Home Work - Tip of the Week... Home Work Basketball!!

My 10-year-old daughter recently started playing basketball on a local rec team.  She absolutely loves it, and spends quite a bit of time in the back yard practicing with our hoop and her green and purple ball.  She's made amazing progress in her skills over such a short time because of the dedication she gives the sport, and I've wondered... what could she accomplish if she channeled that energy into her schooling?






And that is how Homework Basketball was born.  So the idea is, for whatever subject your child is loath to work on, have them answer on a sheet of paper leaving extra space around the answers.  We chose math, because that is Kylie's current nemesis, and for every problem that she answers correctly she gets to rip off that section of paper, wad it into a ball and add it to her ball pile.

At the end of homework time we set up a garbage can at a reasonable distance for her age.  The she gets a chance to throw each paper wad ball into the trash for a basket.  We keep track of the points and she tries to better her score every day.  If you wanted you could also offer a prize of some kind for a achieving a certain level of points (I am not always above bribery:)  You could also compete against your child, shot for shot, with the kids who enjoy a little bit of friendly competition.  Some of my kids love this.

So there you have it - a fun way to get your kids excited about their homework.  This can be adapted to spelling, vocabulary and other types of homework as well, and hopefully you'll have a little bit of fun while you learn!!

Skip Counting Songs - Multiply by 6 or 7

Here are the next songs in our Skip Counting series.  My eight-year-old 3rd grader just finished the 7's song and she can't wait to pass of her 7's times tables today.  When I say she's excited, she was actually jumping up and down at the idea of doing her math, and that, ladies and gentlemen, is why I love these songs.

Skip Counting by 6 song 

to the tune of 

"London Bridge is Falling Down"

and then one of our new favorites...

Skip Counting by 7 song

to the tune of

"Mary Had a Little Lamb"

Homework: Tip of the Week - HangMan HomeWork

Homework and I do not get along, not because I don't want my children to spend time learning, but because I want them to be able to do other things too.  I have to find my happy place when the kids, after being gone to school for 7 1/2 hours, get home with hours worth of homework to do.  Whatever happened to play time, chores and piano lessons. 

So sometimes we don't do it (shhh... don't tell;) but most of the time I try to find ways to make homework double as playtime with my kids.  This week we have been playing hangman.  I never realized what a versatile game hangman was until this week, but it works for much more than just words.  We used it for math, science, spelling and sight words, and instead of just doing problem after problem of long, boring homework after a full day of sitting at a desk, you are in the middle of a game trying not to be hung.

I love that the kids can either be the hanger or the hung, because either way they have to solve the problem for the answer or know how to properly spell the word.  We switch back and forth and have a grand time, and before you know it, words are memorized, the math is done and the kiddos and I had some quality time together.  So pull out some paper, grab an extra pencil and find out just how much you remember from your elementary math.