I love having good tutors. We have a tutor who teaches my sons Russian and math (but the language of instruction is Russian). He's a great guy--young, energetic and he loves math. My wonderful dh travels much of the time, so having a positive, young guy around is a big plus. He teaches in my husband's office, which is one floor below our apartment. This I also love because it means the boys get to go somewhere each day, another plus during the long Russian winter.
The downside is that he wants nothing to do with the math programs (Miquon, Saxon 2 and Saxon 4/5, and Singapore) I have given him. He agreed to use them, feigned interest and then stuck them on a shelf where, no doubt, they will remain. I wish he would use them, but his English isn't that great and he thinks they involve too much busy work and they make math more difficult than it is.
So they do problem sheets of his own making, the odd workbook or two and lots of model making, geometric art, building projects, maps making, etc. They have a great time. My sons' math skills are weirdly advanced, so I'm trying to let him run the show. They are having fun, and never seem to tire of their lessons. They never complain about having to "go to the office" and trott off cheerfully.
They have also learned to read and write in Russian.
We also have a piano teacher, an art teacher and a chess teacher. All of them are very good in different ways, and I find they bring lots of positive energy into the house. My children get focused one-on-one attention from a caring, intelligent adult who something worthwhile to teach, so I like that too.
I do the reading, literature, spelling, handwriting, science, some five in a row and history. (At their current ages this means that I just read a lot, and listen to them read) I love math, too, so we play math games sometimes.
I imagine I could try to teach all these things to them myself--except Russian and piano, of course. I read all the time about these great homeschooling moms who do it all themselves and I do see some of the advantages to that. Some would even question if what we really do is homeschooling. But it works for us in the moment. I'm keeping my kids close, going at their pace, enjoying their (almost) constant company, and loving it. They are together, which they love, and home, which they also love.
Wow. I wrote more than I planned, too. I hope this helps in some way.
BTW, we return to the US in a year and all of this great affordable tutoring will come to an end. We do intend to find a Russian language tutor (after all the work my kids have done learning Russian, I'd hate for them to lose it.) but the rest comes back to me. So we'll all enjoy it while we can.
