Help please?

As we've settled in London, I'm feeling the weight of having to teach all the children.

This is our third week here.  The first week here, it was survival.  We were all so tired, and there was no way that we were going to open up the math workbooks or read history chapters.  And as so many experienced homeschoolers have told me, there is indeed learning going on, despite lack of formal "sit-down-and-do-academics" activities.  I'm trying not to feel guilty.

Part of the ex-pat package includes tuition to private schools.  We've applied to three schools in the area where we want to live.  At the moment, none of them have space for any of the children. 

I'm comfortable teaching Jonah - that was the plan for this year.  He has had a huge break from his academics because of this move, and I can see the results.  I feel like we have some serious catching up to do.
 
I have just submitted a request to have some help in the form of private tutors.  This cost is a small fraction of what the company would be paying out for private tuition.  I'd like a couple of hours of math tutoring, a couple of hours of native French language instruction, and a couple hours of science.  Our relocation consultant has indicated that this seems like a reasonable request, so we'll see what they say.  My fingers are crossed!

In the meantime, we have finally established a school routine.  On our best days, we still only manage to complete a couple of hours, focusing on math and writing.  But this past week, we had visitors from Belgium in London and we spent three days in a row, sightseeing with them.  I figure that was great experiential learning outside the classroom, coupled with fabulous language training!  I'm trying to read "A Little History of the World" by Gombrich, but we only manage to cover a few chapters per week. 

Patience, patience!  And perhaps help is on the way.....

Uprooting

The middle school homeschool has a new location:  London.

We arrived last week and life has become the classroom.

I've lost track exactly, but I think that we've had a good three weeks without much formal schooling.  There was the Washington DC road trip with Grandpa and Grandma followed by the uprooting of our home to move to London.  In preparation for departure, there were about 10 days of worthlessness; and upon arrival, there has been about 10 days of worthlessness. Worthlessness of the teacher, let's be clear!  I imagine more experienced home educators might suggest that there has been a great deal of learning taking place during this unique life experience.  However as this inexperienced and nervous-about-progress home educator sees things, I'm guessing that we've got some serious make-up work to do. 

In the past couple of days we have returned to our math curriculum.  General knowledge agrees that math is the backbone of the home school education. 

So we've got a starting point.  But now, instead of being able to focus on my middle schooler, I've also got a 4th grader and a kindergartner to teach at the same time. 

Shiny new library cards were handed to the kids two days ago, and that has been fantastic - they can start reading at their leisure again.  My next goal is to return to reading aloud.  They've been fidgety, argumentative, and distracted when I've read to them these past few days (albeit for very short times - like 10 minutes per day - maybe we just need more lengthy reading times).  General adjustments perhaps.  I've got a great history text, A Little History of the World, to read, and I really want to grab their attention with it.  But it just hasn't hooked them yet.  Let's hope for that to happen soon!