Mail Goggles

Okay, so this post could better be entitled, "The Homeschool Mother's Guide to Shamelessly Forcing Keep-Your-Brain-Alert Math Drill Opportunities on Your Older Child."

I have enabled the "Mail Goggles" lab feature within their Gmail accounts, and they have to leave them there. (Yes, yes, I put it on my account, too, set to level 2 difficulty. I'm trying to beat my own record of doing the five problems in 12 seconds, but I can't seem to do it yet. But I digress...)

This little gem of an application forces you to accurately (as in 100% accuracy) answer five simple math problems before you can send your letter. It was first created as a "protect yourself from sending stupid emails late at night on weekends when you might be a little bit drunk" sort of thing. But once it is downloaded, you can change the hours to anything you want... we set it to force us to keep our math brains sharp 24/7.

Sure it is irritating, but it really has helped my basic arithmetic skills to be faster and sharper. I'm sure it is time to move up to the next level, but, well, you know...