Our First Hackathon and more adventures

PUSH the LIMITS

TRY Something NEW

These last two weeks were VERY hectic for us. I can't believe I was able to work a full-time job in between. I fell into bed on Sunday and didn't move til 10am, barely making it to church on time. And this past Sunday, we didn't make it at all as I completely forgot it was a holiday weekend.

HACKATHON

 The Team

 Talking to the Subject Matter Experts

 They really did a great job at asking questions and interviewing the customers with the different challenges. The team split up to do it and my girls decided to do their questioning together.

 The Team's 1st ONLINE MEETING using GOOGLE HANGOUTs
My 19 yr old is the Team Leader. Squeezing this in between working full-time and graduate school.

 RUBICs CUBE while attending the online meeting.

They had some challenges with their first online meeting, but now they have the hang of it it's become a good experience for all of them.

We signed up for this at the last minute. I asked my 19 yr old daughter Rose if she could lead a team so that her 15 yr old sister would feel more comfortable.

Rose jumped at the chance to do it. They have 1 month to create a solution. They decided to work on a web-application for the disabled.

DATE WITH HUBBY CRASHED BY DAUGHTER

Well hubby and I wanted to go to my favorite restaurant after dropping my daughter and her friend off at the Greek Festival. Right after I sat down, Rose texted me to pick them up.

They got to share some of the great Cheesecake at the Cheesecake Factory with us, after Hubs and I ate his Jambalaya Pasta. Yum!

DAVE & BUSTER's 1/2 WEDNESDAY and MEETUP with Homeschool Co op

The kids were so excited to be meeting up with other homeschoolers their age. We belong to two homeschool groups and we are just getting to know the folks on this one. This group stays busy and thankfully they do things in the afternoons, evenings and weekends sometimes. It has allowed me to be able to schedule them for over 8 events this year.

And... THEY DID AN OVERNIGHT GAMERs PLAY NIGHT

My wonderful hubby, partner in teaching, took the kids to the Gamer's overnight. His job is a bit more flexible at this time than mine is. The kids prefer him going to these types of activities anyway as he enjoys video gaming more than I do.

Last minute, I had to change their schedule and lighten their load when I realized all the activities they had this week.

SPEED RACER's WEEK

12 yrs

Changes! We had a SITUATION with our LANDRY ACADEMY Algebra 1 class. The teacher changed the book the week before class and we purchased the original book noted on the course signup. LANDRY IS WONDERFUL and gave us our 'generic' online course back, and allowed me to register him for another class. We elected to do the Algebra 1( which is SAXON Algebra 1 at home using the Dive disc) and to take a Logic course in the Spring.


(7am-8:30am) Online Live Class
Landry Academy Classes

Writing ER: is on Monday's.  He now is waking himself up for his morning classes! He does the homework on Saturday evenings since he said he didn't want to do the work on the Weekday's. We will see how this goes.

Python Programming is on Wednesday's: This class gave him a bit of a challenge, he doesn't like the reading homework, but I read it with him later in the day to get him engaged. He does a bit of the weekly homework a little each day.

(9 am-11am) DAILY Independent
Study.com
Psychology, Sociology, Macro Econ, Physics and Information Systems he now has these down to 10 MINUTES per course with finishing of the quizzes of 5 questions with 4 correct or more. He decided that if he didn't past the quiz after 2 tries, he would save this work for the WEEKEND (seems he doesn't mind weekend homework).

Algebra 1 (Saxon with DIVE dvds): He does a Lesson a day, watches the DIVE video, does Problem set #1 evens or odds. Then he gets a test every 10 lessons that mom or dad administers. He actually likes Saxon better than he liked Abeka's Algebra 1. He told me that he thinks Saxon gives you a slower start and more explainations than Abeka Algebra 1 did.


(11am-12:30am) Online Live Class
Landry Academy Classes

Spanish  is on Thursday's: This teacher posted a Quizlet list for the kids to go over daily with homework. He started working through the list on Monday. He does a bit of the weekly homework a little each day.

Online Classes
IXL (Language Arts) is on Monday and Wednesday and it takes him twenty minutes to finish. He doesn't like it, but realizes that it reinforces his grammar skills.

Prodigy (Math Game) Tuesday and Friday and he really likes it. He said sometimes he has to watch the time because he would stay on it for too long.

CTCMath (Algebra): on Monday and Friday. He does this before his Study.com work and says it helps him to understand or review anything that he didn't do well on with the Saxon/Dive lessons.It takes him about 30 minutes.

(12:30-1:00pm) - lunch

(1pm-2pm) DAILY Independent

Membean we lowered this to 10 minutes of training a day.

Geometry (Teaching Textbooks) he is whizzing through this and I asked him if he wanted to put it aside, he said it helps him with understanding his Abeka Geometry, and gives him more practice.

Speed Reading & Comprehension with Ace Reader he is almost finish this tool. I will have to find him another Speed reading activity tool at this rate.

(2pm-2:30pm) DAILY Independent


Copy work is doing Great Writer's Quotes in cursive, he writes so well in cursive and to think he's a lefty! It takes him 10 minutes

(2:30pm-3pm) Snack Break

(3pm-4:00pm) DAILY with Mom / Dad or Sibling assistance.
Geometry AbekaAcademy he finished his test and got a 78% but still had some concepts he needed help with. We called the student tutoring line which seemed to put him back on track.

Sequential Spelling  still seems a bit easy for him (I think membean is really helping). I am considering giving him the chapter test to see if I should just move him on. This takes about 10 minutes.


(5pm) Martial Arts  or Soccer
Soccer & Martial Arts: Which he loves having something to do everyday to break the school monotony.

PE Is done 6 days a week. He is in Civilian Airforce Program (or CAP), Young Eagles on Saturday's and now wants to add dance (not happening!)

(6:15-6:30pm) 2 days a week with Mom / Dad or Sibling assistance.
3-minute devotional for guys is on Wednesday and Friday's. He reads the lesson with his dad and now insist on saying the prayer.

(7-7:30pm) Dinner

(7:30pm - 8:15pm) DAILY with Mom / Dad or Sibling assistance.
Chemistry with Abeka he didn't do to well on a recent quiz, so I sent him to watch some CRASH COURSE videos to help him to better understand concepts. I give him the quizzes pretty much open book, but the test are closed book.

(8:15pm-8:30pm) DAILY with Mom / Dad or Sibling assistance.
Wordly Wise he finishes these pretty quick and have been making between 75% and 85% on his test.

(8:15pm-9:15pm) 3 or 2 days a week with Mom / Dad or Sibling assistance.
English Literature and American Literature he takes pretty good notes during these classes and seems to be somewhat interested in the literature. I am not making him do some of the required papers since he is taking the Landry course.

Weekend Plans: Both CAP and YOUNG EAGLES programs were cancelled as was his SOCCER game.

Tiger Lilly's Week: High Schooler /Dual Enrolled 15 yrs old

All her classes are in full gear and we made some additions to her schedule.

(9 am-10:30am) DAILY
Landry Academy
Network Pro she has class on TUESDAY and does her homework daily in this class. The homework (Mon, Wed, Thu, and Fri) takes her about thirty minutes.
 
10:30am-11:30am - 2 days a week
Software Development class (Homeschool Class by mom) She is working on building a web application for the Hackathon - mother assigned :-D They are working on Wordpress, with JAVA and PHP to build their website and app.

See the Light Art Class 2 days a week and she shows off her Art in our 'living room gallery'. weekly.

11:30am-12:30pm- 3 days a week
Calculus with Saxon & Dive and CTCMath She only worked on the CTCMath these last two weeks. She also has been resorting to Khan Academy to further understand some concepts.

1:30pm-4:30pm- 3 days a week [Dual Enrolled College Courses with UMUC.edu]
Nutrition she noted that the adult students aren't doing that great of a job on their Discussion questions. She was shocked considering how much work I made her put into hers. I explained to her that everyone shoots for a different grade and for her to keep shooting for the best. She had a discussion post of about 200 words to do and a paper. Then a quiz.

Relational Database Design This course she had another project and a discussion post due. The project I had to help her out by googling some stuff she couldn't seem to find. She emailed the teacher who further directed her.

Technical Writing This class required her to write two Discussion points that she had to give directions on how to use products. Then she had to watch an Ikea video of someone putting together a bed and then she had to create the written directions to the activity.

5pm-6:30pm - 3 days a week - PE
Soccer and Martial Arts (we got her to try a Friday class).


7pm-8pm - 4 days a week
Japanese with 1.5 hr tutoring and I added some daily IMMERSION cds.

8pm-9pm - 2 days a week
3-minute Devotional for Girls we are moving steadily through the devotional. However, she isn't asking as many questions as I'd like.

WORKING PARENT's LOG

Meals I basically through something together for dinner the days I had to cook. My girls cooked a few days. My oldest son bailed on cooking.

Cleaning. Started a new routine that has the main rooms of the house clean (almost) daily. The bedrooms are wrecked until Saturday night when we clean up.

Work & Life Balance. I am still dropping off my two oldest kids to work on my way to work. It takes me 1 hour to do so and makes my work time erratic. So right now, my hubs has been taking over most of the evening teaching and coordination.

Lesson Planning. I believe I finally have our schedule settled. That will make it easier to get the lesson planning solidified.

Rest. Now it's easier to get to bed by 10:30pm. If my husband takes over I get in bed by 9pm. Now if I could just convince myself to go right to sleep.

Marriage Check Up. Well our date got crashed by two lovely ladies, my daughter and her friend. We still had a blast sharing cheesecake with them.

Week 2 and there is More Work To be Done

Week 2 and 3 was full of Exciting Discoveries

My Tiger Lilly drew this for me and I had it put on Canvas, then hung it on one of our main walls in the living room. She was so excited and happy with my surprise.

Not a Good Week

Well this week we had only two mini-meltdowns. I knew it would come. Just exhausting dealing with them.

Speed Racer's Week: 

Blended Middle School/High Schooler 12 yrs old

Challenges this Week
Well, we are trying a hand at having Tiger Lilly validate Speed Racer's daytime online independent work. She get's paid to do this job.

However, she did well at making sure he was engaged, but she noted that he didn't finish 25% of his planned work because she started him later than 10am.

Therefore, Speed Racer has to finish up his independent work over the weekend. Which means for him - Saturday school.

Meltdown

Another night were my little guy stays up WAY TOO LATE and doesn't want to wake up. He gave his sister a hard way to go on Monday, and it didn't get any better with me.

No out right tantrums or freak outs, but some smacking of teeth, tossing around books on the table in a loud manner and prolonging school by an hour (which we don't have since we are supposed to be done by 10pm!)

So, with a few nights of this, I locked up cellphone and game controllers until he focused and finished his work.

Mommy had to reign in the irritation at the fact that to finish the work he wanted to listen to music, hum and tap his pen - all to annoy me further.

So that meant school didn't end until 11:45pm two nights this week. Yeah, I could've ended early, but I want to be consistent with this child or he would act out every single night for school to end early.

Planning Forward:
He will have four Landry Academy classes that start at 7am and 10am four days a week. He plans to do the homework for those classes weekly. We will have to figure it out as these have priority over his online independent classes.

SPEED RACER's WEEK

(10 am-12pm) Daily Independent
Study.com
Psychology and Sociology he failed to pass the chapter test in Sociology with a passing grade. So he will review the chapter and have to do the test again on Saturday.

Macro Econ and Information Systems were finished without issue although he did write down questions that he asked Tiger Lilly and his dad about.

Physics he loves this class since he figures he can use it towards getting his Pilot's license one day.

(1pm-2pm) Daily Independent

Membean thankfully he is now on level 2 as far as word understanding and usage goes.
Geometry (Teaching Textbooks) takes him about 30 minutes
Speed Reading & Comprehension with Ace Reader he is really doing well with this. He told me he liked it better than the workbook reading and comprehension

(2-3pm) Mon and Wed with Tiger Lilly tutoring him

Java Homeschool he finished his first program with help from his sister.

(3pm-4:30pm) Daily

Tiger Lilly was telling him what he needed to code while reading it from her phone.

Geometry AbekaAcademy he had two quizzes and passed with A's. Taking this with TT Geometry follow up is working out well for him. He likes getting it from two different perspectives.

Copy work his cursive and print writing has come a long way!

Sequential Spelling He is getting all of his words right. I am thinking of moving him up, but we will see.

(5pm) Martial Arts  or Soccer
He has 1.5 hours of one of these a day. Saturday, he has other activities.

(6:15-6:30pm) 2 days a week
3-minute devotional for guys Bible Devotionals he actually loved spending the one on one time with his dad doing this.

(6:30-7:15pm) Dinner

(7:15pm-7:30pm) 2 days a week
Math Drill he is still having challenges with decimals. The adding and multiplying of them. So, he is taking about 8 minutes to finish his drill sheets and only getting 60% of it correct.

(7:30pm - 9:30pm) 5 days week
Chemistry with Abeka he passed all of his test so far with A's.

(9:30pm-10:30pm) 3 or 2 days a week 
English Literature and American Literature this he says has a lot of overlap, so he happens to do well on test in both classes. He doesn't like reading the classical stuff though so I got movies.

PE Is done 6 days a week. He is in Civilian Airforce Program (or CAP), Young Eagles, martial arts and Soccer.

Weekend Plans: Saturday 9am to 12 pm: CAP or Young Eagles (where he actually flies an airplane!). Finish up any excess homework. Attend Church youth group. Sunday is church, cleaning and the beach.

Tiger Lilly's Week: High Schooler /Dual Enrolled 15 yrs old

Tiger Lilly and Rose had an Impromtu Paint Night

Tiger Lilly is still on her 'light' schedule since she has until the end of August for the college courses.

Challenges: The homeschoolprogramming class was a bit outdated with the requested software download. So she spent the week working on finding the right plugin for her application.

Also, she told me her brother drove her crazy.


11am-12pm - 3 days a week
Software Development class She is correcting her draft Trade Analysis paper on game development frameworks.

12pm-1pm - 5 days a week
See the Light Art Class finally she is getting to the drawing of people. That is one of the areas she isn't as confident in her art.

1pm-2pm - 5 days a week
Homeschool Programming Android Programming it's coming along well. She is learning some things that she didn't learn in her college course since that course was more rushed.

2pm-3pm - 3 days a week
Calculus with Saxon & Dive and CTCMath Oh this is a challenge for her! She does like the CTCMath version and explainations better than with Dive.

5pm-6:30pm - 3 days a week
Soccer she is starting to loosen up. However, on Friday we are starting her with a new Martial arts that she is fussing about attending stating she has too much physical exercise already with soccer and going to the gym with her dad. I reminded her that she has to have 1.5 hrs of exercise a week and doing something different each day will be best for her.

7pm-8pm - 1 day a week
Japanese with 1.5 hr tutoring is going well. I am looking for an in person training class though.

8pm-9pm - 2 days a week
3-minute Devotional for Girls she likes it and it gives her and I a reason to discuss tough issues.

WORKING PARENT's LOG

Meals Okay, the freezer meals are coming to an end and I have to do it again. Prepping is my least favorite part of the process.

Cleaning. Hubby hung the door on my oldest daughter's room and she was ecstatic but not happy that he decided to do it at 12am in the morning...

Work & Life Balance. My schedule is back to normal. BUT now I have to drop off my 2 older kids in the morning to their jobs and pick up one. So my schedule is all over the place as my husband and I flip flop drop offs until the older kids save enough for new cars.

Lesson Planning. Coming along well. I wanted to do two weeks worth, but didn't get around to it.

Rest. You'd think I'd get more sleep. However, my husband likes going to the movies - late, at night, and during the week when it is discounted. So, one late night at the movies, another late night with him putting in a door meant two 5 hours nights of hardly any sleep. The rest of the week I was up to 6 to 7 hours.

Marriage Check Up. Still having fun together by riding to pick up kids or going to the movie. This week got ahead of us though and we didn't have much 'chatting' time.

The Holiday Season Already!? Yikes, I'm so not ready.

Time Sure is Flying

I blinked and with all the crazy madness with preparing our house for sale, seeking jobs in another state, augmenting our kids homeschool schedule and traveling, I feel so unprepared for the holidays.

Show My kids have me hooked on.

SPEED RACER (age 11yrs) my Middle Schooler

Homeschooled at 4th grade on.

Cutting the few classes to end our 2nd Block Fall Semester really made a difference.

We are over half way through his Abeka English, Grammar and Spelling , Biology, History. And His online classes are coming along well even though he doesn't think there is any challenge in them. He finished up some quick writing refreshers like 5 Paragraph Writing Class, a 3-week class and Time4Writing he but Speed Racer needs more one on one writing task mastering that I don't have the energy to give these days. So, this Spring semester I am adding a more hands on writing class to his curriculum and giving him a break from writing til January.

Speed Racer is grasping Abeka Algebra 1, and Teaching Textbook labs, but I plan on calling Abeka in January for him to get some free tutoring help that they offer online for a few of his quizzes and test review topics. I haven't been able to do it when I get home lately. I called CTCMath for resetting a lesson, they did so and he is making headway through 6th grade math review.

Membean is hit or miss, sometimes he does it effectively - other times, not so much. He got stuck on a topic with Python Programming and I had him go to the forum and ask for help, then his sister Tiger Lilly helped him with Code Academy and we took a break with IXL for Language.

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

Homeschooled at 7th grade on.

Transferring to University of Maryland, University College (UMUC) we are loving UMUC and the classes are only 8 weeks long and completely online. It's a little pricey at $279 per credit hour plus fees for residents! But hey, cheaper than private high school.

Her grades are B's in her two favorite classes US History 1 and Psychology at the Community College. But at a high C for Software Application's class since the application they use is glitchy we've had to take her up to the local Community College to do the work in the lab.

Her two UMUC classes. She's finished 7 weeks of the courses in Foundations of Oral Comm and Intro Prob Solving Alg Design (which is C Programming but a required course for the major she wants). She is doing very well and they even have online tutoring.

The Landry courses are going on the end of the 1st semester in C Programming, PC Pro and Japanese. She is having challenges gathering her group to work on the group assignments.

Tiger Lilly is still doing JavaScript . She finished an animatin for  her Animation Course.

WORKING PARENT's LOG

Meals Fast food week!

Cleaning. I didn't do any really.

Work & Life Balance. Is a drama filled few weeks.

Lesson Planning. I am barely doing it.

Rest. Some at 6 hours a night. 

Marriage Check Up. We have had no alone time the last few weeks.

The Madness of the First Full Week of School

Ahhhh!

The First Full Week of Homeschool as Working Parents

Things We had to Do to Make it Happen:

Rose was hired (but Razor Ray steps in) as our Tutor and Home Helper.

LapTops were configured

DVD Players were tested  

Workboxes were organized

Schedules were put up

Schoolroom was moved to the Dining room and I'll post pics next week since it's not finished.

THE SCHEDULE:

Speed Racer's

He survived it and completed all of his work. The independent work was done when the homehelper (Rose or Razor Ray) was home doing their college homework.  The 'Do With Mom' he basically did with me as he needed or wanted help. The 'Abeka' and Saxon work was done with either my husband (who takes the late shift) or me who does the first half or classes before he leaves for either dance, martial arts or tennis.

Tiger Lilly's

She actually loves her schedule. It's much lighter than her schedule was last year. The classes are topics she is passionate about so I just check or review her work before she turns it in.

Her Math-070 class is really College Math that she takes at the Community College. She also goes to FREE tutoring sessions at the college on Tue and Thur.

Some homework does spill over to her weekend but she seems to be on top of it (especially since I check her work before she turns it in). Although, to be honest, I am not good at the Japanese and rusty at the C Programming and Java. Unity3d I don't know at all. So I just google what she turned in or ask her to explain it. If she can explain what she did, usually she is right.

WORKING PARENT's LOG

Meals. Great week since I treated myself to a cooking week off. Myself and a friend (who's also a working mom) went to Let's Dish to create our freezer prep meals for the week. The food was fabulous, but a bit pricey at $25 a dish.

Cleaning. The deep cleaning for a new school week is still in effect. The kids are earning allowance now. I purchased them a Bluebird (American Express Gift Card) that I put their allowance on based on their daily completion of chores. It's helped them to manage money and understand when spending.

Work & Life Balance. Wonderful. I love my new job. It's rather flexible and the work is not so challenging that I have to bring it home.

Lesson Planning. This is done on Sunday's. I wanted to do 2 weeks at a time, but haven't gotten back in the hang of things.

Rest. Getting more this year. Up to 7 hours of sleep. Whahoo. Thanks for hubby and my home helpers working out.

Marriage Check Up. Doing well. We got out for a movie (a kid snuck in with us) but we enjoy having the adult kids join us sometimes.

Our 2015 to 2016 Curriculum Plans

A New Year Already!

2015-16 School Year Curriculum

Here's our line-up for our FALL season

Our Method to The Madness

We don't do a typical Middle or High School. We blend our middle school and high school in order to prepare our kiddos for Dual Enrollment Courses or CLEP test which are accepted by our local Community College.

Therefore, you will see many grade levels spread over several subjects for our kids. The focus of subjects outside of Math, English and Science is based on their interest.

Here's the Plan

Three Semesters: Fall/Winter/Spring

Speed Racer - (11yrs) our Blended 7th-9th grader.
 - Block Schedule - some classes are only 1 / 2 or 3 days a week
 - Total Hours Of School a Day - 5 to 7 hours

This was our original schedule - 3 weeks after school started, I re-evaluated and changed it to the one below:

Independent Work:
Scratch (Landry Academy) moved to Winter
Language Practice (IXL.com) moved to Winter

Python (Techrocket.com)
Vocabulary Word Usage (Membean.com)
Typing (TypingWeb.com) moved to Winter

Writing (Time4Writing.com)
Math Review (CTCMath.com)


Work With Parent:
English 7th - Grammar - Spelling (AbekaAcademy.com)
Algebra 1 (AbekaAcademy.com) moving to Winter semester
Spanish (Middlebury Interactive and Mango Languages)
US History (AbekaAcademy.com)
African American History (Movie Based)
American Government (AbekaAcademy.com)
Economics (AbekaAcademy)
Logic (Compass Classroom) Moved to Spring
Biology (Abeka Academy)


His new schedule will be the following:

We are able to get through all of these within 5.5 hours

Does in the morning:
CTCMath (for Math lab): M-F (Independent)
TechRocket (for Python programming):  M-F (Independent)
Membean (for Vocabulary building):  M-F (Independent)
Time4Writing (online): M-F (Independent)

Do in the evening:
English/Spelling/Reading - (Abeka) :  M-F (with Mom/Dad or Homehelper)
Saxon (Math 7/8): M-F (with Mom/Dad or Homehelper)
Biology (Abeka): M-F (with Mom/Dad or Homehelper)
Economics (Abeka): T-Th (with Mom/Dad or Homehelper)
American Gov't (Abeka): M-W-F (with Mom/Dad or Homehelper)

Tiger Lilly - our Blended 9th-10th grader.

 - Total Hours Of School a Day - 6 to 7 hours  at least 1 day of the weekend for homework

Tiger Lilly's schedule is packed. She asked for the Homeschool Courses as they are her passionate interest in becoming a Video Game Designer. The last 2 years of homeschooling, she was able to succeed with this amount of coursework, so we are giving it a try provided her Dual Enrolled courses don't suffer.

 Homeschool Classes

Japanese (Landry Academy)  - Wed. Only (do homework on that day)
C Programming (Landry Academy) - Tue. Only (do homework on that day)
PC Pro (Landry Academy) - Mon. Only (do homework on that day)
Java (TechRocket.com) - Thu
Unity3D (TechRocket.com) - Wed
Animation 1 - (theanimcourse.com) - Tue 

Community College Dual Course

Psychology (online) - Tue (Fri-Sat for homework)
US History 1 (online) - Wed (Fri-Sat for homework)
Computer Applications for Micro Systems (online) - Thu (Fri-Sat for homework)
College Math (In Person) - Fri (Tue and Thu for homework)

Classes I changed:
Game Programming (DigiPen Academy)  Her Associates Degree Program has classes
SAT Review (Landry Academy)  She wanted to study on her own

Why this Challenging Schedule?

We grew into it. My kids had been used to a 7 hour school day. Each class was about an hour long, they also had homework that they would do in the evenings and weekends.

When we started homeschooling, we started slow, but they didn't have any screentime on the TV, video games or cellphones until after dinner.

So when they finished their assigned work, they started asking for more things 'to do'. That's when I came up with Independent work that were online work that they could do and I could check when I had a chance.

Also, they liked changing things up after a few weeks.

Where's the Fun?

Yep, with their schedules, they love their sports. They do a sport daily which takes 2 hours out of their day, gets them out and chatting up with their friends. The weekend, My Tiger Lilly is in a Girl's Who Code and CyberJitsu girls club where she interacts with other girls. My Speed Racer loves dancing, martial arts, gymnastics and lacrosse.

Working Parent Juggling?

Both my husband and I work. However, my older two kids are living at home this school year.

Dad works from home a few times a week, Mom works a 40 hr work week and the college students are home at various times.

School Schedule:
A.M Schedule - Dad is the Instructor
Afternoon - Rose or Razor Ray will be home with students
Late Afternoon - Mom is the Instructor
Evening -  Dad take Speed Racer and Tiger Lilly to sports - Mom is cooking dinner
Late Evening - Dad is the Instructor

Chores - Kids clean up before bed. All others will be done on Saturdays and Sunday after church
Meal Planning - Prepping of meals will be on Sunday (1) Crockpot (2) Grilled (3) Oven Baked
Marriage Checkup - Friday Nights are date nights for Hubba and Me.

Two Week Crunch

The benefits of a break.

Our TWO WEEK CRUNCH update

Well last week my two younger kids had school.

Substitute Teacher, sister Rose, and schoolbus driver Razor Ray took care of the kids while...

Da...Da..Da...

Mom and dad went on vacation! Yep! Vacation.

We did Facetime with the kids and my older two children were excellent. They didn't even have to call in the grandparents for backup.

Since both my hubba and I recently started new jobs, this trip was a treat for us. But there was a price to pay for it. This past week, we both had to work overtime hours to make up for hours taken that didn't cover the paid vacation hours we'd earned.

So...Substitute Teacher sister Rose, finished out the week of instruction.


OTHER SCHEDULE ADJUSTMENTS FOR THE WEEK

It was a light schedule this week since SPEED RACER, my 6th grader, is in Circus Camp for the week.

Tiger Lily had a light schedule, only requiring her to do her online classes with Landry Academy and WriteGuide, while completing her computer interactive electives on CodeAcademy.com and Algebra 2 Teaching Textbooks (our Math Supplement).

SOCIALIZATION STARVATION

Well I noticed that after a summer filled with over 7 weeks of day camps, sleep away camps, weekend meetups and playdates, my kids are going through ... WITHDRAWAL.

Yep, both of them mentioned the following about having a two weeks of homeschool.

Tiger Lilly, "I'm so lonely now. After a summer full of friends and playing, I only have two bff's to play with online for Minecraft."

 * So what did I do...

- Reminded her that Cheerleading starts full steam this coming week
- Signed her up for a MineCraft play area with Scrafty Homeschool Minecraft to give her online friends to play Minecraft with in a safe environment.
- Showed her the calender of several Homeschool Tween and Teen meetups we are going to

- Lastly, I am leading up a Teen Writing Meetup to meet monthly and encourage the teens to write and converse online.

As for Speed Racer's Socialization Withdrawal

- Scheduled more Tween Meetups
- Signed up for library Minecraft club that meets 2 times a week
- Scheduled playdate visits with his friends from soccer, street dance and jujitsu.
- Found an online group for homeschoolers near my home that meet monthly for playdates (a boys only group).
- Boyscouts - checking it out as a way for him to meet and play with other boys.

PLANS FOR THE WEEKEND

Camping! Then a day at Kings Dominion where we have season's passes. Just my Hubba and our two youngest kids, Speed Racer and Tiger Lilly. We have to get used to it just being them that we have to entertain the majority of time.

WORKING PARENT TIDBIT

Next week will be the first week I don't have my at home helper, Sister Rose. Rose and Razor Ray are moving onto college campus.

Things I will do to prepare for the week of working while homeschooling:

- Prep meals for  the week that can be put in (1) Crockpot or the (2) Oven Meals
- Plan Schedule (block schedule) with online interactive items that Tiger Lilly and Speed Racer can do in the morning and with my new 'homehelper' that starts Monday - 3 hrs a day between when dad leaves for work and mom returns home
- Fill workboxes for the week (we use Sue Patrick's workbox method)
- Clean the house (it won't get a serious cleaning again til next Sat. morning)

THAT's All for this week. And it doesn't even feel like I had a vacation all alone with Hubba where all we did was sleep, lay on the beach and rest.