Math name tags

This is how Santa chose to identify his gifts at our house last year.
That's right. There was a little bit of work involved in determining whose presents were whose.

Several years ago Tyler and I committed the ultimate oops when we left a child of ours home. Ever since that day whenever we are all going somewhere, one of us will initiate "sound off." This simply means that every child has a number and they yell out their number, IN ORDER (that way we know if anyone is incognito). Kiersten is 1, Erik is 2, Nate is 3, Ashlyn is 4, and Alex is 5 (who recently learned to say his own number and join in the fun).

We also have a bunch of math whizzes in our home and "Santa" thought it might be fun to challenge them a little bit. Each math equation's answer corresponded to one of the kids' sound off number. If the answer was 3, the present went to Nate.

Oh, it was a lot of fun. The morning went a little slower and the kids enjoyed working together to make sure those gifts got to their rightful owner.

At the beginning of this Christmas season I was stewing about what I could do this year that could be just as fun. I had read a book not too long ago on organization and the author mentioned that one way to be organized is to decide on one thing and do that same thing year after year. For instance, she has decided that for each grandchild's first birthday, she will give them a book. When it comes to that first birthday, she doesn't stress and worry about what to get them.

That thought hit me one day, and SERIOUSLY, why mess with a good thing.

So Santa is back on board with our little math name tags and has some pretty good ideas on how to jazz it up. He's thinking about throwing in some algebra (you know, like solving for X), a little geometry, and definitely some story problems.

Christmas morning can't come soon enough.