Workboxes work for us

Back to school this month and I was wanting to change up the kids work boxes some so it was time to go back through the red cabinet and pull out some fun things. Of course they have their standard math, language and Bible then the rest of these activities are in between.

I pledge allegiance to the flag....

These are two great activities for Savannah and Alexa for practicing letter recognition and making words.

These were for Anastasia and Joshua. I have multiplication and addition flash cards. When Joshua got to the work box with the addition cards in them Anastasia would take a short break from her work and do them with him and then vice-versa when she cam to the multiplication ones in her box. The mat pictured above is laminated and used with a dry erase marker.

We have used these many times before but not for awhile and now I had Savannah use the Think it Through for the first time and she really liked it and did really well.

All the kids love the link it chains I have a gallon sized bag filled with them in about 5 different colors. I have them make patters and they try to make jump ropes lol/ The big buttons are for Natasha to string together.

The kids love rolling the big dice. I have made some laminated sheets for number recognition, addition, multiplication, and fact families. Just a pair of dice can be used in so many ways at all different levels. Then of course ink pads and stamps. This is mainly for Natasha and Alexa. I have a basket full of stamps that they love to use.

Puzzles are always a big hit around here and matching games as well.

I got Anastasia and Joshua a subscription to God's World News so they can take some time through out the week to read the articles.

My crazy girl stringing her buttons.

Alexa matching the animal lotto cards.

Savannah working on a wrap'n' learn.

So this month we are back in the swing of school and plugging away. If you use work boxes what are some extras you are adding in? I would love to hear your ideas.

Workboxes Work For Us

So on the school front we have been keeping quite busy. I have been trying to stay consistent with our workboxes and it is going really well this year. However, my problem has been schdueling of our topics.

Each morning we start with calendar and then go right to workboxes. Then after lunch I would attempt to do our country unit study with Joshua and Savannah. Well by that time they are tired and I am ready to be done with school and get other things done and we were not accomplishing much.

I decided to try doing our unit study first in the morning after calendar and then go to workboxes. (I am the teacher after all and can change up the schedule! :) WOW! What a difference this made. It was a great change. The kids were excited they learned so much about the different countries each day and they were still completeing workboxes.

Here is a sampling of what has been in the workboxes the last couple of weeks:

Alexa's Boxes:

Letter H activities, pattern blocks, writing and do-a-dot activities.

(The little girl in the picture with Alexa is a girl I have started watching during the day)

Savannah's Boxes:

Handwriting, phonics worksheet, reading,

Dice roll (number recognition), math, letter H activities, she also has Sparks and file folder games

Joshua's Boxes:

Math, Sparks, Language

Reading, God's World News, Dice roll (addition)

handwriting, Bible, Nest Video about Moses (Joshua was just learning about him in Bible)

What's in the Workboxes

I am loving our workboxes this year and they are keeping us on track and organized! They don't change that much so I think I will just post once or twice a month about what is in them for that month.

The girls always love using the dot a dot paint/markers. I happened to get mine through Oriental Trading. I know you can also purchase them at Michael's. The page above was their letter of the week and I put it in a box with the markers.

Alexa, Savannah and Joshua each have their own devotional Bible. They are more in story format with activities and/or questions to go along with the story. So each day their Bible is placed in a workbox. I read a page or two a day and we keep track by using a book mark. This has worked really well. They get some time with me and God's word every morning.

This is another letter G activity using alphabet letters, Savannah has to find the correct letter and put it in the right place. This is from our Letter of the Week curriculum that I got from Confessions of a homeschooler.

This is another G sheet. For this one the girls have pompom magnet that they place on the correct places. The paper is on a cookie sheet so the magnets stick. Natasha has gotten really good at these.

So those are some things found in our workboxes this past week.

Workboxes Work for Us

We have been back in school about two and a half weeks now and I thought I would share what has been in the kids workboxes. Check out this post to see our initial set up this year. I must say work boxes have been working great. It is keeping me and the kids organized and on task. The first week there was a lot of extra time for me in the school room managing the set up each night but it is going quicker and falling into a routine and it is so worth it.

For the most part I don't rearrange boxes completely each day, for example for Savannah, math is always in box one. I have found the younger ones like this consistency, however it is Anastasia who wants things mixed up. :)
They each have their basic curriculum mixed in with fun learning activities. On the front of their workbooks I have a sticky note that I write down what pages are to be done that day. Then each night I cross it out and write the new ones. When the sticky is full I will use another one.


Extra activities that the kids really like are: story on cd, Roll 'em (I have some giant foam dice I bought from oriental trading. I made up some addition, fact family and multiplication sheets and laminated them. So in the box is 2 dice the sheet and a dry erase marker.), bead and shape sorting, Hocus Focus- This is from the Sunday paper I have had these from years ago. You have to find the difference between two pictures. I copied them onto overhead sheets so they just mark on it with dry erase markers.

Next week I will take pictures and let you know more of what's in the boxes. I love seeing others blogs about workboxes and getting ideas as well.

Workboxes

I have been busy in the school room the last couple of weeks. As you know I love work boxes and last month I was able to participate in a live webinar seminar by Sue Patrick. It was like attending one of her workshops live through the internet. I have owned her book and have been using her work boxes for over a year now so this was a great chance for a refresher and to learn how to integrate more things.

So all the kids have work boxes now and we are going to even start Natasha with some. Savannah has her own rack now and Alexa and Natasha share a rack with 6 boxes each. I made all of their tags, --Anastasia's are Twilight, Joshua-Star wars, Savannah-gymnastics, Alexa-dance and Natasha- Dora.

These are their schedule strips (Natasha won't use a schedule strip) We do a lot of schooling at the kitchen table and on the floor but the kids also need their own space where they can sit and concentrate. Well I found these desks on craigslist for only $5.00 each!!! I love craigslist! The people I bought them from buy things in bulk from business's and things going out of business. So I got Alexa one as well.

This is Joshua's set up with his desk and work boxes.

We are going to officially start back to school on July 27th (at least for 2 weeks and then we will be taking another camping trip! :) I will let you know what we are putting in the boxes.

School Things....

Routine?? Schedule?? We are having a hard time following either of these. We are good for about two days and then life happens. School is still happening, just where ever we can squeeze it in somedays.

Anastasia has made her own number pictures for her workboxes, (See picture below). I fill her boxes with her disks for Switched on School House (which by the way is awesome and frees me up some and keeps her focused) in her other boxes are math, Awana, typing and some fun activities like sewing and drawing.The pictures are from Twlight and New Moon

We have finished our Life Cycle unit finally and even got the lapbooks togeher. I need to take pictures still. I am now trying to put together a unit on Medieval times with Knights and Castles. I want to try some Notebooking this time. We need a break from lapbooks (at least I do). We are on the search for large appliance boxes in order to make a huge castle in our front room. We will also be going to the Rennissance Festival later this month. As I get the unit together I will share what we are doing.

Here are some fun things I have added to their workboxes:

These are great printables from www.prekinders.com I was so excited to find these as we have pattern blocks but no cards and they are quite pricy to by. Well these can be downloaded and printed for free so I printed them on cardstock and the kids love them.

The next activty was found courtsey our game closet (maybe I should go clean it out and see what else I can find. LOL) Joshua brought down this game I had forgotten about and him and Savannah can do it. It is Rush Hour Jr. it is an awesome game for logic, skill and critical thinking. I think we are going to get Rush Hour for a family Valentine's gift.

Joshua took his first spelling test and got 100%. That lead me to share my latest discovery with you all. Some awesome spelling sites. I found spelling curriculum for free along with a great website for practicing.

www.sunflowerschoolhouse.com is an incredible site/blog that I have just begun to explore. Go to this page specifically for the spelling sites. I love www.spellingcity.com

Ok I think that catches us up on school happenings. I will post the letter of the week pages as soon as I take the pictures.

This Week and Workboxes

This week I finally got Anastasia a set of workboxes. She decided she wanted to do them too. We only do workboxes 4 days a week since we have co-op on Mondays.

So what is in our workboxes this week:

In Box 1 for everyone is 2-3 activites for our current unit study which is life cycles. We are doing another lapbook from Hands of a child. Anastasia's is called Animal Life Cycles for grades 4-8 and the other kids is called The Circle of Life it is for grades PreK-3. I love being able to do unit studies with both to their own levels. The goal is to finish this lapbook by next Friday before our break.

Box 2- 6 for the girls is Cubbie book, Letter T activities we are doing the letter T for two weeks to tie in Thankful, Thanksgiving, Turkey and Turtles, They are also doing tracing activities and some phonics activities. Also computer time to play on starfall.com

Boxes for Joshua- Spelling, math, reading, God's World News, handwriting, puzzles, phonics worksheets, Think it thru activities and Awana

Boxes for Anastasia- Math, reading, typing, sewing (the girls patches for Awana ), God's World News, All about me activities and Awana. She just recently finished her vocabulary and spelling book so I need to order new ones.

This is what we will be doing the next two weeks and then we will take a break for the arrival of our new little one! My c-section is scheduled for November 23rd.

This Week and Workboxes

After two weeks of slacking and just doing basics this has been a great week for getting things done and having fun with our workboxes!

What has been in our work boxes this week you ask?? We have been doing regular work plus throwing in fun Halloween activities. Also I skipped the girls to the letter P for the week because after all pumpkin starts with P. And boy are we having fun with it. I was looking at this blog http://www.confessionsofahomeschooler.blogspot.com/ which is awesome by the way and I started to make my own letter P activities and then I noticed she had already done the letter P....so I have one of my own and then I downloaded her wonderful activities, printed, laminated and am so excited to do them with the girls. ( I will post pictures of these in my Preschool Activity post next)

First off we made our annual Pumpkin Playdough. This stuff always smells great! Here are some of their creations:

Anastasia made the pumpkin

Here are two special activites from box 6 this week. Box 6 is the last box for both girls. On Tuesday the kids found a baggie of popcorn, some candy corn, a glove, a spider ring and a piece of yarn...

They got to make spooky hands. The candy corn is fingernails then they fill the rest of the glove with popcorn, tie it and put the ring on a finger.

Then today they found a baggie with 3 marshmallows, a pretzel and fruit by the foot and they made these cute creations.....

I thought these turned out great! It was our first time making them and they are so cute!!! If you want to try it do this.....Poke the 3 marshmallows onto the pretzel. Open the fruit roll up but do not unwrap it. Cut it in half horizonatally. Then unwrap it as you wrap it around the marshmallows. We didn't have black gel or frosting we only had red so we used that for the eyes. It was a mummie day so we also had mummie dogs (hot dogs wrapped in crescent rolls for lunch). We made little pumpkins as you can see in front of the mummies. They are made from melted peanut butter chips, a can of vanilla frosting and orange food gel. Then we stuck a pretzel piece in for the stem.

You will have to wait and see what we come up with for Thursday.....

This Week and Workboxes

Ok I am feeling like a slacker this week! There I said it. The girls didn't get to do workboxes and they were fit to be tied!! Looking back over the week I realize we still did get quite a bit of schooling done but not our normal routine that we had been so good about doing lately.

Monday- was our science experiment day so that was good.

Tuesday- I had my dr. appt and other errands to run so I took the two girls with me and Anastasia and Joshua did get their basics done with Jay home.

Wednesday- I am having a hard time even remembering what we did. (Pregnancy brain! ) I know I ran more errands.

Thursday- Anastasia got in a full day of Home EC. She is helping some ladies from our church sew costumes for our walk thru Bethlehem that we will be having in December. It was also my birthday and I was in a weird mood all day. Birthdays have never bothered me before and I am greatful to have celebrated another one but this one bothered me. I guess I was thinking about this more than likely being our last baby and getting older and what. Anyways......

Friday- Today we went swimming all together and met some friends at the pool. So it was a fun relaxing day.

Also we decided to add in another week of Oceans and cut back our Disney study to just one week. After looking thru the lap book there isn't a lot for the younger kids to do and they are loving all the ocean stuff and there is stuff we haven't even touched on yet. We need to stay focused next week and get our lapbooks together and we are going to make our own autograph books.

The staying focused I think is my issue as well as the kids because it is a toss up as to who is more excited about our up coming vacation them or me! LOL We have a lot to get done this next week before we go and I am as excited as a little kid! So I need to stop blogging and go make my list for all we need to accomplish next week.