Sometimes I think homeschooling success is dependent on figuring out what motivates each child(without using gobs and gobs of candy!). For Josiah, it’s competition with himself through timed trials, and recently I discovered a new motivator: getting to choose ANYTHING you want from the local dollar store. You wouldn’t believe how excited he was when I suggested this as motivation for him to read more from his readers. Every time he finishes a reader(126 pages of stories), he gets to count out $1.00 worth of coins from the coin jar(practicing money!) and choose anything he wants from the dollar store(although I told him I have veto power over anything ) Well, Wednesday morning, he got up early and finished the last 20 pages of his reader. Here are the results:

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Josiah with his coin bag.

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The Store.

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After about 1/2 an hour of deliberation, he finally decided on this remote control car. It’s pretty funny because it’s attached to the controller by a wire that’s so short, Josiah has to dash around the house, making sure he’s within 2 feet of the car at all times! The carpet apparently keeps the car under better control by slowing it down!

P.S. The wire got pulled out this morning, so now it’s just a push car. I told him he needs to finish the NEXT reader so we can go buy another one….I’m a shameless manipulator!

School took second place today to playing in the snow that we’ve been waiting all winter for! It was beautiful, especially first thing in the morning; however, we discovered that it was too powdery to make much with….so we stuck to sledding down the driveway.

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First one outside.
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All loaded up and ready to go!

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Darius was obsessed with eating it….that must have something to do with his love for ice-chips.

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Laila wants a ride too.

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“Ahhhh…some leg room finally!”

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Making a “snow-Chloe”.

With our furnace temporarily out of commission, the kids spent a good part of the day playing by the fireplace.  Even though it’s just a gas one, it puts out quite a bit of heat.

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Legos are the go-to activity at our house…thankfully Darius is wise beyond his years around them and doesn’t try to eat them….he’s really fascinated with taking them apart and trying to stick them back together…..him and Josiah will be having a lot of fun in a year or two!

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Josiah made a lego boat for Chloe today and she loaded it up with her little animals and spent literally hours role-playing with it. One of these days I’m going to get a video of her doing this, but it’s hard because she gets really embarrassed if she knows I’m watching her.