This weekend I wrote up the report cards and today we had our parent/teacher meetings with Mary. Alex and Nathaniel each prepared portfolios which they shared with Mary, I shared their end-of-term review with them, and we talked about how the term (and the whole semester) had gone. Of course, both of them did an outstanding job, especially given the quality and ham-handedness of their teaching. It was a good exercise to force myself to boil each subject into a grade for each of them, it really made me consider all that we had accomplished during the year. I think it went well over all, though I have renewed respect for what teachers accomplish each day in the “real world.” There is so much I fully intended to do with the kids that we never got around to. It was remarkably difficult to be prepared for each day. I wanted each day to be interesting and engaging, and doing this for multiple subjects and multiple ages was very stressful. I’m afraid I failed more often than I succeeded. But when I succeeded it was a blast and when I failed I found that Alex and Nathaniel were forgiving and generous collaborators. Home school has been very very hard, but very much worth it. I hope the memories will be positive ones!    ...Eric