Is it working?

When I talk to other homeschool moms, I hear phrases like "We're learning about Ancient Egypt," or "Susie is studying botany," and I panic. In my mind, there are scores of kids out there ACTUALLY learning real subjects. I begin to assume elaborate projects, dioramas, costumes, microscopes, textbooks, online tests, written reports, oral reports, television interviews about how brilliant homeschool kids are and I think..."well, we read a chapter about Sacagawea today."

Then I start obsessively questioning my kids.

"Tell me about Sacagawea," I plead. "Who was she helping? Where were they going? What was her baby's name?"

Chloe always gets the baby part right.

Then I get obnoxious. I become one of those parents.

"Tell Nana what you know about Sacagawea," I hear myself say, at the lunch table. "Sacagawea was..." and I nudge.

Because I am afraid of what I think is going on in other homeschool families, I pester my kids to prove to me that they are retaining something; ANYTHING.

But then I come back to my senses, and I realize that it really is the moms who are studying and learning this stuff. And because we're studying and learning it with our kids, we're talking about it with them more than we would if they were just being taught at school. We're asking follow up questions, we're connecting dots, we're making observations in life - at the grocery store, on a walk, in a book - that apply to the lessons.

And when the moms are that involved, the kids can't help but absorb and retain the information, at least a bit of it.

So, I have a kindergartener and a second grader who know that Sacagawea helped Lewis and Clark find the Pacific Ocean with a baby named Pompey. It's more than they (or I) knew before we started, so I figure we're on the right track.