St. Joseph Novena

O St. Joseph, whose protection is so great, so strong, so prompt before the Throne of God, I place in you all my interests and desires. O St. Joseph, do assist me by your powerful intercession and obtain for me from your Divine Son all spiritual blessings through Jesus Christ, Our Lord; so that having engaged here below your Heavenly power I may offer my thanksgiving and homage to the most Loving of Fathers. O St. Joseph, I never weary contemplating you and Jesus asleep in your arms. I dare not approach while He reposes near your heart. Press Him in my name and kiss His fine Head for me, and ask Him to return the Kiss when I draw my dying breath. St. Joseph, Patron of departing souls, pray for us.

Amen

Thursday, March 10, 2011

Multiplication Game

A couple of my kids have really been struggling to get their multiplication tables down. I discovered this game yesterday and it has been very helpful already. You can download the free version (which is pretty cool in itself) to see if it is a good fit for your family. The free version actually has everything you need to learn all the facts, but if you buy the upgrade it provides more entertaining "worlds" that provide a little more excitement for the kids. It does have a bit of monsters bopping the characters on the head type of violence (nothing too bad) so you may want to preview it to see if you think it is too intense for some of your younger ones. I like the fact that it makes them repeat the problems they are struggling with until they have mastered them, and reviews all problems to make sure that they have retained what they have learned. This is all done in an entertaining way that makes them want to come back again and again. I have found that the promise of 20-30 min. of  play time with this game is a great incentive for them to get their other work done (and it is downloaded on your computer so it doesn't eat up online time if that is an issue for you). The upgrade is reasonably priced, and gives you the game forever for all of your kids. So many online educational games make you pay per child, and that just doesn't work for many of us with larger families.

It looks like they have an addition, subtraction, and division version in the works as well! And no, I don't get a commission for recommending this, but if you promise to tell a friend about the program (totally honor system) you do get a discount for the upgrade....just type in "ihelped" in the appropriate field when you checkout and you get $19.99 off the deluxe package.

It has given me a ray of hope that we will finally get these times tables memorized. I hope some of you find it helpful as well! 

Here is the link:


God bless,

Rachel