaching Textbook lab on the weekend in Algebra 1 and CTCMath for remediation and practice of basic math facts.

Time4Writing is in gear and he's doing 'OK' and we both know it's not his best work. Membean is puttering a long, he doesn't complain about it. In Techrocket is going well, although, he basically is cutting and pasting the code, which is alright for now with Python Programming.

At least we survived without hurting each other.

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

Homeschooled at 7th grade on.

I even yelled at her this week.  Yep, when I found out she lied about her failing grade last week. This week, we are working towards a solution or back up plan.

So far she's doing good in C Programming, PC Pro and Japanese and loves Landry's teachers.

The Community College courses were going great until her 'B' in College Math dropped to failing grade. The professor told her she could bring it up if she past the final. So we are waiting to see what her next test looks like before we drop the class. Her Software Application's class is where she had another slip up. She forgot to do an assignment it and bought her high grade down to a 'C'. Her US History 1 course and Psychology, are holding on to their high numbers.

Tiger Lilly is doing well with Unity 3d and practicing Java. Her Animation Course started and she's liking it. I already see an improvement, even though she was already rather good.

And I registered her for University of MD, University College online classes...
They take homeschoolers (Yay!)

Several reason
1) The Community College doesn't have online computer science courses and Tiger Lilly said she isn't ready to take more live classes.

2) Since we are moving, she won't be able to get her AA degree from the Community College, so we decided to just let her work away at her BS online which would graduate her at 18 yrs old with just taking 2-3 classes a semester for the next few years.



I need a massage, warm bath, and some wine.

WORKING PARENT's LOG

Meals.I cooked, but went on strike the weekend. I refused to purchase fast food, and they complained. So...they pitched in and cooked. Hunger works that way.

Cleaning. It has not happened at the level I'd like it, so I stepped over the clutter and piled it up to put away this weekend.

Work & Life Balance. Crazy these last few weeks. But I'm treating myself to every other Friday off, which means I have to work two 12 hour days every other week. Also, the job had an emergency shut down so...I went to lunch with my oldest daughter, Rose, and invited two great friends. My daughter really enjoyed them and I enjoyed the Indian Food we had. Yum!

Lesson Planning. Slipped up and had to do it on Monday - yikes!.

Rest. Well, sorta, I have a problem of staying up way too late and waking up entirely too early. However, I did get 7 hours sleep most days.

Marriage Check Up. We love each other, even when we aren't at our best.Now we missed our hang out date time the last 2 weeks.

Why Did I Start Homeschooling?

How Did a Working Mom who Loved Traditional School Consider

Homeschooling

The Utterance From a 2nd Grader:

My youngest son was having a terrible time at school. Between my husband and I, we probably spent 1/3 of the school year showing up to address my youngest son's problems at school.

He complained of the work being 'boring'. The teachers being 'mean' and not having many friends. And the friends he had, always got in trouble too.

Speed Racer told me, "Mom, I don't think school is for me. You are a good teacher. You could homeschool me."

No way was that going to happen. I didn't know a thing about homeschooling. Sure, I'd taught Speed Racer and my other kids to read, write, and do math (all at home) even though they were in traditional school settings. But I hadn't considered teaching them, and I certainly couldn't afford being home.

Life In Motion To Change Our Direction:

Several things happened to spurn my consideration for homeschooling. It's like my youngest son's plea was tucked in my heart and my eyes started to open.

After Speed Racer had been the victim of 'Teacher' abuse, where his teacher shook him and twisted his wrist. Also, bullying and ostracizing by the other kids due to him being labeled a 'trouble-maker'. We decided to work on moving him to another school. Private school. However, both my husband and I decided that if this option didn't work, we may have to re-organize our lives to make homeschooling happen.

So mid-year of Speed Racer's 3rd grade, we moved him to a Christian School we felt would be a great fit for him. We also moved our then 6th grader, Tiger Lilly, who although, never got in trouble in school, had started become 'invisible' and more of an introvert than before. Not to mention, her grades had started to slip.

Rose, our then 10th, grader was excelling at her public high school from which her older brother had recently graduated. Rose was in the Gifted and Talented program at her school, had plenty of friends, and was some what unhappy with the sports program at her school that always cut her from the Lacrosse team.

Another 'Aha' Moment:

Speed Racer liked his new Private school - however, Tiger Lilly hated it. In addition, there were some things that GREATLY disturbed us about the school.

It was super rigid, had very little recess time, the teachers were stern to the point of being plain mean. And my poor Speed Racer, was starting to feel as though he 'could never do anything right.'

You see, Speed Racer, was a 'speak your mind' kind of kid. Also, he had lots of energy. In addition to that, he was rather intelligent and didn't like to waste time on things he already knew.

I showed up at his 'afterschool' program to find that he and the other kids were stuck in their desk, in a quiet room, doing homework. This to me was insane considering the kids had been in their seats all day from 8am-3pm already with only a 30 min break for lunch and 15 min of that was for recess.

My son would have 'accidents' because he'd be forced to hold off going to the bathroom until the entire class could go.

And I was PAYING for this mistreatment! Ugh.

Meanwhile, Tiger Lilly, was hating school. She didn't make friends to easily because she didnt' have time. Her class only got 20 min lunch and 5 min outside. She told me she felt like she was in jail.

Decision Made By The Family Sweetheart:

All of this didn't go unnoticed by Rose. Who I believe knew on some level the step of homeschooling was a scary thought for her parents.

Therefore, she announced in 10th grade, January, after we've moved to another county in our state, that she didn't want to transfer schools. She wanted to be homeschooled!

With a lot of research behind me, landing an Umbrella Group that was awesome in helping me, I felt confident taking on this journey with my older daughter.

We enrolled her in Community College courses, and I built my confidence in homeschooling through this awesome child.

Never Looking Back:

We started officially homeschooling our younger two kids, in the summer after Rose started homeschooling.

Speed Racer stood up during Rose's homeschool graduation and THANKED HER, for making his dream of being homeschooled come true.

Tiger Lilly also thanked her sister because now she loves school and learning again.

Razor Ray, my oldest also, thanked Rose as she had become his best friend since they now attended the same Community College and both played sports.

Oh, and Rose, who always got cut from her high school team? Landed a Lacrosse scholarship at her Community College and ended up participating in a workshop where she taught her old high school team tips about playing at the College Level of Lacrosse.

Blessings Never Come In The Way We Expect:

Had anyone expressed to my Hubba and I that we would both be homeschooling parents. That we'd work through it all. That our kids would give us the courage to do things we never anticipated - we would have been skeptical.

But blessings never come in the way we expect - especially when we are stubborn about believing in the impossible.

Three steps forward and One back

LIFE wouldn't be as fun IF IT WAS EASY

This week was a doozy! The schedule is in full effect and I had very little down time. Or at least I wouldn't give myself any.

Just a peek at our day would make some faint. But we got a lot accomplish this week with some added classes.

The good: We got all of our work done this week.
The bad: I was unprepared for all of the activities smashed in the middle of school day. Dance Crew (for Speed Racer), Jujitsu (for both) and Cheerleading (for Tiger Lilly) means we are out of the house with Speed Racer 5 days a week. However, Tiger Lilly will still have Friday's free.
The GREAT: We are getting used to our schedule. The college students stopped in this week briefly (one was homesick) and they got their car towed since the campus lot didn't have any obvious signs. But my oldest son paid for it out of his paycheck (which I was touched by him insisting that he pay for his own mistake.)

Here's a peek at TIGER LILLY's SCHEDULE (It changes a bit weekly)

Morning Work (Independent) 10am-2pm

Python Programming (Code Academy and Landry Academy online class)
Youth Digital (Mod Design - Java)
Writing Course (Time4Writing.com and WriteGuide.com)
Algebra 2 Math Lab
Humanities Video Review

She did most all of her work by the time I got home. The home helper only had to assist her with some of her math problems. However, she did miss 2 lessons of her Teaching Textbooks Algebra 2 she asked to make up over the weekend.

Supervised Work

Daily
Algebra 2 (Abeka)
Spanish (Abeka, Mango Languages)
US History (Abeka)
Chemistry (Abeka)
English Composition CLEP Review (InstantCert Flashcards or REA Test)

This went off without a hitch. But  it's become mom as around.

Staggered 2 Times a week
Physics
American Gov't
Economics
Art (Drawing with Instruction DVD Teacher)

She really doesn't like Physics. Mainly because of the equations. The teacher she enjoys as well as the labs. The ART class is going well. Here's her 2nd lesson.

Movie Curriculum (Watch a weekly Movie)
African American History

ROOTS - we'll be watching an episode a week

Electives She does on her own.
Japanese (Mango Languages)
Piano (HoffmanPiano Online Free Class)

She still remembers a lot of Japanese from the Youtube Video Tutorial lesson plan and workbook she started last school year.

Yes, and after all this the girl want's to add a Saturday class! Digipen 3D Animation to start next week.

Here's a peek at SPEED RACER's SCHEDULE (It changes a bit weekly)

Morning Work (Independent) 10am-2pm

Tynker.com
Xtramath.com
DiscoveryK12.com (Visual Arts, Reading, Science)
Math 7 Teaching Textbooks


Supervised Work

Daily
Bible (Abeka)
Math 6th Grade (Abeka)
Spanish (Mango Languages)
History (Abeka)
Chemistry (Abeka)
Science (Abeka)


Speed Racer had to read the CALM DOWN LIST one day this week because his father made him re-write his spelling words. Ugh. All 15 of them - 3 times. I would've had a fit too. However, after that and a short time out, he got back on task. Since Speed Racer decided he'd rather do it that night than move it to weekend work - it was a late school night.

Staggered 2 Times a week
Paragraph Writing Course (San Diego Scribblers)

I'm adding the Scrafty MineCraft class for him later this school year at his request.

Bedtime for the week? 
Well we had one 11pm night (see the meltdown explanation above?) where school finished later than the 9:30pm anticipated.

WORKING PARENTS NOTEBOOK

This week I really wondered if I was insane by putting Speed Racer in Dance Crew. It requires 3 days of practice AND weekends. He loves it though and there are 4 other boys in his class. So there! He's getting socialized.

Food Planning: Went off target this week. I usually have a quick grab and go snack prepared and dinner in the over. Well - I forgot to put the prepared dinner in the oven on Wed. and we ended up eating KFC chicken for dinner. I really hate that since I want to do more healthy food.

Adjusting to smaller family size: My oldest two kids are officially living on campus. My husband and I still cook portions as though they are coming home. Sigh. Wasted food. So I put them in containers and sent it home with them.

Getting Proper Rest: I haven't been. I only got 5 hours of sleep on Tue and Wed since I had that high of coming off a holiday Monday. I paid BIG TIME for it on Thursday and Friday.
Power Napping: Well I tried it 2 times this week. While the kids were in their sports, I typically have to wait for them so I took a quick nap both times in the car - bad, bad, bad. In order for me to get 6 hours of rest a night I have to go to bed by 10pm. when I took the 'Power Nap' it gave me a false sense of restfulness and I couldn't go to sleep until midnight each night. So in the future I will tough it out til 10pm when I collapse into bed (to read myself to sleep).

Work Home Balance: Well my work-schedule has been hectic because I'm trying to save hours to get home early next week. So I'm working 9 hour days (worked 3 days this way). I think I may start to do that in the early part of the week just in case I want to take a day off. My husband's schedule has been trying also and he's planning to have knee surgery soon so he's taking on a heavier load.


It's all fun and games - and lots more. However, I wouldn't trade it for the world.