Getting into The First Week

A new tradition has been put in place. I think of ways to hide educational leaning in 'fun' activities and my kids smell the rat and call me on it within seconds! This is a great new game we are playing. My idea to have the kids read morning messages with alphabet and reading tied to it failed miserably the first morning as Button announced," I don't want to find F words, I wan to play hunt the sticker." So I carefully hid sixty stickers, 30 with each child's initial on them all around the house. I have to admit, it was great fun. We charged around and collected the stickers with howls of laughter...so much better than finding objects beginning with F.

The next morning, I had a message which asked each child to draw a picture of a place they really want to visit this summer. Peanut also had to write a sentence (hidden academics) and Button just had to write his name. I woke to the most beautiful colored pictures of the Statue of Liberty by Button and the House Pool (the Greenberg public pool) by Peanut. I felt elated at such care and excitement over the work...great conversation starters also.

We will see how it all goes. So far I have also included a math morning message where Peanut had multiplication and addition problems to solve. He then had to write problems for me to solve. I gave him 2x5, 3x3 etc. He gave me 99x99 and 200/9 etc. I admit to using a calculator on the sly! Button had addition but chose not to do it. I am not sure why but suspect it was lack of interest. He does like to play addition games on car rides so I will stick to that.