Thanks to everyone for the additional input. I like sweet2ndchance's ideas too. What I did while I was absent from the board was ask DD7 what questions she had about math; I sat down and basically made that question to her, the lesson. She then asked me, more or less, to explain what it felt like I had already said 100 times, except this time, because it was her question, she paid attention! I also enlisted her help in writing some of her own math problems (of the type we are working on, but with her choice of numbers) throughout the week. The week ended very well. I am sure my trick will not be the be all/end all. Nothing ever is. Shortly after I come up with any solution, and mention it to my Mom friends, it stops working, but it is now another tool in my tool box. Giving her the opportunity to do what I call "testing out" (proving she knows something and moving on) has been helpful, too, and has had more than short-lived benefits, though I do need to be careful that she doesn't try to "test out" of types of work that simply require practice, even if one is already pretty good. I will definitely try asking her to teach me some of the things we've been working on. That's a great idea! I remember hearing from college instructors that the best way to learn something is to have to teach it.

Guys, this has been enormously helpful. Thank you. I'm still really hoping to get homeschooling right, but it does sound like some teachers are able to offer solutions that would seem too difficult for me to offer on a 1 to 20 basis.

This might be better for the Afterschool board, but I am not (yet) an afterschooler. One of the complaints parents have about pubic schooling is that it comes with so much homework. That's one reason some parents choose to homeschool; if they are going to teach, they'd rather do it at 9:00 AM then while they're rushing to make dinner (or after). We're having a homeschool "moment" -- a long moment in which it seems as though homeschooling is not going that well. As I turn to the possibility of public schooling, I am wondering if I am turning to a solution or simply to a new set of difficulties. Could I use help? Yes, I could use someone dedicating a good portion of her time educating my child; I'm having a rough time doing it right now. However, when I think of the specific problems I am having: a child who will quietly (or not so quietly) goof around instead of doing her work, a child who pretends not to know things so she doesn't have to move ahead, etc., I wonder if public schools really have good solutions for these things. Do they? If a child quietly sits pretending not to know what a ones column is, does the teacher detect this and provide a solution? If so, is the solution to send a note home to me? (This would be fair enough, but it puts me back exactly where I am, so I'd might as well stay here if that's the case.) I've often wondered, too, how in the world teachers monitor handwriting in anything other than general terms -- e.g., overall neatness. If a child starts her nines at the bottom, and the handwriting curriculum says to start them elsewhere, would the teacher even notice? I don't think I would, with twenty students. That's probably still coming home to me, right? I guess my general question is what burden, exactly, public schooling lifts off of the parent.