Everything I needed to know...I learned in Homeschool!

Homeschooling has taught me many things:

1.) Yes, it is enough. Repeat after me: Yes, it IS enough.
In the library today, a wonderful, well meaning mother recommends a book of children's poetry. Immediately, my mind is spinning, as I flip through the book. My children wouldn't like this, it would be torture trying to read this to them! Do we do enough poetry? Obviously, they aren't getting exposure to all the things that public schooled children get - the teachers there teach poetry. Am I doing enough? You know what? My children have been exposed to poetry. And one day, 10 years from now, my daughter might pick up a book on poetry. It might become her favorite thing in the whole wide world. And then she can make up for all the years that I didn't "formally" teach poetry. Yes, it IS enough.

2.) Gaps can be fixed. Easy!
By the end of K, my dd was reading very slowly (and still is reading very very slowly...LOL). We had attacked sight words phonetically, so she was sounding out words like "was" "and" etc. Whereas the public schooled K kids were running through easy readers in a breeze. I did some looking online, and yup - we had a gap. We lacked Fluency. Easily resolved: we drew up all the common words on flashcards. We still taught them phonetically. We sounded them out, again and again and again. We worked only on those words. By the end of a week, she could take the first 12 words and read them on sight. When we see them in books, she instantly recognizes words such as "are" and "one". Gap filled and I am happy with her progress.

3.) That magic moment really will happen. It really will!
Oh, it takes sooo much faith. I'm still waiting for our Great Big Reading Magic Moment. You know, the one where she wakes up one morning and can read the cereal box, and everything else that falls before her eyes. I'm waiting for the day when she can read "game" without reading "gu - a- m - ee, no I mean gu - A - m" (long pause between sounds). But I have faith that that Magic Moment is going to come. It has come before - my dd, slow to do anything new, finally ate solid foods (at 10-11 months, no less), rolled over (9mths), walked (14mths), dressed herself (3+yrs), etc. We had a magic moment the other day: I pulled out math and said ceremoniously "Today, we will learn to count by 2s". DD5 says "oh, do you mean 2, 4, 6, 8, 10 - like that?" Me: "Um, yeah, like that". That was a short lesson:)