Homework - work = home

Nothing rains on your month of rest parade like homework. Seriously. All three of my kids have homework every night...even Wednesdays. I hate homework on Wednesdays. The evening is already rushed with church, and it's very hard to get in homework, chores, dinner, and a little bit of down time before 7:00.

Yes, my kids do chores...every day...with no pay. Well, I take them to Sonic on Thursdays after school. Does that count? Some of the chores are small, and some of them are not so small, but they do them...every day. It's good for them.

Since homework was threatening to steal my November slow down and reconnect joy,one of my goals was to make homework time feel more like family time. I wanted to find simple, quick, cheap ways to incorporate family connections into the homework routine. I had grand visions of having family game night and doing homework all at the same time.

I found this...

...at Walmart for $1.12. Even by Honey's standards that's cheap.

Remember back in elementary school when it was close to a school vacation time and the teacher made you clean out your desk? And then she gave you a glob of shaving cream? And you got to smear it all around the desk and draw all kinds of pictures and play tic-tac-toe with your neighbor? Then when you were done, you got the brown paper towels and wiped the desk clean? Remember that?

The classroom always smelled so good!

How much fun would it be to practice spelling words using shaving cream?

A lot of fun. Especially if one of your spelling words is "fun"...or "but"...because first graders don't know that "butt" isn't the same thing as "but".

Even the 5th grader liked studying for the spelling test this week.

For a few minutes we were having fun...together...after a long day at school. It took the same amount of time as it takes for me to get everyone settled with pencil and paper to write their spelling words 5 times each.

Butt my kitchen smells wonderful!