skill again, you give the concept some time to settle. Within the next 24 hours you may discover a new and fresh way to present the skill, or your student may gain the extra processing time he needs to understand it.
It didn’t take too many months before he realized that finishing a math page within 10 to 20 minutes proved to be much more fun than staring at the math problems and thinking about all the other things he could be doing. Now he does his math quickly and well, within a decent time frame, and we move on to other things.
Using the extra time
If you opt for school without homework, what do you do with all the time you save? You suddenly have time to sit with your family and enjoy an after-dinner movie — during the week. Maybe you find the time for those volunteer opportunities that you always wanted to do. Or perhaps you may fill the hours playing board games or card games with your children.
Children think of all kinds of things to do when they find themselves free from homework. They build contraptions and coliseums in LEGOs. They grab the clay and populate a pretend town. They draw paper dolls along with stunning wardrobes. They run, ride, and skate. Once in a while, they may even grab a book and read on their own, without you prompting them. When I want my son for some miscellaneous reason, I first look on the sofa to see if he’s camped there with a book. More often than not, my quick sofa search ends the quest.
It’s 8:15 a.m., and you’d rather do anything than open that textbook one more time. These are the mornings I look over the children’s heads, catch my husband’s eye, and ask if he thinks the taxi could be here by 8:25 — in time to take the children to the local school. Of course, the answer is no: Who ever heard of a taxi arriving within ten minutes? But the question releases the tension, and I feel a little more ready to face the day.
Everyone has those can-I-call-the-taxi days. Sometimes the best antidote for low enthusiasm is to make yourself open the books and begin the day. The very motion of doing what you don’t want to do acts as a kind of therapy, and you find that you become interested almost in spite of yourself. Sounds stoic? Perhaps, but it works.
If the taxi urge comes on you because your children wake up in a less-than-amiable mood, you may want to turn the day upside down and begin with an exercise in creativity. Pull out the construction paper and scissors, the clay, or the recorder flutes, and have at it. Dance and wiggle to some upbeat music. After everybody spends some time creating and the juices start to flow, math looks much less reprehensible.
Once in a while, nothing settles the nerves but a day off. This is the day to play in the snow, picnic in the park, or go to the zoo. (If you visit the zoo and talk about what you see, it counts as a field trip!) After a day of rest or field tripping, you feel more refreshed and ready to hit the books again.
If you really and truly took the day off without doing anything educational, remember that you may need to teach an additional day at the end of the year to meet your school-days quota. However, when the doldrums hit in January or February, it’s worth an extra day or two in late May. After all, who can put a price or time limit on sanity?
Getting used to a lack of stimuli may take your children awhile, especially if you bring your kids home after they spend several years in the school setting. Everything is programmed in a school setting. You eat at a certain time, open your math books at a specific point during the day, and place all the day’s homework into your to-take-home folder.
Homeschool isn’t like that. After the day’s work is done, children are free to pursue new interests or continue old ones. During the first few months at home, you may find your students wandering aimlessly around the house wondering what to do with themselves. When I see that behavior in my own kids, I present them with a list of available options, such as painting, crafts, dolls, model trains, and so on, to remind them that they do have activities that they can pursue if they like. I always end the list with “… and you can always clean your room.” Funny — in all this time, they have never selected the room option.
Chapter 3
Complying with Uncle Sam
IN THIS CHAPTER
Homeschooling is legal in every state in the United States (also in Canada, if you happen to live in the northern half of North America). Really. It is.
What makes the home education process a bit sticky is that each state governs its own homeschoolers. That means that what I do in Indiana to comply with state law isn’t what you may do if you live in California or North Carolina. If you live in one state and plan to stay there for a while, you learn the homeschooling ins and outs in your area and you know what you need to do. The interesting part comes if your family moves every few years or so; then you may find yourself homeschooling in a state whose requirements are radically different from the state you left.
In this chapter, you can find the ins and outs of dancing the state-law samba. Whether you need to know the number of days that your state requires you to homeschool each year or you’re dying to read the educational code that pertains to you while you sip the day’s last cup of coffee, this is where you begin. If you find that you still have questions after reading this chapter, those are the queries to take to your state homeschool association. (Much as I’d like to help you out, I can’t take the time to memorize the laws for all 50 states plus the provinces of Canada. Like you, I have kids to educate.)
Conducting Yourself (Yes, Ma’am) in Accordance with State Law
The laws that you follow depend entirely on your state of residence. Wherever you live, that’s the state legislature you listen to when you plan your school year. Because education legislation belongs to the state and not to the federal government, each state regulates homeschooling as part of its education laws.
Some homeschooling laws are relatively easy to follow and understand. They usually say something such as this: Teach your kids yourself, do it in a decent, orderly way, and we’ll leave you alone if you leave us alone. (Not exactly in those words, mind you, but the gist of the content is there.)
Other states want more involvement in your homeschool. If you really corner your state officials and ask, you’ll find that what truly concerns them is the almost-mythical homeschooler who removes the child from school and then sits the child in front of the television for the next five years only to return the child to school a year or so before graduation and demand that the schools “Do something with this child.” With a scenario like that rolling around in my mind, I’d be a little testy, too.
Unfortunately,