Happy Valentine's Day!

Because we all just love math, here's an update on the math portion of our home education endeavor:

Dd8 is finally starting multiplication and division in earnest. She finds it conceptually easy. We haven't started drilling multiplication and division facts yet because she is still doing the addition practices on the Xtra Math website. Xtra Math is a great resource for kids who need daily repetition and practice of math facts but balk at long sessions. It costs nothing, keeps track of individual children's progress, and makes math drills relatively pleasant without a lot of screen clutter.

Yesterday dd8 surprised me by asking whether I would give her a test of only word problems. It turns out she likes word problems because she feels as though she's actually doing something. I'm a little gobsmacked to hear a child request more word problems, for I don't recall that being a common occurrence in elementary school. Or else maybe she just really, really dislikes plain calculation exercises.

Dd5 finished her kindergarten math book a while back (we use the Bob Jones worktexts because they cover the basics in a fun, convenient way), and I've been putting off ordering her the first grade book while we do Xtra Math and some Singapore math. Yesterday I looked over the first grade worktext table of contents and tested dd5 on some of the more advanced concepts listed, and she grasped them immediately. So now I'll be ordering the second grade worktext for her. That saved us $22, and our little girl is pleased with herself for being able to skip a grade in math.

Dd3 is starting to learn to recognize numbers. We finally taught her how to show her age with her fingers. She loves to play on Starfall.com.

Dd1 is just cute. She turned one this week. Her life is still quite binary. She's either allowed to do something, or Mommy says "no, no, no" and takes her off the table, chair, high chair tray, or bathtub edge. Oh, rats, she was just tearing the curtain liner. Time to finish this post and get on with other things.