drilling math

After school ended last year, I had good intentions to continue to do some school through the summer. That didn't happen! So when we started up again this year, it was a little rocky. It's a lot better now, 

Evie had forgotten a lot, especially math. At the end of Kindergarden last year, she was nearly through the first grade math book. We found out pretty quick that she had forgotten all of her addition facts. Before we could start subtraction, we really needed to have those addition facts memorized. So we stopped the math book and just worked on drilling those facts. I had been doing this for a couple weeks with hardly any progress. A friend suggested I use cards. For some reason, this seemed to help more. It could be because they were cat cards, which made her more excited about doing her addition. The visual blocks helped too. I'm happy to report that she's doing much better now. We're about ready to start back in our book.

Samuel is a champ at entertaining himself. Of course, I should mention how he's come a long way from what used to happen during school: making huge messes and spending lots of time in the pack and play for being naughty. Now-a-days, he often gets out a game and plays with the pieces. This day it was Blockus. Today it was The Game of Life.

Noah is naturally better at math than reading. He struggled more getting back into reading. Mommy struggled being patient (and failed more than I succeeded). But I'm also happy to report that both of us are doing better. I guess on this day I was having Noah drill his multiplication facts, though it's amazing how quickly he remembers them. His mind works better than mine does, that is for sure.