I have taught several kindergarteners at this point in my illustrious homeschool career. The third time around it is much easier, because naturally I perfected my methods and used up all my tears on the first one. And as all parents of more than one blessing know, once you find a system that works for the first, it will absolutely 100% succeed fail miserably and utterly and you will find yourself back at square one with a hitherto unknown reservoir of fresh tears. 

Small was the sort of kindergartener that eyed me with plenty of skepticism and no small degree of scorn. She had weathered five years on this earth and who was I to teach her anything? Nevertheless, I expected great things from my first prodigy. She had identified the letter “A” at 18 months so I was only concerned that she would be too far ahead for the average kindergarten curriculum. We hadn’t exactly made any progress since then, actually, but it is the capacity of the child not the achievements that truly matter. I optimistically purchased a few resources for our Very First Year of Official Homeschooling and she, well, refused to do them. Some days with polite reserve and others with the utter abnegation of an intractable martyr. Since she was my first, I worried about this. I snuck lessons on the alphabet into every daily activity that I could. The poor child made letters out of cheerios at snack time and I was constantly sneaking up on her play to surprise a little knowledge into her. We were never just blowing bubbles in the yard, we were counting them as they rose in splendid iridescence and subtracting the ones that popped. I pointed out other children significantly younger who were reading away. I bribed. I threatened. And after making her childhood a complete misery for two years and weeping over the phone to a friend that she would never read a single syllable, she decided she could. Perfectly. It’s just that, one sounds so ridiculous stumbling over letters and she wasn’t about to touch it until she could do it proficiently. Proficient is another word for perfection to some members of the Pickwick family. I should have known. The young Pickwick who could look with complete disdain upon the other nine-month-olds at baby storytime who were clapping along despite the fact that they were totally inept was probably also going to hesitate sounding out words like some illiterate pre-schooler. She eventually clapped at storytime, and she eventually read, and we added the complete works of Shakespeare to her second grade independent reading log and I took a deep breath and swore never to worry about kindergarten again.

I began Sweet’s education casually. As a veteran of the homeschool wars (Small’s education was still progressing combatively, an extensive military campaign on several fronts),  I decided we would try unschooling blessing number two for this officially non-mandatory stage. I told everyone who would listen that five is too young for formal education and shook my head at the foolish folks trying to cram kindergarten into the head of someone who really, really, really just wanted to make mud pies while wearing fairy wings for the foreseeable future. So she spent her idyllic early youth scampering about untended, exploring the world, unencumbered by a tyrant following her about with barely disguised math facts and spelling words. Somewhat reluctantly, I put my battle gear back on for the beginning of first grade. Imagine my surprise that teaching Sweet was far more like coaxing a small, shy, sylvan creature out of it’s woodland home and carefully sliding information under the kitchen table while not making too much eye contact lest you frighten it away forever. I had sworn not to worry about kindergarten ever again, but this was first grade?? How was she going to learn to read if I couldn’t get her down out of her favorite tree? I pleaded, I bribed, I begged, all to no avail. I wept over the phone to a friend that she would never learn to read, when she emerged from the basement one day mid-way through Little House in the Big Woods and asked if I minded if she read upstairs because she was at a very scary part and wanted some company. When did she learn to read?? Presumably the birds, or possibly a squirrel, taught her. 

Determined to actually never worry about kindergarten again, and probably first grade too, I lounged into this school year with my current kindergartener confident I could deal with whatever end of the extreme Feisty decided to inhabit. I had done battle, I had watched a forget-me-not bloom unexpectedly right under my kitchen table. I was ready for anything.

Well, it turns out that homeschooling Feisty resembles neither extreme. Nor does it resemble some happy, peaceful middle ground stumbled upon by vast experience. It is more like having one’s ears gripped while a small but extremely effective and rather terrifying officer of the KGB interrogates one two inches from one’s nose, shouting: “Tell me everything you know, NOW, Mommy, or Learning with Button Bear gets it!!!” I have turned an abrupt about-face on my homeschool philosophy, ordered every kindergarten workbook in existence, and hidden under the kitchen table myself while Feisty frantically demands that I read the directions again and explain why there are Valentine’s Day decorations all over her workbook page. I’ve learned one thing from homeschooling so far: I’m Not Worried. Terrified of her? Yes. But Not Worried. What will my next kindergarten adventure bring? I watch Busy coming down the pike, and I can tell you only this: whatever her learning style, I am totally unprepared.