We have been struggling with productivity during our day recently, so today I reintroduced a classic- the kitchen timer.

We always complete our work a la carte with a checklist on the dry erase board for each child, but subjects were beginning to drag out hours instead of being done in minutes.  I have five more minutes to blog before the timer goes off and we move on to another 30 minute subject block (i.e. math, spelling/handwriting, Spanish, etc).  The kids are enjoying their little breaks between subjects when they get done early, to go play in the sandbox with little brother or shoot some hoops.  If they don’t complete their work in time it is old school homework for later, that must be done before any movies or other activities.