(Fleszar girls in Virginia. They know who the first governor of Jamestown was. Do you?)

Welcome back to our two-part homeschooling guest blog, courtesy of my friend and mom of four, Candice Smith Fleszar. Read part one here.

By Candice Smith Fleszar

When we started homeschooling one year ago, one of our largest concerns was how to keep up academically. Luckily, we learned it was easy to keep the kids on track (or ahead) with a good curriculum, but choosing it was a Herculean task.

But with all the chat of “teaching to standardized tests” and what seemed like constant switching of reading, math and science programs among public schools, picking materials that uniquely suited our family sounded pretty good.

We finally chose a highly structured one called Catholic Heritage, where we turn to the page that day in the lesson plans and it literally tells us which pages to do in which books for each subject. At the most basic level, it costs a couple hundred dollars per year for one child, but we found much of it used for much less.

And while we don't teach religion as a separate subject as many parents do, we also liked the fact that it mixed Bible stories and morality lessons within the other materials.

Honestly, I don't think us being Catholic was a huge factor in whether to homeschool. Certainly morals were a factor, but I think my feeling would be the same if I were Lutheran (as I was raised), Jewish, or just plain spiritual.

We're not nearly as church-involved as many of the other homeschooling families we know in Michigan, though I like the fact that the other homeschooled kids are from really strong faith families.

I was more encouraged by studies that showed that homeschooling moms with a high school degree had kids who averaged in the 83rd percentile on standardized tests. With my bachelor's degree and more than a decade in the media and public relations, I figured we could manage too. It also helped that colleges are beginning to recruit homeschooled kids because they make great college students.

Of course we knew we'd need to get our girls out and about. Educating at home is the best for us right now, putting a big emphasis on our family being together physically and emotionally (see Part One of this blog), but no one wants to live in a bubble.

So we visit other families, go on field trips, and attend a weekly homeschool cooperative, where the kids learn cooking, art history, creative writing, gym and drama.

Our two older girls still go on field trips with their former elementary school and see old friends in Girl Scouts. Our neighborhood is full of kids who come over, or vice-versa. And the new best friends our children have found in each other is invaluable - not that they never fight, but the good times are definitely better and more frequent.

I knew tough days would come when the kids were constantly distracting one another, the math was "too hard," although no effort was being made to actually do it, or they treat our schoolroom like they live there... because they do.

Some days they find any excuse they can to get out of the chair and off doing something else.
Balancing those days were lots of good ones and we're proud to say our kids did every math problem correctly in their book... because we kept at it until they did.

One veteran homeschooler once told me three weeks into her first year, she was crying in the shower wishing "that big yellow bus would come pick up those kids." Her oldest is now at the Vatican, studying to be a priest. So he seemed to come out fine.

For me, there isn't much of a divide between teacher and the mom these days. I think we all tend to do both anyway as we raise our kids.

However, I do put extra pressure on myself to turn everything into a learning experience, whether we're flying a kite or at the park. After a recent farm stand purchase of a purple cauliflower for dinner, I pulled everyone to the computer to look up what made it purple (answer: anthocyanin, an antioxidant found in red wine).

With our frustrations in learning this strange new world, we found some very delightful moments also. On the way to a Jamestown, Va. vacation, our 10-yr-old asked, "Dad, I can't remember the first governor of Jamestown, was it Newport or Gates?"

My speechless husband, who'd never heard of either, just had to tell her he didn't know. And just last week we had to laugh when she was explaining to her dad that girls were more sensible, citing as an example, the Revolutionary War woman who fed a group of red-coated soldiers in her home, then shot them in their sleep.

We don't know everything. But that's one of the points of doing this. Always learning, whether it's through books or life. Some academics I'm learning with our children (I would like to tackle Latin soon). But more importantly, as they grow, we're learning more about them as people.

Our oldest daughter can turn the chore of getting an active toddler dressed into a game that's fun for both of them and she's an amazing creative writer who paints stunning pictures with her words. Our third grader also is a great helper in our toddler's speech therapy by playing the word games that we usually have so little time to do and has become a much more positive person. And our kindergärtner is the first one to enthusiastically jump into schoolwork each day.

We still rely on supportive friends who share their tips and assure us that we're not totally ruining our children academically or emotionally when we have a bad day. We don't really know how long we'll keep doing this. A lot will depend on each daughter and whether we can easily handle what she needs academically and whether she wants to go back to public school.

At least for now, we feel we're doing what's right for each of them and us as a family because no one ever looks back and says they spent too much time with their kids.

(I asked Candice how she copes with the Scary Homeschooling Police, when they come to inspect her house or check up on her progress. But her answer surprised me: she doesn't. In Michigan, homeschooling parents are bound by few state regulations or monitoring.)

So, Massachusetts homeschooling moms, please tell us about your experiences -- can you identify with Candice, or do things work much differently here? Leave a comment, or drop a line at enoonan@globe.com

Candice Smith Fleszar is a former journalist and corporate public relations specialist turned homeschooling mom in the Grand Rapids, MI area. She has four daughters, ages 2-10, twitters at www.twitter.com/CandiceFleszar, and is a moderator for MomsLikeMe.com