It happened so fast. I called a consultant to help me teach math, and she was very gung-ho on trying the school. The same day, I met with the school to tell them I’m homeschooling, and I felt scared to lose the only part of the community I have gotten to know during the year […]
I’m reading an article called Do You Suffer from Decision Fatigue? The article is fascinating not only because it gives me a name for how I’m feeling, but also because of the examples: Poor people make worse decisions not because they are dumber or less educated but because poverty forces people to make more decisions […]
My six-year-old is doing third-grade math. But he can’t tell time. And I was worrying that I was missing lots of stuff, and I can’t follow a curricula, and I need to hire a consultant. Then I bought a ten-dollar wall clock at the 99-cents store, and I told him to keep track of when […]
My son has been having hour-long cello lessons for the last year. His new teacher wants him to do half-hour lessons. She says a cellist must learn to approach the craft with focus and intensity. She says he first needs to learn to sustain it for a half-hour. I want that approach for everything he […]
We are going to the Apple store because they give free, one-on-one classes. I’m so excited that I don’t have to teach my kids how to add a movie to his blog. The Apple guy is going to do that. And I don’t have to teach my other son to find cool apps on the […]
I’ve started lesson plans for math and Hebrew to meet monthly goals. I worry that the kids learned to read Hebrew way faster than I thought they would. Maybe we should move on to Spanish. And then I think: Maybe I should not invest in Spanish curriculum because this morning my husband left. He said […]
I am making a list of things I don’t like to do that maybe could count as homeschool projects: Making beds. Dusting the floor boards. Cooking Spaghetti 0’s. Cleaning out my car. Calling my dad to say hi.
Now that we do not have to prepare for impending strict hours of the start of school, we are visiting family more. Relatives ask if I’m really going to homeschool. They ask it like they can’t believe it and they have to hear it in person. They ask questions like, “What about high school?” I […]
When I brought my first baby home from the hospital, I thought, “Now what? What do we do now?” And that feeling has never completely disappeared. I still worry that when I have uninterrupted time to be with the kids, I just sit with them. I’m not sure what to do. Now if I feel […]
I meet with the elementary school principal. I bring her lunch so it feels more like friends having lunch and less like I am the most demanding and unsatisfied parent in the school. I’m a half-hour late, which is an improvement from last time, when I missed our time slot completely. The principal is incredibly […]