The Homeschooling Challenge...and Success

Here is my 7-year-old counting buttons during a recent math lesson. Based on instructions from her Oak Meadow second grade curriculum, I taught her to understand multiplication and division in just a few short lessons. When we first started homeschooling, we just went to the library and did our own thing. But getting her to agree to do what I asked was often a challenge. For us, having the curriculum has helped her to agree to the tasks, since someone other than me has designed it! Yes, she is that argumentative!! We probably have to blame our liberal parenting for that. All and all, our homeschooling is going pretty smoothly at this point and I feel much more confident about her getting the target information at the right time. I feel especially strong about this point thinking that there may be a time when she must return to a traditional school.

Homeschooling

We're beginning the homeschool adventure for the day. I never know whether my 7-year-old will resist instructions or be absorbed by them. I worried about it for a while, being a new homeschooler. However, I believe that she feels more love and attention through personalized mama-instruction and will most certainly benefit intellectually as well. I love it because it gets me in the middle of the childrens' activities, playing games, reading, writing, drawing, doing art and craft projects, and wandering around outside. I think it is helping me to be a better, more nurturing parent. In fact, I have never felt so fulfilled as a parent. Perhaps homeschooling is as good for me as it is for my daughter.