Getting geared up for another year

I have so much to do and not nearly enough time to do it in.  As usual.  It's a challenge being a homeschooling, single mother. 

I've spent the past week with my daughter Mercedes setting up her goals.  I'm hoping to start her in college by the time she's 16.  So we reviewed where her peers are (probably) and where I would like her to be, and what needs to happen to get her there.  And then we took that down to bite-size chunks.  Mercedes has been pretty lazy, so she's a bit behind.  Jared, however, is taking great pride in catching up to, and surpassing, his sister academically.  Nothing like a little competition to get them going!

We are giving Mercedes points toward a Build a Bear if she completes her work as we've agreed.  Krista has put that up on the whiteboard, so she knows how many points she needs.

I reviewed the subjects I "should" be teaching, including homemaking - er, life skills/home ec (read "Flylady") - and science.  Music is another that has kind of gone abandoned.  And I want to emphasize more art - they should at least be able to appreciate the great masters, as well as work in pencil to do good drawings.  We're covering physics this year in science - lots of work with magnets and prisms.

And yet, even with all this work in preparation, and the work that goes into preparing each lesson, I spend less time educating my kids than I did working with the public schools and grappling over homework.  Amazing.