Planting

 
Hello, dear friends and family.  I finally worked on my front flower beds.  I yanked out the ancient, overgrown, nasty monkey grass which looked like two giant caterpillars and housed the largest grass spider I've ever seen in real life.  And ants.  So many ants. 

I planted lantana and nandina.  I've got some liriope coming from Mom tomorrow, and I have plans for coreopsis, sweet potato, and purple cone flower.  These are easy, drought/disease tolerant plants that should be hard for me to kill.  And that's important. 

Now, if I'll only remember to keep watering them.  I might have to put it in Google Calendar and schedule repeating reminders that show up in my email.  I have no problem remembering to get online. 

Multiplication Help

I've been thinking this week that I'm so glad I don't have to homeschool on my own.  I'm happy that there are people in the world who are putting curriculum together, or blogging about their unique teaching styles, or coming up with fun ways for kids to learn.  I'm very thankful to know that all the ideas I need are only a click away!

Case in point:  For the last year I've hated the fact that I'm stumped when it comes to teaching my boys the times tables.  Disciplined, consistent repetition of facts is NOT my strong suit.  I'm a go-with-the-flow chick (when I'm not Anxiety Girl), and it's difficult enough to get our regular work done every day with all of life's many distractions.  So, I put on my aforementioned Anxiety Girl cape and stressed about it forever, while trying out my own ways of practicing the facts that simply didn't work for me or my kids.

Then, I recently overheard a friend mention a music cd with multiplication songs on it, and that bit of info stuck with me.  After a little research, I discovered that there are many options for help with teaching the times tables.  There are games, video games, cds, and dvds of all kinds!  I should have thought of that before, but you just don't know what you don't know, ya know? 

The two dvds that I'm planning to buy are:

Link: Times Tales

Link: Schoolhouse Rock

(There's also regular Schoolhouse Rock, which we use for grammar reinforcement.)







I haven't decided on games, yet, but these look good: 

Link: Zoom

Link: Math Games

I haven't found too many online math games that my kids like.  But Learning Planet is fun, and Xtra Math isn't horrible.  If anyone has ideas for online math games, please email them or post in the comments section.  (Thank you!) 

Homeschooling is hard sometimes.  I say take every opportunity to make it easier on yourself, and more enjoyable for your kids.  YES, require them to work hard and meet higher standards, but if you can disguise that as FUN, all the better.