Our table

My hubby picks up the end rolls of paper from our local newspaper printer. We get them for free and then use them for our school. A thing that has worked well for me is to cover our kitchen table with paper in the morning. I then can use it as a chalkboard to teach. My son can doodle or work out problems and my daughter can draw all over on it. It then can be recycled as newspaper just like it would have been if it was printed and made into newspaper.

This picture shows a math lesson we did. Just like a chalkboard only closer.

You can see his multiplication drill on the page. I pick a set of facts to work on each week. I don't do flash cards for math facts instead I have him write them down on a paper, on our table or on the wall. When my son copies something down for the week he then has it memorized at the end of the week. I rotate with addition, subtraction, and multiplication. He is doing a tiny bit of division but just as far as he has taught himself. I am not ready to start that yet. On a week that I am running behind or I don't feel well (like last week) I will give him a easy fact family to review like +5's or -2's. He doesn't mind doing this and it works for us so we will keep doing it until I find something better or it stops working. I think he is very fast with his math facts so this system must fit him well. I do the same thing with spelling we NEVER do a pretest or write words 5 or 10 times like I did in school. He writes the spelling rule on Monday then he writes all words once each day after his worksheet page. At the end of the week he always gets 100% on a spelling test. To be fair I should say that he has always done well in spelling. I think he would get all or most of them right if we did take a pretest. This system keeps him from falling apart if he didn't know the answer. I feel that he often has to say he doesn't know something in school and in life. I don't think adding stress by multiplication flash cards or spelling pretest are needed for him to learn them. I would rather work with him being upset from not knowing something that he should know and not something he "might" know. I hope you all understand what I am trying to say.

This is his doodle from today. He draws when I am getting something for his sister to work on or if I am making lunch. This one is titled the slots castle. I have no idea who the slots are. LOL!

This is a picture of him doing his math page. He is such a good student! I love teaching him! He learns most of it on his own. I doubt my daughter will be this easy to teach.