The kids spent Monday at my in-laws’ house this week while Rockford and I were on our way home from pretending to be young and hip for a few days. So we only had four days of school this week. We still managed to do almost everything I’d planned, though. Maybe we should just move to a four-day, year-round school week.

I’ve been entertaining the idea of saving up for an iPad for school (and, who am I kidding?, for Facebook, Twitter and Kingdom Rush), so Rockford left his work iPad home yesterday so we could explore some educational apps. I downloaded trial versions of the Bob Books app and Rocket Math as well as the full version of Stack the States. The kids liked them all, but I haven’t had a chance to give them an in-depth look yet.

The main factor that’s kept me from actively wanting an iPad is that I think the kids would spend their days asking to use it all the time. And that is precisely what happened yesterday. It might just be the novelty of the thing, but they do the same thing with my computer and the phone so I suspect it would be an ongoing issue.

Reading

Pete seems to have had a little breakthrough on the reading front this week. He wanted to move on to the next book in his Bob Books set, so I told him we would if he could read all the way through book 6 with no help. Which he did, and then he read all the way through the new-to-him book 7 with no help, too! I’m going to see if he’ll try “Green Eggs and Ham” next week.

Poppy read 3 or 4 “Magic Tree House” books this week, and she also read an American Girl book. I thought she’d enjoy them, but sometimes she just doesn’t want to consider things I suggest. Imagine that. Rockford brought “Meet Addy” home from the library for her, though, and she read it in one sitting. Hmph.

History

We’re still doing some review stuff in volume two of “Story of the World” this week. This week’s crafty project was to make a Celtic war axe using a wrapping paper tube and some other cardboard & sundries, but I didn’t have a wrapping paper tube that wasn’t, you know, covered in wrapping paper. So it seems I’ve already gone back to my old, no-craft-doing ways in history. Maybe next week won’t require a wrapping paper tube.

Math

In addition (ha!) to their usual McRuffy lessons, we downloaded Rocket Math for the iPad. I’d like to find an app that allows an administrator to set up the user account, so a second-grader couldn’t play solely on the easiest setting just to rack up points for a sweeter rocket. Hypothetically, I mean.

Pop Quiz

Do your kids use an iPad in their schooling? (Home or otherwise?) How do you deal with the Gimme Gimme Gimme aspect of it? And do you have any must-have education apps?