GO MAD Monday

I know it's Tuesday but yesterday was a busy day with no computer time. So today you get my Go MAD Monday post.

I really had trouble this week. I seem to be so busy I forget to go M.A.D.  I don't know I'm just so self-centered that other people don't even hit my radar or if I'm just so busy giving my life for others that nothing stands out as "you did this to make a difference in someone's life". I do know I don't often sit down and think, "Go MAD Monday is coming up and I need to do something for someone else because I need blog fodder."  It seems rather fake if the only reason I do something is so I can blog about it.

We home school. This year has been different and difficult to say the least. If you follow my homeschool blog, you might know a little taste of the year we've had.

My oldest is now a 5th grader and her sister is in 3rd grade. For a couple of years A has become convinced that she hates math and therefore doesn't want to/can't do it. We use Singapore math and it is advanced. She is learning things in math I opted out of in high school.

We switched curriculum last year and had her redo third grade math. She struggled. She finished third grade math and started fourth grade. She didn't quite complete half of fourth grade math before the year was finished. So this year she is finishing fourth grade and I'm hopeful she will be able to finish 5th grade as well. The things she is learning, she is learning well enough to do quite well on her achievement tests she takes every April.

Last week I had a meeting and came home to find all three of my family members doing school at the table, Elizabeth was working on correcting her grammar and Ariana was doing math. In tears. When at 9 o'clock we sent her to shower and go to bed, I said I was finished with that math. Every night for over a week our family time had been spent working on school and I was done. I was done with every waking moment spent on school. I was done done done. I reasoned, "If I wanted to do school all night long, I would send them to school and we'd work on homework all night long. I homeschool so I can avoid that." (among other reasons.)

I planned on printing off math sheets for her while I perused curriculum again. But I hate to waste money.  I already had math curriculum, surely there was some way to use what I had already.  I decided to, instead of telling her, showing her and having her do it while I got something else done, we would start first thing, when she was fresh and we would work every single problem together.

I started that last Wednesday, September 8. We spent just over an hour working on math. And she finished three pages with all the answers correct.  We were completely done with school by 12:15. It felt so good.

I continue to sit with Ariana and we spend an hour working on math. It is amazing the difference a little sacrifice on my part has made in her. I think I heard her tell Dear Man she liked what she was learning in math!

What did you do to "Go MAD Monday"?