Jellybean Math

One thing that I've learned as a homeschooling mom, is that kids can't stop learning over the summer. At least my kids can't. If I let them spend the entire summer just ignoring their studies, they pretty much forget everything I've ever taught them by September. It's a royal pain to go through all of that review work in the fall, so in our house we do summer work.

It's not a full schedule by any means. I need a break! No, what my hubby and I expect our offspring to do amounts to just a couple of mornings a week of schoolwork, and a bit of reading. Just to keep their skills sharp. After their work and their chores are done they're free to run wild and and soak up summer.

Sounds reasonable right?

Yeah, they're not buying it. Somehow, even though we warn them the night before a school morning, they act shocked when I tell them that it's time to work. That's after I finally drag them out of bed. My six year old has been heard to grumble, "Whatever happened to summer vacation?"

Parenthood isn't for quitters, so I keep at it until I've corralled them all and set them up with work.

D-boy was particularly tough to settle the other day. He kept running away at the sight of me with his workbooks in my hands.

Then inspiration struck. I gathered up some math supplies, and then raided the pantry to find where I'd hidden the leftover Easter candy. Then I lured called D-boy to the table while waving the bag of stale jellybeans at him.

It worked like a charm. He was there in a flash. Of course his older siblings got a whiff of that candy and came over too, but no matter.

I got D-boy settled in to count, sort and divide candy, and just like that he was willing to work.

I was feeling pretty happy about my on-the-fly teaching technique, and starting to envision my own line of textbooks. Just then, D-boy realized that the candy was all gone...and then so was he.

Dang it! I wonder how he'd feel about Green Bean Math?