Do I dare???

Possibly declare a small victory in the subject of avoiding math meltdown of boredom???

Today I made my daughter do her addition and subtraction problems (30 of them total) with a timer.

Oh the glories of the microwave timer. How I love thee. Let me count the ways. Ok I won't right now.... maybe later?

I do however think in order to keep the excitement of seeing how fast her math paper for the day can be done in I am thinking I may need to instill a weekly contest against herself. It is still in the very early stages of the though process but I am excited. Yes yes I do realize it's only day 1 of our glorious timer using but you have to start somewhere right!? She is pumped and so am I. I love it.

With this new idea of a timer officially become a part of our classroom day in and day out I am thinking about scouting out some cute timers and having her pick out her favorite one. Might as well have something pretty to look at while working right!? Hmmmm now where to look first?

In other early in the thought process stage for school...


We are also thinking about making our own "Kids Club/Book Club" within our homeschool. Real laminated membership cards and everything! See I looked into the Barnes and Noble one and while it sounds cool and all I'll be honest I don't shop there enough to really see the benefits it would hold for our family. Half Priced Books on the other hand that is a different story. heehee

Anyway, this too is in the very early stages of talks with my very willing and excited husband, but I think we might be starting something like that around here soon. Something to boost and keep the joy of reading alive. Prizes maybe of books that are desired as rewards for finishing a certain book, a number of pages/minutes, etc. While researching some for this new idea I found a new series well a "new series to us" and I fell love with their website. Have any of you heard of the "Katie Kazoo Switcheroo" book series? They sound interesting and cute, but we have not read any of them yet. If you have I'd love to know what you thought of them.

Ok back to the series... on their website they have links to printables and all sorts of other goodies. One I really loved was a "Read-A-Thon for Charity". I think this is one we will have to do. We will have our daughter pick whatever cause or charity she would like to donate to. Her father and I will then pledge money and fill out her form and then we will pay for however much she reads to the cause or charity of her choice. She seems very excited about this... As are we. Now to only buy some new ink for our dusty printer and get to reading.

So many new ideas and such are swirling around in my head right now of some new exciting things to take place. I hope it helps kill the "Is it the end of the school year yet blues" that are bound to hit sometime after Christmas. Treasure box ideas with items from the Michael's clearance section and so forth.

Oh the possibilities.

Oh and I am also so very proud of the fact that after just learning about Multiplication yesterday it feels it has been mastered. Ok not in the sense of "it's completely memorized let's move on", but in the fact of "I totally get it and if I'm unsure I know the thought process to take in order to find the answer." I was told yesterday that and I quote "multiplication is fun" and a process today of problems that strictly said things like

"five 8's. Now write that in a multiplication sentence of ____ x ____ = 40"

Without thinking and NO JOKE in 58 seconds (yes I timed her) she CORRECTLY answered all 12 multiplication question from today's paper. I am so stinkin proud of her. The Horizon's Math isn't having her come up fully with the answers as so much right now as they are wanting her to know how to write out the problem. But she "gets it". I mean straight out of the gates "gets it". It's awesome. I do though have to give credit where credit is due and the method they now use in explaining multiplication is far better then the "repetition, repetition, repetition" I had to learn with. No fear the repetition is coming, but I am stoked to know that she can correctly walk through the steps on how to figure it out. YAY. No tears for multiplication. I am excited!!

As you can tell today is HOMESCHOOL VICTORY DAY in my household. I love days like today.... :)

Off now to finish our Science and History while my boys are napping.

Have you had any great Homeschool {or schooling} successes lately yourself??? Let's rejoice in them together... I want to hear about them! :)