Today we had a reporter from a local newspaper (not local to us--but not a
wide-ranging newspaper) here for about three hours. It went very well and she
definitely gave the impression that it will be a positive article. The article
isn't likely to come out for a few weeks yet, but I'll report back when it
is.
She wanted to "observe us homeschooling" for a little bit, and we did explain
that that was a rather artificial situation, but we tried. First of all, when we
have visitors, we don't do the stuff that looks like schoolwork to
outsiders--you know, math books and spelling tests, etc. Second, having known
that she planned to do that, I've had two weeks to plan exactly what we would do
while she's here, which is not at ALL how we operate!! (Which connects back to
the first of all, in that even without visitors, we don't do a whole lot of the
looks-like-schoolwork stuff...) At the very least, when she walked into the
living room we weren't expecting her, as my husband had just taken out the
garbage and met her outside, so there was no doorbell! So she found Marie
sitting on my lap and Katie climbing on my back while Marie and I were reading
the Bible (same Bible, but both silently), and Lukas looking at books. (I don't
know where Jacob was...)
But Jacob (8) did his German (at the table, with my husband sitting next to
him--usually my husband is working on the computer and Jacob is lying on the
floor in our bedroom/the office), Marie (nearly 10) did math (again, at the
table, with me sitting next to her--usually, the part we do together is on the
couch, but she does usually choose to do the writing part at the table), and
even Lukas (5) insisted on doing a couple of workbook pages, and Katie
(2) colored. (On my arm, too, which I didn't notice when it happened, but it
looks like her writing...) We didn't do any reading or timeline stuff or jumping
on the mini-trampoline and nobody complained about math or had any fights or
spilled anything. As I said, it was rather artificial.
But as an added bonus, not only did she understand English well (so I wasn't
having to translate everything I said to the children or them to me), she also
speaks Spanish, so was impressed when Katie and I had our daily galleta (cookie)
discussion in Spanish!
One more thing: the phone did ring once this morning, but we didn't answer
it. R.G. however happily left a message on the answering machine--but not her
phone number! Since the computer crash, I don't have your e-mail address OR your
telephone number, and we don't have caller ID. If you call me back (and leave
your number) or e-mail me, I'll happily get back to you, and yes, I'll be in D.
in September! :-)
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