Parent Teacher Conferences:

Yesterday was our parent teacher conferences for the children (Alex and Ellie obviously). No surprises but just some wonderful validation. If you've read my blog for any length of time you'll know that I worried last year, feeling on many days we were doing next to nothing (book work wise). Folks said "children learn vicariously... just by being around you". Well even if that's true (and I DO believe that) I still had great worries as it was hard to get any significant 1:1 time with either child. I worried that if they did in fact return to public school - they'd be behind. Many of you tried to tell me to : "relax, they will learn"... but I didnt always believe it.

You know what? You were ALL RIGHT! And thank you for being there for me last year and reminding me that children are sponges - they soak it all up. While it didnt seem were "reading enough" because we hardly ever had those charming homeschooling moments (I envisioned would happen by virtue of homeschooling, which is silly cause that's just not who we are.. who my kids are). So reading happened in many other ways - Alex read a number of cookbooks during his height of cooking last year. He never had a problem asking what (he would spell out x,y,z word) so and so spelled, AND he did learn. Of course Ellie thrived in many ways as she could read all day and loved that. I promise not to turn this into: Now I love homeschooling blog, BUT given I did post many times at some of our challenges, I wanted to also post our successes.

Alex and Ellie are both working at least at grade level if not well above in some areas. Ellie (no surprise here) is sight reading vocab words at a 6th grade level. Probably not experiencing comprehension at that level, but she's able to read a HUGE array of more complicated words and for the most part knows what they mean (now when put into story context.. again I suspect comprehension isnt quite there). They both are doing very well with math and generally are happy, well liked in their classroom and obviously havent killed one another off yet :) :) I didnt know how it would go having both kids in the same class, but it's really working. For now, this is where we need to be and I love the school and teacher. But I now have much greater confidence in myself and the process should we need to and/or choose to homeschool again in the future! There are so many inappropriate stereotypes about homeschoolers out there: generalizations that just arent true. So just had to share - my kids did return to school and are doing beautifully!