Smrt Lernins

Daisy asks, “How do you keep Babypie busy (and Tank when he is home) while you are teaching?”

Babypie is an uncommonly easy baby, so entertaining her has not been a problem thus far. She’s happy to wander around, nibble on a snack, play with her toys, and just generally observe our school lessons. The biggest problem with Babypie isn’t that she is herself distracting, but that Captain Science is often distracted by her. He loves her so much, and if he so much as looks at her, she always gives him the biggest, hammiest grins, which means he’ll keep smiling and talking to her instead of doing his work. This can be a problem.

The solution has been to set up multiple work areas for different needs. We have our school room, where my computer, the books, and homeschool materials all live. The desk has chairs on both sides so Captain Science and I can both sit at it. This is my base of operations, where I explain the lessons, go over the work (pointing out things that need correction or asking Captain Science to explain how he came to certain answers/conclusions), or do discussion/instruction portions of work. When Captain Science needs to read without Babypie milling about the same room, or if he needs room to spread out materials (science labs at home, for example), he goes into the gated kitchen to work at the table. When he needs a quiet place to work on math, grammar, writing, etc., he goes down to the roll-top desk we have set up in the craft room on the basement level. The desk is tucked around a corner so there’s not a direct line of sight to upstairs (he can’t see what the smalls are doing, they can’t see and bother him) and it muffles the sound a bit. That works really well and allows him to get work done with varying levels of family interaction as needed.

The Tank is…well, more of an issue. The main day he’s home during intense instruction is Friday, so I have to work hard to make sure he isn’t bothering Captain Science. I sometimes set him up with a movie or show on the opposite level of the house from where Cpt. Science is working. Sometimes I send him up to his room or down to the playroom for a while. When all else fails, he will happily sit at a table with markers and color on paper, himself, or the table. He’s easy to keep busy for short periods of time, but he likes something never every 15-30 minutes. Luckily, he really wants to start homeschooling with us, so I am going to begin phasing in some “table lernin” (his word for work done at a desk/table) for him to do on Fridays, which will give me another way to keep him occupied.

Our big challenge will be next year, when Tank isn’t re-enrolled in preschool and is preschooling at home. I’ll probably have to rotate their work (and play) stations around several times each day to keep Tank interested and out of Captain Science’s hair. I’ll try answering this question again next year and see what I’ve learned!

That’s how the [Smrt] Homeschooler entertains her smalls!

Do you have a question for the [Smrt] Homeschooler? Email them to
smrtmama@smrtlernins.com

Lisa M. (who asks some of the best questions), asks, “Do you follow the public school year? As in, break during the summer? Or do you school all year long?”

For this, our first year of homeschooling, we opted to more or less follow the standard public school schedule for two reasons: 1) The Tank is enrolled in a preschool that follows our county’s public school schedule and 2) as the change from public to homeschool was already such a big one for Captain Science, I wanted to keep the schedule as “normal” as possible. We do school Monday through Friday (with the occasionally Saturday catch-up in the event of a sick day). Our year started the same day as public school this year and will end at roughly the same time, officially-speaking.

Some notable exceptions for us have been the length and frequency of breaks. We don’t take off for teacher workdays or most of the one-day holidays (like MLK day). We only took W-F off for Thanksgiving. We did take two weeks off for Christmas, but that turned out to a less-than-ideal situation, as Captain Science didn’t adjust well to the lack of clear definition between home vacation and home school. Instead of a full week for Spring Break, we’re taking a few days for a combination family trip and field trip (Captain Science is touring Icarus Studios to learn how MMORPGs are made).

Also, when I say that our school year will end when the public school year does, I don’t mean that we’ll stop doing school. I just mean that our official ‘09-’10 school year will end after 180 days of schooling, as stipulated by state law, and that 180 days is up at around the same time that our county’s public schools let out in May. We won’t be done with school work by far, however. Our year is broken into three semesters and all three are “in session.” Fall and Spring have been more traditional, while Summer will be broken up by camps and trips, include a baseline of daily work for maintenance sake (math and grammar), and may involve a unit study or two.

Next year, I’d like to start balancing our school year a little better, spreading our out breaks, taking a shorter break for summer and over Christmas, but having more frequent 3 or 4-day weekends. Depending on what happens w/ Officer Daddyman’s work schedule, we might even rearrange our week to match with his for maximum family time! I love the complete customization of our schedule. We have to do school for 180 days, but we can take those days whenever (and however) we want!

That’s how the [Smrt] Homeschooler’s calendar looks!

Do you have a question for the [Smrt] Homeschooler? Email them to
smrtmama@smrtlernins.com

Today’s “Ask a [Smrt] Homeschooler” post is something of a cheater topic, as the person who asked the question was heavily involved in helping me sort out the answer. Still, I think my process could be helpful to other people, so I might as well answer this question somewhat formally.

Patchfire asks, “How did you choose your approach to homeschooling?”

First, I have to give a tremendous amount of credit to Patchfire. When I was first considering homeschooling Captain Science, she never one tried to talk me into it or convince me to use any specific approach. I know she was really hoping I’d make the decision to homeschool. I know she was hoping I’d choose a classical approach. Despite that, she constrained herself to only answering the questions I asked, only giving her opinion when I requested it, and also being honest about the challenges. For that, I am truly grateful, because I don’t have any doubts or regrets about the decisions we have made. I know they were our decisions.

Deciding on classical homeschooling was actually remarkably easy for me, though building up the courage to choose curricula and develop a schedule was hard. I have several homeschooling friends, both in person and online. I looked for the families whose children were most like Captain Science in temperament, ability, and learning style, and then assessed whether I liked how they were learning, how much they were learning, and whether or not I found them to be pleasant and well-rounded individuals.

The winner, hands down, of the “most like Captain Science” and the “most like how I’d want Captain Science to be in the future” was Patchfire’s Eclectic Girl. I loved the things she was learning, the methods by which she was learning, and wphat an enjoyable child she seemed to be overall. Plus, she and Captain Science are like two scrawny, brainy little peas in a pod, so it seemed like an easy choice to give credence to methods that worked well for her.

It was also fairly easy to choose an approach because I knew what approaches I didn’t want. I’ve never been a big fan of unschooling, at least as I’ve seen it modeled in the “real world” (or by online folks like Sandra Dodd of the “I’d rather have dentures than have memories of my parents forcing me to brush my teeth” school of thought). My personal experiences with Montessori weren’t great and I’m just not a centers kind of girl. Waldorf/Steiner? Yeah, not going with any approach that so strongly advocates a delay in reading. Unit studies sound great for some areas or topics, but I couldn’t see myself developing an entire curricula around them.

However fringe or hippie I might be in some areas of my life, when it comes to education, I’m fairly traditional. I value reading and writing, and yes, I think those are skills that should be developed earlier rather than later. I value thorough mathematical education, which includes things like knowing the multiplication tables. I think memorization and recitation are important skills for every person, skills that I have found useful on many occasions in my adult life. I value rigorous, evidence-based science education. I value history education that is both broad and deep. All of these values pointed me towards a classical approach to education.

I would recommend that every prospective homeschooler read The Well-Trained Mind first, even if classical education doesn’t sound like something that would float your boat. It’s the most thorough resource on what children should (or could, at least) learn and on what and how much to introduce when. You might read WTM and love it like I did, developing your own classical curricula for your child. You might say “Eff this noise!” and chuck it into the back yard for your chickens to eat. You might take parts from WTM and parts from other places. Whether or not you strictly define yourself by someone else’s approach isn’t the issue — I’m sure some of the most rigorous classical homeschoolers might consider me to be classical lite, as we haven’t yet started Latin (though we do a Latin-based vocabulary) and we don’t to that many fabulous extracurriculars. You just need to find a place to start if you’re trying to decide how to choose your approach to homeschooling. The rest will fall into place after that.

That’s how the [Smrt] Homeschooler chose her approach to homeschooling. Good luck choosing yours!

Do you have a question for the [Smrt] Homeschooler? Email them to
smrtmama@smrtlernins.com

Today’s “Ask a [Smrt] Homeschooler” is less of a question, and more of a request.

Marci writes, “I want you to do a post on how you possibly think your child will be able to handle hard situations if they aren’t exposed to them in public school at a very young age. You know the whole comment about, ‘they’re going to have to deal with moronic/mean/belittling…people someday so they might as well learn now.’”

I will start out by saying that I have never met an adult who is a better person due to belittling as a child. Cruelty doesn’t produce character. Suffering through meanness doesn’t make a stronger, better person. Bullying doesn’t create well-rounded individuals who are able to deal with day-to-day challenges. Removing a child from a damaging (mentally, physically, or emotionally) situation isn’t teaching him to “run away from his problems.”

The premise that bullying in some way “toughens up” children, helps them develop “thicker skin” or become “less sensitive,” or teaches them about the “real world,” is faulty and dangerous. Imagine trying to apply those same ideas to adults. Should an adult accept physical or verbal assault in order to develop a thicker skin? Should adults accept sexual harassment in order to become less sensitive? Should an adult accept discrimination or racism simply because it’s “part of the real world?”

Of course not. Adults are not expected to accept these kinds of behaviors, because they are unacceptable. The only situations under which most adults are willing to accept assault and harassment is when the adults feel powerless — fear of losing a job, fear of retaliation, fear of being called a liar. Why should my goal as a parent be to create situations where my children feel powerless? Treating bullying as a character-building experience for a child makes no more sense than treating domestic violence as a character-building experience for an adult. Domestic violence isn’t stopped by teaching the woman to make quips, hit back, or focus on her many positive traits to help her stand up to her abuser, because to do otherwise would be “running away from her problems.” It’s not stopped by telling the victim that it’s “just words” or that she needs to “toughen up.” It’s stopped by getting out and staying out. Why do so many parents fall into the trap of thinking that bullying, which is just another form of abuse, doesn’t merit the same solution?

As an adult, if someone calls me names, swears at me, physically threatens me, or just downright annoys me, I have the freedom to get up and walk away. I am not obligated to accept mistreatment. I am not obligated to accept abuse. I am not obligated to tolerate idiocy. Walking away from an unpleasant or intolerable situation may involve making a sacrifice, but I have the power to do that. Unless I am bound physically (such as through incarceration) or legally (as with military enlistment), I always have the option to weigh the costs and benefits of tolerating or rejecting any given set of circumstances. I can choose my place of employment, my recreational activities, and my social group (which is very rarely based solely on age). A child in a public school setting, however, has no choice over his classroom “peers,” his schedule, or even his presence there. How are the social lessons learned under those circumstances analogous with the social lessons I will need as an adult? Short answer: They really aren’t.

Yes, there will be times when my children will have to smile and nod at idiots, brush off an insult without reacting, or even deal with a bully. They won’t be learning the skills necessary to do that within the contrived, age-segregated “social setting” of the classroom. They’ll be exposed to a much wider age range (though homeschool co-ops and the many other social activities in which we participate), where they will have the model of older children and have to be the model to younger children. They will also witness their parents dealing with frustrating situations politely and tactfully, even if we grumble about them later. Sometimes, they’ll see us ignore harsh words from someone who isn’t worth the effort we’d have to make to respond. We’ll talk about why we choose to engage and why we don’t. We’ll explain that sometimes you fight and sometimes you walk away.

How will our children learn how to deal with tough or unfair situations that deserve a fight? When we are dealt with unjustly, they’ll see us modeling appropriate anger and indignation (one real world example: I was asked by a security guard at a water park to stop breastfeeding my infant), appropriate immediate responses (ex: I didn’t bless out the security guard, but instead clearly and politely recited that state laws protecting my right to nurse my child there, and then spoke with the manager), and appropriate longer-term responses (ex: I worked w/ the manager on implementing training for employees about breastfeeding laws and including pro-breastfeeding language on the water park’s website).

I can’t think of a single situation in my life where having been bullied or forced to deal with idiots in a manufactured setting has been of any great benefit. I have tapped the tools I learned from my parents, Girl Scouting, my Model United Nations team and other wonderful sources on many occasions to great success, but not once have I thought, “Gee, I’m so glad I was belittled by my peers!” I’m pretty sure my kids can manage without that particular brand of education, too.

And that’s what the [Smrt] Homeschooler has to say about that.

Do you have a question for the [Smrt] Homeschooler? Email them to
smrtmama@smrtlernins.com

Lisa M. asks, “How much ‘outside’ schooling do you do? I mean classes or subjects that you do not teach yourself and either have someone else teach or pay for at a local facility.

Have I mentioned my undying love for Patchfire? Apart from having a wo-mance with her (which is like a bromance, only for women), I also share a little mini co-op with this delightfully intelligent woman of many talents. Twice a week, we get together so that she can teach science to our oldest children. On Tuesdays, Patchfire and her brood come over here for Captain Science and Eclectic Girl to delve into a wonderful course in the human brain, taught by Patchfire (about an hour of work). After that, I spend the next hour working with them on creative writing, while Patchfire entertains the smaller kids. Our current topic is writing short stories, which both kids seem to be taking to quite well.

On Thursdays, we zip over to her house after dropping off the Tank. There, the kids work on physics units, covering a wide array of topics, such as sound, color and light, water and heat, electricity, magnetism, etc. We’re usually there from around 9:30 to 12, plenty of time to finish all the experiments and even have a little play time.

Captain Science is also receiving piano lessons twice weekly from my great-aunt. It’s a nice break to the monotony of Mondays and Wednesdays, which are our biggest academic work days.

Later in the spring, I’d like to start both boys in some art classes. Art isn’t my strongest area, and I think they’d both benefit from some additional instruction. We’ll also have a little more money freed come summer time, once the Tank is no longer in preschool. I’m already looking at the possibly camps and programs they could enjoy this summer!

As a follow-up, Lisa would also like to know, “How far away would you travel for a class that fit your schedule that you could not teach?”.

Could not? There is very little I could not teach. I can’t imagine willingly traveling more than 20 minutes each way with any regularity. We have enough resources within a short drive that I wouldn’t be willing to drive to downtown Atlanta, up to Gwinnett, or any place like that just for a class. A one-time thing? Sure. A one-week camp, once a year? Maybe. A regular class? I’d just have to look for a closer alternative.

That’s how a [Smrt] Homeschooler handles outside schooling!

Do you have a question for the [Smrt] Homeschooler? Email them to
smrtmama@smrtlernins.com

Lara wonders, “How soon would you ideally start planning for homeschooling, before starting up?”

Ideally? I would probably have started a few years ago! Barring the ability to time travel, however…

I can’t change how things happened w/ Captain Science, but I can tell you that with the Tank being 3.5, I’m already planning his first year of homeschooling — his “pre-K 4″ year. This isn’t because I think a 4-year-old needs that much in the way of formal schooling, but because I think homeschooling offers a unique opportunity to gentle phase in more structured learning.

I’ve always felt Kindergarten (particularly public Kindergarten as it currently stands) was a bit of a rude awakening for children. I mean, the classroom looks an awful lot like it did in pre-K, but suddenly there’s this mountain of expectation placed on the child. I’m all for high expectations, but the sudden leap from play to work doesn’t sit well with me.

We’ll start introducing some “curricula” gradually over the summer, starting with some phonics, tracing and cutting work (areas where Captain Science’s early Montessori education really failed him), and some basic math skills. He’s already great at counting and he can do simple addition in his head, so I think some hands-on math would be right up his alley. We’ll add a little at a time, so that by the time we reach Kindergarten age and are asking a little more of him, he’ll be used to our academic routine, he’ll have gradually worked up to the K-level materials, and I’ll have a better idea of what types of materials will be suit his needs.

Best case scenario*, I’d want to start planning a year ahead, picking out curricula for that year and trying to develop at least a rough sketch of where I’d like to go with certain subjects and when. If you don’t have that much time, start ASAP. I’m already putting together materials for next year for Captain Science and the Tank. More time is always better!

We were able to get our curricula for Cpt. Science figured out over the summer, but it was a little slapdash to begin with, which made me feel harried. It also meant we didn’t have as much time for big-picture planning as I would have liked. With the Tank, starting now means I can have a very bare-bones mental picture of the big picture from the get-go.

Your little guy is four? Now is probably the right time to get started, if your goal is to start by Kindergarten. It’s never, ever, ever too late, though. You can always make changes to your materials and routine as needed!

*Patchfire says the best case scenario is actually “as a break from reading pregnancy books.” Don’t listen to her, though. Compared to her, we’ll all doin’ it wrong.

Laura asks, “How do you know how to pace homeschooling? I know homeschoolers who finished high school at 16 – how do you feel about that?”

It’s a little hard to think about long-term pacing right now, when all I want is for Captain Science to finish his daily assignments on time! I wish I were currently in the midst of worrying about pacing from the “whoa, don’t go too fast!” point of view, instead of our current “why is it taking you three hours to finish one math problem?” point of view. This boundary testing nonsene is a bitch that I’d like to send back to the pound.

Still, you’ve touched on a big issue for homeschoolers. Obviously, there are different schools of thought about how (or whether) to pace work in order to keep a homeschooled student on track for a roughly “normal” age of graduation. Some people let their children work at an entirely self-directed pace, even if that means graduating at 14. Others believe strongly (and I mean strongly) that certain subjects are taboo before certain ages or stages of development, and that you’re damaging your child horribly and permanently for allowing them to work too far ahead of what they feel is “age appropriate.” Think I’m exaggerating? Ask Patchfire how much flack a homeschooler takes for daring to algebra to a nine-year-old (even a gifted one). One mustn’t learn too fast!

Of course, you’re not asking what They (the collective “Them”) do, but what the [Smrt] Homeschooler does. Thus far, pacing (at least for the sake of making sure he doesn’t finish too early) has not been something I’ve worried about excessively. Captain Science is already officially one grade ahead, due to skipping a grade, so he’d be graduating early anyway. He’s working ahead of his grade level (the one to which he was skipped) in several areas, when he isn’t wrapped up in his hissy fit of “I don’t wanna!” that we’ve been experiencing the last few weeks. I couldn’t imagine deliberately holding him back or slowing his progress, just to keep him on “grade level” — whether out of fear of potential damage from introducing concepts or out of fear of him going off to college too young.

Some of our curricula is self-pacing. Life of Fred is a good example of this. He does a section a day, moving through it at a pretty fast clip, unless he’s having trouble with one of the concepts. If something is tripping him up, it will come out in the bridges between chapters. Since he has to correctly answer 9 out of the 10 questions to move on the next chapter, he could theoretically complete the bridge in one day. If he answers fewer than 9 correctly, however, he must complete the next try the following day. While only five tries are provided, there’s the option of repeating them until the concepts are cemented. Typically, he makes it through by the fourth try, though second or third is more common.

This does mean that he’s moving through the Life of Fred books pretty quickly, covering more than one full book per semester. It also means that, in another six to eight weeks (provided he gets back on track) we will be faced with the choice of starting either pre-algebra or beginning algebra, which puts us into the “oh no, you can’t start algebra too early!” zone. Personally, if the kid has the prerequisite skills, I don’t see why s/he couldn’t start algebra. Whether or not Captain Science will be ready, however, is going to depend entirely on his skill set at that point. I won’t hold him back if he’s ready. I won’t push him forward if he’s not.

The subjects where I control the pacing, such as history, I’m careful to not throw too much information into one day. This isn’t because he couldn’t make it through the work, but because I want him to have time to savor the minutia of the subject matter. Yes, he could read the entirety of Eyewitness: Ancient Rome in about 20 minutes, if it even took that long. He wouldn’t, however, take the time to think about the similarities and differences between Roman culture and ours, or what it would really mean to live in a stratified society (especially as someone on the lowest stratas), or about how different childhood might have been for him had he lived over 2000 years ago. Pacing, for history, means offering just enough information in a go to let him look at each fact and draw conclusions between those facts and his prior knowledge and experiences.

What I expect from him, work-wise, is increasing gradually over the year. He’s moving pretty rapidly from simple ideas to broad and important concepts — the speed at which he goes through the material hasn’t changed, but how he relates to it has.We’ve gone from listing dates and finding vocabulary to writing (hopefully) thoughtful essays based on essential question (both the “recurring questions in life” and the “key inquiries within a discipline” varieties). How do the differences in cultures affect childhood? What is the meaning of the forms of entertainment we choose, the foods we eat, the rulers we elect (or who conquer us)? If he’s ready to seek out the answers to questions like that and to think deeply and meaningfully (moving from the grammar stage and into the logic stage), why would I continue to insist he work on the lower level, simply because he’s in fourth grade and the logic stage “officially” begins in fifth grade?

As for what we’ll do about college when (since we’ve already gone past “if” by virtue of grade skipping) he graduates early, most of that will depend on Captain Science. If he doesn’t get any further ahead than he is now, and graduates at 17, I have no problem with him going to college wherever his heart may lead. At fifteen or sixteen, if he’s ready to handle the work (which he should, if he’s graduated high school), we’ll probably send him to a local college/university for a year or two, as we have wide variety from which to choose within a 30 miles radius.

Of course, if Harvard or MIT comes knocking at fifteen, I guess we’ll just have to change our plans a bit, right?

Do you have a question for the [Smrt] Homeschooler? Email them to
smrtmama@smrtlernins.com

Officer Daddyman likes to containerize. We tease him about his collection of bins, particularly clear plastic bins of various sizes. While he really does buy bins with some degree of regularity, he usually does buy them with specific goal in mind, and the purchase typically is precipitated by lots of measuring and sorting. January is a good month for Officer Daddyman, because it’s when all the bins go on sale. I want you to hold all of this in your mind as I continue with this Tuesday’s “Ask a [Smrt] Homeschooler” post.

I wanted us to start our second semester with reorganized binders. Officer Daddyman wanted us to start with a neat desk. These are both noble goals.

Reorganizing binders meant a lot of sorting into categories, repairing torn notebook paper holes with those little white circle thingies, and generally reshuffling. Officer Daddyman walked into the school room to find me surrounded by piles of papers. His eyes grew wide, and he asked, “Are you keeping all of that?” (Of course, I immediately told him I’d be blogging that).

Today’s question, from Officer Daddyman is, “Are you keeping all of that?”

The short answer: No.

The long answer: While I’m not required to produce records for what we’ve covered, I want to keep them anyway. Keeping records does not, however, mean keeping every scrap upon which Captain Science ever scribbled a math problem. My keep file boils down to this:

The “dispose of” pile included all the “your turn to play” sections from Life of Fred, rough drafts of essays, old history vocabulary and timeline stuff (since we pretty much ditched that), and any scribbles, doodles, or scratch paper. Trust me, the “dispose of” pile was much larger than the “keep” pile.

Now the [Smrt] Homeschooler has a question for you? What do you keep? What papers are you required to hang on to for continued homeschooling on the up-and-up? What do you keep for personal records?

Heyunyi asks, “Is your decision to homeschool going to result in you being a stay at home mom longer than you originally planned?”

When I first saw this question, my immediate response was, “No, of course not! I always wanted to stay home as long as possible,” but once I got to thinking about it, I realized that this really did potentially alter my long term plans.

I had no timeline on returning to work outside the home, though I planned on going back to school to get my PhD in creative writing. I currently have a master’s degree in professional writing, but I just don’t feel that I’ve reached the terminus of my education. I miss taking classes. I miss being around my professional peers. I want to learn more about my craft. I’d like to have the option of teaching collegiately some day. I’d also like the additional credibility that having a doctorate bestows, especially since I have plans to develop a creative writing curriculum for homeschoolers. All of this points towards going back to grad school.

My bachelor’s and master’s degree were both completed after having Captain Science. I was pregnant with the Tank while still in my master’s program and he was born before I completed my thesis. School and children can definitely be compatible. A doctorate program is a different kettle of fish, though. Along with taking classes, I expect I’d be teaching some, as well. That’s a lot more of a time sink than two hours of classes a few nights a week.

Homeschooling the children means a delay of my doctorate plans, not that I had a specific time frame in mind. With the kids’ age differences, I could conceivably be homeschooling for the next 16-18 years or so, if we decide to homeschool Babypie the whole way through. I wouldn’t have to be home every waking minute of every day past a certain point, obviously, and by high school, who’s to say what the various children will be doing — college classes, magnet school, co-op stuff, begging to be sent away to boarding school because they’re so tired of looking at their mama’s ugly mug?

Luckily, additional graduate school isn’t on the horizon in the near future, regardless of my homeschooling plans, so I’m only thinking about it abstractly right now. Who knows what the future holds? After doing some thinking on the matter, I realize that I’m willing to put some of my goals on hold or even reevaluate them all together for the sake of homeschooling my children, and that’s nice to know.

Do you have a question you’d like to ask a [smrt] homeschooler? Email me at smrtmama@smrtlernins.com!

Ariana asks, “How you deal with homeschooling the oldest while still caring for the two younger?”

I’ve written previously about my decision to put the Tank in a traditional preschool. I have arranged our two most rigorous curricula days to fall on two of the days he’s at preschool. Our away-from-home science lab is on the third day of preschool. This allows us to accomplish a lot while the Tank has a nice playdate. On days he is home, distraction is helpful. Sometimes he’ll do “table lernins,” working in a workbook or coloring book while Captain Science and I do school work. Sometimes I set him up with a snack and/or a movie. Sometimes he comes in and out incessantly, bothering us, until I snap at him and send him to his room. You never really know what to expect!

Babypie is a distraction for Captain Science. He loves her so much that it’s hard to keep him on task. Separation to another room (for him), frequent reminders to stay on task, or trying to arrange her nursing and napping time to coincide with his more important work all help. As she has gotten older, she’s shown a remarkable ability to self-entertain, playing alone with her toys for 20-30 minutes, easily. All I have to do is keep her away from the stairs and Christmas tree!

If we decide to home “preschool” the Tank next year, we’ll have to find some methods to keep both of the boys on task, especially with a busy toddler underfoot, but that’s a bridge we’ll cross when we come to it.

She ask wonders, “When, if ever, do you get time for yourself? Has what you choose to do with that time changed at all?”

I definitely have less “me time” than I used to. When Captain Science was in public school, I could be guaranteed at least an hour of quiet while the Tank napped. Now, it’s a crap shoot as to whether I get any quiet at all. On the plus side, Captain Science is old enough to be trusted with Babypie while I cook dinner…or use the potty in blessed peace and solitude. Trust me, with three children, making a tinkle without a pottience is me time, homeschool or no homeschool.

Officer Daddyman tries to make sure I get enough time to myself, but that’s hard to achieve. Someone always wants me, and Daddyman suffers from a distinct lack of ninnies for nursing a fussy baby back to sleep. Once a week, we go over to Patchfire’s place, and she and I head out for frozen cutard at Rita’s, leaving the kids with the daddies. That’s a nice little respite, however brief. Sneaking up to have a hot bath and a book (sometimes with a glass of wine) is a nice little luxury in which I indulge a few nights a week, though normally after the kids are asleep.

I definitely appreciate my “me time” more now, but I haven’t made any significant changes to how I use it. I’ve grown a lot closer with Patchfire, due to our bond over homeschooling, so I see more of her and her family than I used to, but I still enjoy the same things — reading, knitting, playing Pet Society on Facebook, watching a little mindless television (on Hulu or Netflix), playing a little Wii on occasion, and spending time with family and friends. An hour out with the girls is practically a panacea for mama-stress!

That’s how a [Smrt] Homeschooler balances time with all her kids…and still sneaks a little in for herself.

Do you have a question to ask a [Smrt] Homeschooler? Email them to smrtmama@smrtlernins.com!