Part-time teacher

Off and on throughout life, I've considered being a teacher. For awhile I wanted to teach kindergarten, and then that underwent a radical shift and I would only consider teaching college or maybe private high school. I don't think I'm cut out for the teaching profession, but, in part thanks to being homeschooled, I love working with people and helping them learn. I've been an algebra tutor, a paper editor, a class schedule planner, and, most recently, a multiplication teacher.

Jacob and Caroline are in third and first grades, respectively, and Caroline adores math. While I have to urge Jacob to complete his math homework (well, any homework), she does hers as soon as she gets it and begs for more. He is learning multiplication; she is learning subtraction. And, because she wants to, multiplication.

When I write math sheets for Caroline, she always wants a bonus or extra, harder, problems. Yesterday I wrote "3x1" as her bonus, and she stared at me. I explained to her that it was the number 3, one time. I wrote a 3, and she grasped quickly that the answer was three. We moved on to 3x2, and I explained that the answer was 3, two times, so I wrote two threes and told her the answer was adding them up. We've worked off and on yesterday and today. The last problem I gave her today was 2x0 (we haven't talked about zero yet); she looked up at me and said, "Two zero times? That's zero!"

I was so proud. I love the sense of accomplishment, and she wants to learn. Her class worksheets may be working on "take away two," but at home we're doing "times two" along with it. I really am so, so proud!