Yesterday I signed up for a del.icio.us account, and finally buckled down and created the link directories I’ve always wanted. All pages and links are now officially done! Visit my brand spankin’ new:

• Homeschool Page
• Working At Home Page
• SPH Links Directory

I’m so excited! Please do feel free to suggest any links I might have missed in the contact form at the bottom of each page, and let me know what you think.

Continuing my series about what we’re doing for sixth grade and why, as Charlotte Mason educators, here’s what we purchased for math:

This year, we did MEP Math, Year 2. Since they start Year 0 in first grade, this is actually third grade. He is in fifth grade, but this was the appropriate level for him. Shorty liked the gentle format, but his progress was very slow, so much so that we have been doing it consistently and we’re still not halfway through the year. Neither of us are happy about that.

A big hindrance is that he still hasn’t memorized all his math facts (though his speed has drastically improved) and so he hasn’t progressed very much. Neither of us enjoy the fact that it’s extremely teacher-intensive. This, I knew going into it, having read up on the Yahoo! group. but Shorty seemed to take it as an opportunity to argue with me constantly. I understand math triggers his OCD in an extreme way and I’m the only available target to vent his frustration on, but as a single parent that needs to work full time, I just can’t afford to spend 1-2 hours just on math every day, and that’s hwo long each lesson was taking. So we started limiting our math time to 20-30 minutes per day, which helped with frustration levels, but slowed our progress to glacier pace.

He was also getting discouraged that he’s still in “third grade math.” Exacerbated by the fact that MEP calls their third grade “Year 2.” He has recently developed a real desire to independently work to catch up to grade level and this was taking a toll on his self-esteem. I read many reviews of many different approaches and curriculums, trying to find one that would best remedy all these issues.

Developmental Math, Level 6 seems like the answer to our prayers – it is inexpensive; it is self-paced and entirely completed by the student; it emphasizes skill mastery over spiral progress; and he would start in “level six,” which he might think is sixth grade math (it’s midway through third, in reality, which is where he is, but he doesn’t have to know that – he can just be proud that he’s working on “level six.”) So that’s what we’ll be using next year.

Shorty is aware that his progress in math is not where it could be. I have no problem with children doing work below arbitrarily determined “grade levels” if that’s truly where their capacity is. But I don’t think it’s that he is not capable of doing higher level math yet, but that his OCD has been so severely triggered by math these last 3 years, causing tantrums, delays and just general obstinacy, all of which have delayed him significantly. I know he knows he can do better and that he’ll be better served with his career goals of computer programming and electrical engineering with stronger math skills; it is his own independent goal that he be “caught up” to at least 7th grade math by the 8th grade. I think this is totally doable with hard work on his end, and am pleased to see him taking so much initiative.

Recently Shorty asked me to dig out his addition and subtraction flash cards; he’s been working on his own for a couple of weeks with that and I already see an improvement. We’ll be spending the summer doing math drills and working on math facts, as well as working through the I Hate Mathematics book and doing a few lessons per week from MEP Y2.

Then he’ll be tackling Developmental Math Level 6 in the fall. We are very excited about this as a potentially low-stress method of building strong mastery skills he’s lacking. I am excited that he’ll hopefully be able to complete it on his own with minimal input from me. The only downside is that levels 7, 8 and 9 are all currently unavailable because they’re being revamped by the publisher. But I figure, by the time my kid is done with level 6, they should be done, or at the very least it will give me time to track down an older copy. If we don’t like it, we can always go back to MEP!

I just put in a huge order for our books for next year. This means that I can no longer change my mind about what we’ll be starting out with in the fall for Shorty’s sixth grade year (egads! sixth grade already!) without causing myself financial pain. Since I am not a masochist of any variety, this is a strong motivator for myself to make up my mind already! I started writing about ALL my curriculum choices and the post was 90 miles long, so I decided to break the post up into several posts by subject. He’s what I bought for:

Language Arts

Tales from Shakespeare – by Charles and Mary Lamb
This year we used the book of the same title, but it was the one by the Williamses, which had the story in comic book presentation, with the narrative prose under the pictures, and the speech bubbles in the pictures using excerpts from the play. I understand this is frowned upon by Charlotte Mason educators (it’s “twaddle!” and too watered down) but my kid has autism and is helped by the illustrations and the silly humor. We took several weeks to read through one play, then we would watch a BBC version of the play, then read through selections of the play together. Shorty LOVED this. He loves the drama, craziness and intrigue of Shakespeare’s dramas and the wacky wordplay humor of his comedies. Next year we are taking a full 12 weeks apiece to study A Midsummer Nights Dream, Hamlet and The Tempest. We may still read through the comic version for a week or two, but I want to focus more on the more mature, detailed retellings from the Lambs.

Simply Grammar: An Illustrated Primer – by Karen Andreola
This is a gentle, well-recommended grammar study for grades 4 through 8 based on Charlotte Mason’s original grammar primer. We’ve been using GrammarLand this year to study grammar 1 or 2 times a week. It is amazing how much Shorty is retaining understanding about the parts of speech from this adorable and highly accessible storybook format, but we will be finished with it by mid-summer. Simply Grammar has gotten mixed reviews, but most of the negative reviews have come from people merely complaining that its language was too archaic or quaint and that they themselves have had difficulty understanding grammatical precepts in general. This seems more the fault of the reader than the text; grammar is a strong suit for me and Shorty enjoys books with “fancy language” – he has no trouble with Shakespeare or the King James Version of the Bible, which we use exclusively – so I don’t think this will be a deterrent. Also, I think we’ll be spreading it out over 2 years, so this was likely a good investment.

Reading Detective: Using Higher-Order Thinking to Improve Reading Comprehension Book A1 Grade 5-6
We are big fans of Critical Thinking Press, having used their Mindbenders books to study logic these last couple of years, but we are a little burnt out on them and I feel like Shorty needed something more comprehensive that would help him utilize logic not just in pure theoretical form but in practical application to things he reads. He thinks logic is really fun and this came very well recommended. Pricey for a single text, though. This is not really Charlotte Mason, and is more classical, but it emphasizes a skill weakness for Shorty, who decodes what he reads at a college level, but comprehends far below that, and struggles with making inferences.

Poets we will study: Kipling, Longfellow, Dunbar, Whittier and a special focus on Jose Marti, both in Spanish and in English.

Literature read-alouds (also known as bedtime stories in my house) will be taken from the Ambleside Online Year 5 literature recommendations. Free reading will incorporate the suggestions for Years 3, 4 and 5.

We will also be tackling Bulfinch’s Age of Fable some more. We started to this year, but got bogged down in the language, until I decided he needed a less formal introduction to fables and myths, having missed out on the simpler foundations of previous Ambleside years. So per recommendations on the AmbleRamble mailing list, we’re reading through Aesop’s fables and Aliki’s Greek/Roman mythology book first, then starting up Age of Fable over the summer again. He understood the language just fine; he just didn’t comprehend the meaning or significance very well.

We will no longer be using a formal handwriting curriculum. We’ll just be doing short copywork with selections from books he is currently reading, or songs we are currently learning, or poetry, or what have you. He is dysgraphic, so my goal there is to just maintain passable handwriting. He will also be learning to type better with Spongebob Typing.

For composition, we will continue with oral narrations for all his daily reading, and we will begin doing a weekly written narration with 5 or 6 sentences to start building paragraph skills, in preparation for essay writing. There will be some poetry memorization and recitation, which he enjoys, and a vocabulary/spelling list from that week’s readings.

My goal in our homeschool this year is to have Shorty really become an independent learner, with my role shifting more towards that of an educational facilitator than a “teacher.” With the methods of AmblesideOnline, I see him taking real responsibility for managing his own time – he is given a weekly list of readings to complete, and he can either stretch them out over the whole week, or read them all at once, or read them in 2 days, or whatever. This is good practice for college… not to mention real life!

Our modest little container garden is thriving. We’re FINALLY getting broccoli heads growing in, we have 3 different kinds of lettuce, two greenbean plants, a strawberry plant that keeps getting bigger and bigger, a lime tree brimming with limes, four sunflowers shooting up, several herbs, fresh spinach, and four pepper plants – one red, one yellow and one orange. We grew those from saving seeds from veggies we bought at the store  Peppers of the non-green variety are pretty expensive favorites here, so we’re happy at the prospect of growing our own!

It’s been a great experience for Shorty, a gentle introduction for nature study that has let him pick up a bunch of practical life skills and given us hours of enjoyment.  I know that gardening and nature study aren’t the same thing, but for a loud, hyper little boy who is all arms and legs and scares away wildlife because he gets so excited when he sees them that he can’t contain himself, studying plants and the cycle of agriculture has been a safe, non-scareable starting point for us We’re in the rainy season, too, so the tedious task of daily watering is no longer necessary, and our kindly neighbor has become inspired by our efforts and is donating the wood this weekend to build two actual 4′x4′ square foot garden containers. All is well!

Except that with summer and with rain come… mosquitoes. More bugs in general, but mosquitoes are the gift that keep on giving. They’re darn near acrobatic here; yesterday I doused my arms and legs in mosquito repellent and wore long pants. Somehow, i still ended up with mosquito bites on my ribcage and hip. I have no idea how that happened, but somehow they managed to bite me there. This doesn’t thrill me at all, because it’s a well known fact that here in Miami and any tropical region, mosquitoes carry evil diseases like the West Nile virus and our times call for a little indulgence of one’s germaphobia.  But even if they didn’t, they’re just a relentless pest that really acts as a killjoy for us whenever we try to hang out in our grassy garden.

We’ve tried carbonella candles and other mosquito repellents but they’re more persistent than the telemarketer that keeps calling me to tell me that the warranty on my car has expired. (My car is so old that if it were a person it would be eligible to vote, so thanks for the heads up, telemarketing people.) We even tried the little zapper lights, and, well, it bears repeating, this is SOUTH FLORIDA, so even if they killed 90% of the mosquitoes, that probably leaves about 23572752352 of them still alive.  I’ve been reading some Mosquito Magnet reviews – a friend of mine has one and swears by it. I was watching their little online demo of how it works and experiencing a high degree of schadenfreude at the mosquito genocide being demonstrated.  The price range is kind of steep, but if it means I can spend the next 5 months (and next summer, and next…) lounging around in my garden instead of just enjoying it from my window with my nose pressed to the glass, it might be a small price to pay.

Rain is clearing up! Time to check on the strawberries we transplanted yesterday; I can already see the newly thinned row of pepper seedlings are happy and pert. I’m already itchy from the stupid mosquito bites yesterday so I feel like a soldier going into battle. “Cover me with the spray repellent – I’m going in!!” Wish me luck.

Today, Yahoo! news had an interesting article about scientists discovering recently a genetic/chromosomal marker that may explain why 4 out of 5 autism-affected individuals are male, and what the mysterious cause – or causes – of autism spectrum disorders may be.

Nerve cells in the brain rely on calcium to become activated, and research suggests that imbalances in the mineral can result in the overstimulation of neural connections and create developmental problems, such as autism and even epilepsy, which is also a common feature of autism…

It’s likely not only that a large number of genes contribute to the disorder, but also that a different combination of genes – as well as unique interactions between genes and environment – are responsible for each individual case of autism.

This makes a lot of sense to me. I’ve read the theory that people believe autism isn’t a singular condition but a sort of pool of conditions all on the same spectrum, and that “autism” is merely an umbrella. There are women on the spectrum in my family, but it has affected the men much more markedly. The language and scientific jargon in the article is a bit much to wade through, but it’s a worthwhile insight into the forefront of autism research, especially the tiny sliver of light at the end of the tunnel offered at the end.

I have a confession to make. If I didn’t have to teach math, mine would be the happiest homeschool in the world. I think we’ve tried at least a dozen math programs for my 11yo 5th grade son and they’ve all had their pros and cons. The main con being that he cried over every single one.  Oh, I won’t even front – I may have shed a few tears myself.

Math isn’t something that comes intuitively to Shorty. He has autism-related OCD and this manifests in wanting to arrive at every answer by his own preferred “process,” i.e., he may want to add 20+13 as 10+5+5-20+7 instead of just adding the ones, then adding the tens.  His way may be harder, but the OCD kicks in and he finds it hard to do it any other way but HIS WAY.

Manipulatives haven’t been successful for us, as he identified them as being “for babies” and no amount of persuading could convince him otherwise.  Being on a strict budget as a single parent with only one child, I never tried the pricier math programs like Saxon or Math-U-See because I frankly can’t afford them, especially with our track record and the high likelihood that they won’t go well. I just don’t have that kind of money to waste indefinitely.

Here’s what we’ve tried and why they failed for my kiddo:

• MEP Math – We tried this last year. I put him in Y3, which is fourth grade math, and much to my dismay discovered it was way too advanced for him. After doing a few more math programs, we’ve been doing this all year, but the lessons take forever, so we’ve broken them up into 20-30 minute increments. The result is that we do math almost every day and we’re still not even halfway through Year 2 – third grade math. Remember, he’s in fifth grade. He likes the approach, but I don’t see too much of an improvement on the recall of rote math facts, so the further along he gets, the slower his pace gets. At this rate, he’ll STILL be in second/third grade math in the 7th grade.  Not good, considering how all  his interests are computer-geared. It just makes too little progress for us, so we’re trying something new next year. Still, this has been the most painless curriculum, so if the new stuff doesn’t work out, we’re going back to MEP.
• LivingMath.net – my kid is not stupid. “You’re trying to sneak in math with this game/ activity/ baking event/ etc!!” I think reinforcing math concepts through games and real-life situations is great, but my kid wants to be at grade-level by 7th grade with math, and wants to learn algebra and eventually calculus, and that’s not going to happen just by baking and playing Yahtzee! and Monopoly. We still try to incorporate activities from I Hate Mathematics and Math Wizardry for Kids, and those are fun, but won’t get him any closer to algebra.
• Switched-on Schoolhouse Math – we used this for third grade. What a depressing, tedious, tiresome, mindless endeavor in mathematical studies this was. We didn’t like SOS in general, and while their math program was least problematic, it was also their least engaging. My child needs extra review sometimes, but any child would be buried under the tsunami of review problems this program provided. It was the driest dry that ever dried. Except for…
• Rod and Staff Math: Grades 3 and 4.  I like R&S curriculum (we really loved their ArtPac art program), and I have a lot of respect for their early grammar and reading program. It’s rock solid. I didn’t have a lot of problems with R&S math either, and I hesitate to criticize it because I know there are kids for whom their stark, black and white, endless review problems presentation really works.  But my kiddo said it was “so boring I might die.” He is a little dramatic and exaggerates though. For example, I found their word problems entertainingly quaint. “Prudence and her twelve sisters each have to milk 8 cows…” Hee! This is not a curriculum designed with little ADHD Cuban boys in urban Miami in mind, needless to say, but it’s not a bad program.
• Workbooks. I don’t even want to try to list them all because that would make my post at least 20 times longer than it already is, seeing as I’ve seriously bought at least 9,000. Or so it seems. I am not even kidding. If you can find it in a bookstore, I’ve bought it and made my kid do it. Horizons, FlashKids, Spectrum, Complete Book of Math, math workbooks with SpongeBob/Spider-man/the X-men/whatever, yadda yadda yadda. My kid can finish a workpage just fine just by following the formula that worksheet teaches, but he doesn’t *learn math* that way. He likes checklists and likes the voila! I’m done! feeling when he finishes a worksheet, but then his brain dumps it all out until next time.
• Time4Learning – I thought the cartoons were cute, but he found the format of this very confusing, and it frankly gave him too much opportunity to goof off with all the games.  I didn’t like that it allowed students to progress if they bombed the previous section – my kid gets very anxious at having to repeat things, so even if he got a 30% on the test, he would get all BUT MOM, I ALREADY DID THIS!!! and upset. Too much style and too little substance for us.
• Singapore. I won’t even link to this. It made my kid cry on the first day we tried it, y’all. I’m prettty sure that’s a personal record.

I could go on here, but you get the idea.

Next year we are going to try Developmental Math. I feel like we’ve hit a real plateau with MEP math, so I was looking for something that might help hiim make slightly faster progress.  I read a lot of reviews and decided to give this program a try.  It’s cheap, it’s largely self-paced, it comes VERY well-recommended and reviewed, and it’s a mastery approach instead of spiral, which means you work on one skill until you get it, then you move on to the next.

Mastery has been a real issue for Shorty, so hopefully we’ll strengthen that, because he can simply not move forward without memorizing those math facts.  He learns best working on his own and, being a tweenaged boy, doesn’t want mom hovering over everything he does, so I made a real effort this year at finding curriculum he could complete with minimal direction from me. Of course, he still does it sitting next to me on the couch while I work on the laptop, so if he gets lost, I’m there, but overall, Developmental Math seems in keeping with my goal of encouraging him to be more self-motivated.  If he finishes 3 workbooks per year and one per summer, he will be grade level in math entering 8th grade. That’s a big if, but for Shorty who is becoming increasingly frustrated with how repetitive math is for him, that is a carrot on a stick.

We’re spending the summer casually working through whatever we have of MEP, and doing some Math-U-See drills, and hopefully, with a lot of hard work he will be up to grade level by 7th or 8th grade.  (His choice, not mine – he doesn’t like being “behind”. I don’t often tell him  he’s “behind,” but he’s not dumb, and he can see grade levels on books and things like that.)

What math programs have you all used? What did you love? What did you hate? I feel like I’m out of ideas here, even though rationally, I know I’m not.

This is part 2 of a series for work-at-home parents who want to launch and manage their own web sites, either for personal or business purposes, or a little of both.

As I covered in my last post, “Choosing Your Domain Name,” here are the six basic steps to setting up your own site, and each will get its own article in the upcoming couple of weeks.

1. Choose a domain name.
2. Decide on your site’s features.
3. Choose a web hosting plan.
4. Decide what your site will look like.
5. Put it all together.
6. Launch with promotional efforts.

Today I’m going to be looking at #3 – I realize I’ve only posted #1, but I’m going to do things out of order and post #2 tomorrow, so bear with me

What is a web host?
Think of a web host as a virtual landlord; it’s a large Internet-connected computer called a server, where you can rent space, or a virtual home for your web site’s files and data. Just like in real life, you’ll need to determine how much space you’ll need and what kinds of features and amenities you’re looking for.

This can obviously be overwhelming for a non-techie, because there are literally thousands of web hosting companies to choose from. Hence, I strongly recommend using a web hosting rating system, which compares web hosting companies side by side by features, price, and services. Though I have a few favorites when it comes to web hosts, sometimes my clients have unique needs, so I actually use that one quite a bit when finding specific kinds of web hosting. If you’re still not sure what kind you need, I recommend browsing through their articles before investing in a web hosting company – once you’ve committed to a web hosting plan, it can be challenging to change it, so it pays to compare and shop around.

Next article: Decide on your site’s features.

I’m a web designer by trade, so I get a LOT of questions from my readers about how to start their own web site. Since many single parent homeschoolers are work at home parents on the Internet, I’ve decided to write a series of articles on how to set up your own web site – whether it be to promote your own business, to sell your products, or just to blog and share your thoughts and resources with the world.

Most of the people who write to me aren’t professionals, but are on a limited budget. Fortunately, there are a lot of avenues for non-professionals to set up and run their own web sites without a lot of technical expertise and without spending a lot of money. As a professional developer, of course, I would caution against diving into a too-complex project without hiring a professional, but there are content management software packages, many of them free, that allow a person to set up a simple blog or site, then edit and maintain its content without any programming knowledge. Because most of these content management systems have a large community of developers, there are often many free customizable templates to make it look how you want. In other words, the content and look of the site is not going to be the first step.

There are six basic steps to setting up your own site, and each will get its own article in the upcoming couple of weeks.

1. Buy a domain name.
2. Decide on your site’s features.
3. Choose a web hosting plan.
4. Decide what your site will look like.
5. Put it all together.
6. Launch with promotional efforts.

Today I’ll be talking about how to choose your own domain name, or your own “dot-com.” Much like your business’ name, your domain name is crucial to the success of whatever endeavor you’re hoping to promote with the web site. You’ll need to purchase the dot-com, if it’s available, through a domain name registrar such as GoDaddy.com. It’s cheap – only about $10/year.

But what domain name should you register? It doesn’t have to be a complicated process, despite my having talked it up as being very crucial. I wrote an article that kind of walks you through the myths and realities of buying the perfect domain name for your site here: 5 Myths about Buying Domain Names.

Hopefully that will help clarify the process, but as always, you can comment this post for help, or use the contact form, and I’ll try to point you in the direction of the right resources.

Next Article in the Series: I’m going to skip ahead here and do #3: Choose your web hosting plan.

Per Ambleside Online’s recommendations, we’ve been using the “episodes” divisions of Penny Gardner’s Bible schedule for a few weeks now. We read and briefly discuss/narrate an Old Testament passage on Monday, a New Testament passage on Tuesday, a Psalm passage on Wednesday and a longer Proverb on Thursday. Shorty has a verse to memorize weekly, which he enjoys doing, and he also has to read a verse or two in Proverbs daily as well, which he must tell back to me in his own words. Fridays are our Bible memory challenge, where he recites the verse he’s been working on (and me too!).

To make it easier on me, I turned her schedule into a bookmark, which can be tri-folded and flipped around back and forth easily. I’ve decided to post it here and make it available for people to download and use/print out on their own. You can go through them all sequentially, or alternate Old and New  Testament readings, or whatever works for your family.

No copyright infringement is intended toward Ms. Gardner. Please do check out her site – it contains a great deal more information about Bible study than this simple bookmark provides.  Due to space constraints, I left out all her optional readings as well, so this isn’t a complete list, just the main gist.

Please right-click and save to your hard drive. Please do not open directly from my server, as this creates a rather significant server load if people do it over and over. Also, if you’re going to link to this on your own blog, please link to this PAGE, and not the document directly. Thank you!

Bible Reading Bookmark - PDF (64)

Bible Reading Bookmark - MS Document (22)

About once or twice a week I get an email from a single or working parent who wants to homeschool their child(ren), but they don’t think it’s possible, because they have to work. Whether they’re single, or their spouse is unable to work for whatever reason, or has faced job loss, or they have determined they cannot live without two incomes, or whatever. The point is – “But I have to work…” is one of the biggest roadblocks many, many families see as insurmountable to homeschooling their children.

It’s hardly an insurmountable one, however; many people homeschool and work full time.  I am cutting and pasting a response from a Yahoo! group. It was to a lady whose husband has been laid off, and the husband is demanding that she get a job outside the home and put the children back in public school. This is hardly the only alternative; it’s just the only alternative when you don’t think outside the box.

What most people don’t realize is that homeschooling is a lifestyle choice, just as putting your child in public school is a lifestyle choice for your family.  The means and methods by which you educate your children dictate the way your family lives, either way.  When you make the lifestyle choice of homeschooling, you’ve already decided your family’s time will not be spent the way most people choose to live. This almost certainly includes finances, and if you have to work and homeschool, it’s just time to accept that your lifestyle will be unorthodox, and work from there.

The point is: there are many alternatives to just sending your kids back to public school if the mother must work.

One or both of you could get jobs from home.
I have a links directory with a work-from-home section of over 100 legitimate work-from-home companies. I’m not affiliated with or paid by any of these companies so I’m just listing the ones I have either worked for in the past or know they have a good reputation. There are many excellent work at home forums that help you vet legitimate WAH jobs and offer resources and support, my two favorites are WorkPlaceLikeHome and WorkAtHomeMoms (not just for moms), and RatRaceRebellion has new pre-screened WAH job listings daily.  It takes time and persistence to find a work-at-home-situation that works for you, but it’s worthwhile if your goal is to spend more time with your family while being able to meet your family’s financial needs and goals. I have a few tips and starting off points here for people who want to explore this possibility more.

If people want advice or starting points, please feel free to contact me and I’ll be happy to help. I work as a web designer during the day and transcriptionist at night so I won’t be making any profit off helping anyone, I just have a passion for helping working and single parents homeschool.

Homeschool at unorthodox times.
If working from home isn’t going to make ends meet or it’s not for you for whatever reason, you can work full time and homeschool in the evenings and weekends. Remember that homeschooling takes a lot less time than traditional schooling, because there’s not nearly as much crowd-control and busy work going on. Getting an education doesn’t need to be limited to traditional school hours. Learning can take place at any time.  You can fit your children’s academic needs around your job schedule instead of the other way around.

Share the homeschooling duties.
If you’re a married couple that needs a full-time income, this doesn’t mean that this income needs to be earned by one person or bust. You could both get part-time jobs with rotating schedules and split the homeschooling duties if you are a two-parent household. If you’re a single parent household, perhaps there is a relative – or better yet, a grandparent or two – who would be willing to read, help with math, assist with science experiments, or just drive the child to a weekly co-op or something. You do not have to do everything yourself!

Teach your kids to be self-directed, independent learners.
If your children are reading independently, they are ready to take on increasing responsibility for their own schoolwork, with the goal being that eventually they are doing most of their own academics themselves, with you acting as a facilitator. Isn’t that our overall goal anyway?  To teach children how to learn and how to be active participants in their own education is a worthy goal, and easily accomplished over time in manageable increments.

Initially, they can be left with a sitter during the time you work, with a checklist of stuff to read and do themselves. This checklist should have only one or two things on them at first, then slowly added to, so that eventually the child is doing the majority of his or her own reading and schoolwork. My son has a checklist of things he must do weekly. He has the choice of spreading them out over time so that he only does a little every day for 5 days, or reading them in 3 or 4 days’ time, or reading all the assignments for one book in a single day, etc. In this way he learns to manage his own time – an essential life-skill for success in both post-secondary education and the workplace.

Once you get home from work, the children can narrate/ tell back to you what they read that day over dinner, and you can read a few texts at night like a bedtime story.  This is essentially what my son and I do with Ambleside Online – he has a daily checklist of things to read himself while I work in the same room with him in case he has any questions or needs help. Around 6 o’clock we do a brief math lesson, handwriting/grammar, art/poetry/Shakespeare/composer study (we do one of these each day of the week), and read the Bible together before dinner – about an hour or so. Then we talk about what he read that day over dinner, and read Age of Fable, a brief history reading and perhaps a literature selection before bed. We do our nature studies/ walks on Saturdays. I spend less than 2 hours a day homeschooling him directly and he spends perhaps another 1 or 2 hours doing his own independent work.

If your children are very young and aren’t reading independently, this is a mixed blessing. On the one hand, they don’t need as much formal academics as older kids do, so it’s even easier to fit their academic needs around a busy work schedule.  On the other hand, they need more attention and supervision than older children do and academic struggles present themselves at a larger scale in younger years. Either way, it is possible to find a solution that fits your family.

Ask for help.
You could rally your homeschooling community for support. One family won’t want to take on your children 5 days a week, but perhaps 5 or 6 families might each be willing to help you, especially if your family is in financial dire straits, by each taking your kids 1 day a week apiece (have an extra family on hand in case of an emergency). Then the kids could be in a homeschooling family setting while not being too much of a burden on any one particular family. I’m sure many families would be willing to help; many may have a homeschooled teenager who is willing to babysit and maybe even tutor for relatively low cost compared to daycares.

You can do it!
Your homeschool does not have to look like anyone else’s; it just has to work for YOU.  Where there’s a will, there is a way. I’ve been working from home and homeschooling my son for 6 years, so I know it can be done, but I also know the stress of financial worries, and the stress of managing a family’s finances AND homeschooling at the same time.  But this is not an obstacle to homeschooling – it’s just one more way in which we have to rearrange our lives to make this lifestyle choice fit. It’s not easy (when is anything with kids easy?) but it can be done.