Complete the Chain Review Game

I recently was reading a post over at Noggins & Nonsense. I love this blog and quite blatantly stole one of the ideas and used it last week. You can read all about the Complete the Chain Review Game on the site.

We read two very good books: Shhh! We're Writing the Constitution, and If You Were There When They Signed the Constitution. Both books get two thumbs up from my daughter and I. What do you expect, though, when they are part of a Sonlight package? I made a series of 15 cards to go along with our study of the US Constitution through these books.

I put the questions and answers on bright colored cards, which definitely inspired more excitement than plain white cards. I went through the chain one time with my daughter and have since timed her a few times while she completes the chain by herself. It's a great way for me to "assess" without a written test. We will definitely use this game across many subjects!
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Funniest Card Game Ever!

Daddy taught us all how to play a hilarious card game tonight. While Miss B. and I were gone this afternoon, dad and GMan stayed at home. GMan loves to play cards and is always bringing us the Go Fish deck. Apparently, my husband got tired of Go Fish and decided to look up fun card games.

Tonight he gathered us together on my daughter's bed and taught us how to play Salute the King. I don't think we have laughed that hard in quite some time! All it takes is a regular deck of cards, some silliness, and lots of creativity. You can read the directions here and let me know how you like it!

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Making Math Fun!! - drills on the Wii

One of my biggest goals this homeschool year is to make math fun! A while back I introduced The Number Ladder Game . We have played this game so much - this week we will go on to another game in the book because we are having such success with the Number Ladder Game.

Another way I'm trying to make math fun for my kids is by incorporating some technology - specifically the Wii. Now, I know there are certain contingencies out there that do not like video games. I will warn you that we are NOT one of these families! We love our Wii and I think my kids have learned a whole lot from the games we play on the Wii. I can't even remember where I found out about this site, but earlier this year we stumbled upon Arcademic Skill Builders, which is a site that has math games you can play on the computer or (drum roll).... on the Wii!

To get to the Wii games you simply choose the Internet Channel option from your Wii home menu. Is your Wii configured to your wireless connection? If not, it should be! Then type in your web address: http://www.arcademicskillbuilders.com. Once there, you need to select "play on the Wii" and it gives you several options of addition, subtraction, and multiplication "Alien Addition" has been a great game for my Kindergartener who is working on his basic math facts,
and it doesn't hurt for my fourth grader to review all her facts with the addition, multiplication, and subtraction games, either!

There are also some word games to play on the Wii on this same website, but we haven't tried them yet. I'm sure they are fun. I have also yet to let my kids play the regular computer games on this site, but again - they look like fun to me.

Perhaps a fitting reward for completing a difficult math lesson one day would be the next day choose a fun math activity such as playing the Number Ladder Game with mom, or turning on the Wii to drill your math facts. I just am waiting for the day when a non homeschooler asks my five year old what he did in school today and he says "I played the Wii!". Who ever thought school could be that fun?
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