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May 9, 2013

Getting Daddy Involved

Earlier this school year, after realizing my 3rd grader wasn't catching onto reading inches, centimeters & millimeters, I asked my husband for advice. Well.......... turns out I was teaching him the wrong way to read a ruler!!!!! How embarrassing! Luckily, my husband uses a measuring tape everyday, all day at work. So after he undid the damage I had done to our son, we decided that he would be in charge of those lessons from there on out!

When we decided to start homeschooling, my husband wanted to be known as the school Principal. The kids loved the idea and we ran with it. I even made my 3rd grader a bookmark to keep track of his minutes, which read, "45 minutes a day keeps the Principal away!" Except for a few necessary enforcements, Principal Daddy doesn't get to have a very active role in our day-to-day school time.


J-man, texting his Daddy his spelling words.

At the beginning of the school year, I saved activities like math flashcards, reading aloud, and sight words for Daddy to do with the boys. He really valued that time when they were in public school, and had asked me to set work aside. But as the year progressed, I found other ways to keep him involved. He helps me brainstorm ideas, reinforces Bible lessons, and teaches the kids math tricks,

One day I had an idea to have our 1st grader, text his Daddy his spelling words. It took J-man a while to type them out, but the reward of a text back from Daddy was worth the time! Daddy responded with praise for J-man and noted which words he misspelled. Then J-man replied with his corrections and waited for another reply from Daddy.

That night my husband told me how much joy those text messages brought to his day. He loved being a part of the lesson, and hearing from J-man while he was at work. We have now incorporated this as one of our weekly teaching tools for the kids. It has actually helped them in two ways, the spelling of course, and learning where the letters are on a keyboard. Win, Win!
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