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D E C I D E T o D o I T . L u r k o n l n t e r n e tmessage boards. Read the homeschooling FAQs.Post the questions that scroll across your mindat 4 a.m.: How do you know they're working atgrade level? What about socialization? Readthe books of educator John Holt. Read HomeEducation magazine. Don't think of lunchboxes or Halloween parades or any of the otherfripperies used to make school look like fun.Be Alice stepping into that rabbit hole-falling,falling, not knowing what waits below.

Read the research and feel bolstered by it.Learn that homeschoolers get higher SAT scoresand more acceptance letters from Stanford thanthe general population. Print copies ofthe arti-cles. Save one set to convince your in-laws; makepaper airplanes with the rest and call it a physicslesson. Once you've begun homeschooling, theexperts stop mattering. The experts don't knowyour children . You know your children.

Get to know them even better. Notice whatgives them glee. When your son is six, findhim books on pirates; when he's twelve, on theRomans. When he's obsessed with Pok6mon atseven, go with it-let him create math problemsinvolving Digletts and Polywraths. Let him

P A T R I C I A Z . A B A I . t O S

dictate stories with lines like "Charizard fire-spinned Machoke and he almost knocked himout!" Write it all down and tell him you find hiswork fascinating. Roll your eyes only when heisn't looking.

Go to the library. Introduce yourself to thechildren's librarian. Guide your kids to the NewBooks display and ooh and ahh as if standingbefore a candy counter. Explore beyond thefiction section. When your kids want to learnabout dinosaurs, check out nonfiction with lotsof graphics for your son and a book of dinosaurpoems for your daughter. Check out biographiesof dinosaur sculptor Waterhouse Hawkins andyoung paleontologist Mary Anning, and a bookthat shows how to make a Parasaurolophus hat.Check out as many books as the library allowsand your family's arms can hold.

Hike in the woods, visit goats, sail on aTall Ship. Look for Picasso in the Museumof Modern Art; look for clusters of monarchbutterflies in winter eucalyptus. See Chineseacrobats and Kiss Me, Kate and a Mark Morrisdance based on a typewriter. Take homeschool-ing classes in Spanish, drama, carpentry. Ignoreyour husband when he asks, "If you're home-

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schoolers, why are you never home?"Stay home. Make things. Relin-

quish the kitchen table to walnut-shell ladybugs, cardboard castles,Epsom salt crystals, balsa-woodstables, plaster-headed puppets, andarmies of clay Redcoats. Abandonthe scale model of the Parthenonwhen the task proves tedious. W'henyour son is six, let him make a card-board model of a Daniel Boone rif le,despite your issues with firearms.Help your daughter stitch aquilt and forgive yourself whenthe colonial doll's dress is stillwaiting, in pieces, to be sewn.Ignore your husband when heasks why the cupboards arefilled with egg cartons andempty yogurt contarners.

Don't panic when your daughterdoesn't read at six. Read to her. Check

2 0 0 8

out beginning readers with puppiesand ballerinas. Leave them lyingtemptingly on the coffee table, as yourgrandmother left out bowls of Jordanalmonds. If she doesn't pick them up,read them to her. Ask her to try outa word here or there. If she glares atyou as if she's suddenly rs, don't askagain for at least three weeks.

And don't holler when she seight and sprawled across thecouch, unable to pull her nose outof Ramona the Pest to empty thedishwasher. |ust as you shouldnever wake a sleeping baby, neverinterrupt a reading child. Empty ityourself.'When she slams the bookshut two hours later, notices the

- dishwasher has been emptied, andsays, "i'm sorry, Mama, I was just so

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the dishwasher, and once for correctlyusing immersed in a sentence.

Read aloud. Read about thegoddess Artemis, read ArtemisFowl. Read about shells, read ShelSilverstein. Read until you're hoarse.Read Roald Dahl and discuss irony;read Lemony Snicket and discusshumor-when you're not guffawing.I(eep reading aloud even when yourkids can read themselves; keep read-ing aloud when they're rz. As youand the kids drive from place to place,develop an obsession for books ontape. Even Treasure Island enthrallswhen read by a professional and

you're captives in the car. Try not

to careen into the medianstrip at the shock of hear-ing your six- and nine-year-old passionately critiqueStevenson's develop-ment of the characterLong lohn Silver.

\When you try to showyour son how to subtractdouble-digit numbers bylining up columns andborrowing tens and hescreams that what you'resaying makes no sense,remember that it madeno sense when you wereseven. Let him continuecomputing in his head.It's faster anyway, and hedoesn't need a pencil.

When, at rr, he sends

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using strips of construction paper.Give him a book of origami geometryand watch the blossoming of his giftfor transforming that which is flat intothree glorious dimensions.

Leave the laundry. Let dust turnto velvet atop the black piano. Sure,you're home, but you're busy. Readingis more important than cleaningthe refrigerator; tarantulas are moreinteresting than scrubbing the toilet.Make sure everyone gets fed, clean upthe last meal before you start the next,and save the rest for the weekend. I(issyour husband when he doesn't com-

ment and vacuums instead.

Make friends. Meet other home-schoolers at the park everyThursday. Sit in a knittingcircle with moms and the

occasional dad while thekids play freeze tag andbuild prairie houses from

grass clippings. Realizethat they get more play-time in one afternoon than

schoolkids get in a week ofrecesses. Help them resolvedifferences over choosingteams and playing in groups

of three. Organize a writers'workshop and a history fairand twice-yearly camp-

ing trips. Come to love theparents of your kids' friendsas much as your kids lovetheir kids.

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the math text skittering across thefloor, shouting that it's inane and hasnothing to do with real life, searchthe Internet and homeschoolingcatalogues for math that does relateto real life. Find problems aboutsavings accounts and architecture;find histories of Arabic numer-als and Archimedes. Learn aboutthe Pythagorean theorem with aGeoboard; Iearn to divide fractions

room, when a woman asks, "What

about socialization?i' suggest that yourdaughter describe her social circle.'When your daughter is still talkingfive minutes later, don't stop her as thewoman glances at her watch.

Don't think about grade levels.Grades are for eggs and maple syrup.Childrens bodies dont develop at con-sistent rates; neither do their minds.Although your daughter doesnt read

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at six, her conversation inciudes field trip. See a movie. Comb a beach.words like clambered and sodden. Notice that your children areAlthough your son hasn't memorized learning all the time-not just inthe multiplication table at eight, he the two hours or so you workcan interpret Lego building diagrams together most mornings, but allthat make your eyes blur. Focus on the time, with you and without you:your children's strengths, not Before breakfast, as they buildon what the neighborhood tl O Nl ' I a Lego kingdom while listen-schoolkids are doing. Let your T l lil',1 1.( ingto The Phantom Tollboothchildren guide you. If your son A Ll O t j I on tape. After lunch, tearing

ill'llH:;i*:*:1T'"' GlrADE through the backvard

read,giveherbookson LEVELS iil?;X:i:ilil:ilil:.tape. Aim to challenge your G R A i ) [ li doodles, writing comics,kids without frustrating them. A fi L: l:0 3 creating a terrain for tinyYou'll find the right level. m{S ffi $ pewter figures from The

I(now that some days will A\l D

Lord of the Rings. Afterbe hard. Your son will shout dinner, watching Roolsand sulk; you. auugf,t., *itt ru|APLE on DVD. In bed, readingstomp and glare. You will SY fl U P- Asterix and, Anne ofnag, you will badgea you will Avonlea.scream. On your worst days, you'll Learn with your kids. Understandthreaten to send them to school. Take the Revolutionary'War era as youa deep breath, but don't blame home- never did from a textbook at ten.schooling-a// families have battles. (You never wove on a loom or readFamilies with schoolkids bicker about Poor Richard's Almanac or learnedhomework. After a rough day, take a the complete lyrics to "Yankee

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Doodlei') Feel inspired. Learn on yourown. Read, atlast, Anna l(arenina andSylvia Plath. Teach yourselfto knit;to speak a little French; to espalier anapple tree. Take a pasta-making class.A writing class. W'rite an essay abouthomeschooling.

Watch your children thrive. Seethem walk into new situations-thatfirst baseball practice, that first danceclass-with a poise you didn't possessuntil your twenties. Watch the daugh-ter who once dreaded reading drinkin entire series of books like orangesodas. See her at eight, all long l imbsand grace, creating ballets aboutSaturn and Mars. \i/atch the son whodespised writing at seven composefantasy novels for sport at twelve.See him in the Parthenon Marblesroom of the Brit ish Museum, describ-ing gods and goddesses with a tourguide's expertise as your own parentslisten, agog.

Love your kids. Love being withthem. Love watching them becomewho they were born to be.

Read a line from novelist and fellowhomeschooler David Guterson

about making the deci-sion to homeschool:"[I]t is the fabric ofyour own life you are

deciding about, not justyour child's educationl'

Understand what he means. I(nowthat you made the right decision.

Patricia Zaballos is aformer ele-mentary-school teacher who is still

learning howto homeschoolin Oakland,California. Herbest teachers areher kids, Henry

al, Liu 1il,and Theo (o).

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