Addendum to Yesterday's Post

I meant to mention this yesterday, but my brain is failing me regularly these days, that I have the utmost respect... even awe... for homeschooling moms.  Especially those teaching different age levels, and doing a full curriculum.

We are doing an hour a day. Thirty minutes of reading.  My three older boys can all read independently. Zack needs  help because he constantly is picking books that are on Eric and Mark's level. They also have a complete obsession with checking out 10 books on a topic and reading it.  Try as I might to get him to read an on level book, he persists he wants NON fiction because he wants to LEARN.  This cracked the librarian up, by the way, when she heard this conversation between us. I'm going the long way around to the point, but it is this... Ben can not read. I am trying to read to him. He is also picking ridiculously long books, as well as asking me questions about every three words.  Add that with Zack wanting to tell me every little detail with the book he is reading, and it all sums up to frustration.  Meanwhile Eric and Mark are happily reading in the other room. I am not really complaining because the time together is fantastic, and they really are learning.  At the beach on Wednesday, my friends and I were fantasizing about taking a mom's only trip to Europe and Zachary interjects "Yeah! Europe... it's only straight across the ocean, you know!"  It was adorable.  And he learned it from a book. 

The next thirty minutes is usually writing, but occasionally math.  We have Eric and Mark who are wanting to learn cursive, Zachary working on printing, and Ben learning to write his name.  It can get a little crazy going back and forth between them.  Math is a little easier because I have the big ones taking turns doing multiplication tables on the computer, and then Zack and I do a little.  I'm letting Ben sit out of the math for now.

The bottom line is I am not really all that great of a teacher, so I'm really, really glad that their actual education is in the hands of trained professionals.  However, the moms that can home school, and really do it the right way (and I know several who are rock stars and truly do it all) have my total adoration.  Because it's hard, even when in a limited sense.