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How We’re Using Workboxes

Note: For those of you who have asked about how this worked for us during the year ~ it went well, but we did do some tweaking! See the post Our New Workbox System: Weekly Workbox Grid to read more about our updated system!

While I love the Workbox System and understand why Sue Patrick set it up the way she did {and why it works that way}, we seriously do not have room for 48 boxes, 4 shelving systems and to implement it the way she recommends. Kaleb’s workboxes are very similar to Sue’s system, but for our other three we modified the system to fit our family and it is working great for us.

Want to see some pictures?

Our workbox number strips and tags hang over near our school shelves in our dining room. Each of our kids is color-coded {trust me, it helps keep track of all those different school supplies}.

The strips are laminated and I punched them with a hole punch and hooked them onto a book ring. We hang them on one of the 3M adhesive hooks and the kids can take them down to put in their ‘work space’ when it’s time for school.

Next to where our tags hang we have a set of four drawers. The drawers all hold the kids school supplies: markers, pencil boxes, our ‘workfolders‘, mini office folders, journals, and books that are specific just to them.

Our workboxes are actually more like ‘workfolders‘. I saw a similar idea on one of the yahoo groups and walked into Walmart a few days later and found folders that were all our kids color codes. Each of the folders originally only had 8 pockets, so I bought a few extra folders, took the comb binding off, and added a few extra pages so they all had 12 pockets. The inside folders are clear. If something that we are doing doesn’t fit into one of the folders {a puzzle, a manipulative, or a ‘hands-on lesson’} the kids have a special tag on their folder that lets them know what they should be doing.

Most of the folder pages have their worksheets, journals or papers they need slid into the folder itself. When they finish the page, they remove the number from their number strip and put it next to the number on their folder. If there is another tag on that page already {see the picture tagged ‘folder page for spelling’ above} we have a basket in the middle of our table where the kids return the ‘extra’ activity cards for me to sort and store later.

Those big and bulky items need a place to be stored for the kids to find. Kaleb’s shelf has 12 boxes, and 4 of the boxes are oversized. Kaleb’s school things are in the top 8 boxes and if there is a puzzle or special game the older kids are going to work on, they find them in the bottom 4 boxes.

I have quite a few activity and subject cards for things that we do during our school day that don’t have worksheets to go along with them {spelling, geography, language} ~ all things that the kids work 1:1 with Mommy. Kari from The Snails Trail mentioned that she had found a pocket chart in the dollar section at Target, so I ran over there quickly to grab one for myself. I have the chart stuck on the inside of my spice cabinet {yeah, my husband was thrilled to see that}. I used the removable adhesive hooks and tabs from 3M to keep it hanging up on the cabinet door.

There are cards we use daily {located on the bottom rows}, subjects and activities we only do one or two days a week (alphabetized in the top few rows}, and special cards for activities out of the house {museum, library, and outside activities}. I have them sorted so I can grab them quickly.

That is our system in a very LARGE nutshell. :) If you have any questions, feel free to ask.

You can view and download all my workbox printables that go along with our workboxes, in my post titled Workbox Tags & Cards. Also, don’t forget the fun preschool workbox number cards for your little ones!.

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What’s in My Homeschool Planner?

Are you the least bit curious? I’ve finally printed off the last of my planner pages, have all my pretty binder clips, found a lovely 3-ring binder, some nice colored dividers…it’s pure bliss!

I am using a lot of the forms that I have in the Weekly Homeschool Planner I created {and you can have it too!}, but some of the forms are a little more tailored to our family. Since we have a double-sided printer now, I can print off the forms the way I want them to go in my binder…’cause I can be a little particular like that! You can get an idea on the layout of my pages in this pdf sample of my homeschool planner.

Want to know what’s in the planner and how I have things divided out? I found the funky notebook and dividers at Walmart and went from there.

On the back side of my hokey title page {can’t stand a blank piece of paper…} I have a page that lists all the homeschool requirements from our state and school district: statute & code specifics, what is required of me, from me, contact information for the local school district, who was notified about our intent to homeschool, where the letter of intent was mailed, and when records are required from us.

The binder then is divided up into the following sections:

Blog

I know not all of you would have this section in your notebooks, but between this blog, No Ordinary Moments {my everyday blog}, and Totally Tots….I need a place to keep track of when things are due, what’s due, and a place to write down any ideas that I get. I have a running list of post ideas as well as calendars that I’ve printed off using Cozi that help me keep tabs on stuff.

Monthly Plans

This is where I keep our ‘Year at a Glance‘ sheet and also copies of monthly calendars so I can map out our school year by date including breaks and what we’re planning on studying for geography. The ‘Year at a Glance’ gives me the overall view of what to plug in and I can get more specific with the dated calendar. At the end of this section I have copies of my Geography Planning Sheets so I can plan out each of the countries we are doing and write in resources as I find them.

Weekly Plans

This is the ‘nuts & bolts’ of our day to day school life. My planning pages for each week are four pages long {only 2 pages front/back}, mainly because of the ages of the kids. The bulk of the girls planning is done on two pages {Galloping the Globe, math, reading/writing/language, Bible, science, Latin, and art}. The second page from the girls is the workbox planning sheet – how each day of the week will lay out. {I’ll be posting some of my workbox stuff soon!!}

Kaleb and Zachary take up the next two pages. I’m using my Tot School Planning form for Kaleb and a more basic planning form for Zachary since he is Kindergarten this year. I have space for Bible, math, language/spelling, science, handwriting, and geography for Zachary.

Curriculum Plans & Evaluation

This section helps me keep track of what I am using this year for texts, if it is already purchased {I am still hunting down a few things} and what we have/haven’t completed. It’s great for me to see it all at a glance and remember some of the more obscure textbooks that I have for us to use.

The yearly plans and evaluations sheets are a place for me to keep track of my goals for our kids that year ~ and a great place to periodically check on through the year and see where we are {or re-adjust the goals that we have}.

I also have pages in this section to keep track of our testing results {yes, we do standardized planning at this point} and any other important evaluation information.

Notes & Contacts

Lots of blank pages for me to jot notes and ideas throughout the day and also keep track of the various homeschoolers and resources in our area.

Reviews

A little section for me to keep track of my review due dates and information for review writing.

Ideas

When I see something online or in a magazine that I like I try to either rip out the page or print it off and stash it in this section. I just punch it with a 3-ring punch and can flip through some of the fun ideas to use during our school year.

Household

This section sees {ahem} little use. I think it’s really there to just humor me and appease the side of me that likes to feel ‘on top of things’. I have detailed lists of all the glorious things that I would like to accomplish in our house on a daily basis. Really, the thought of it just makes me giggle. Seriously.

That’s it! A quick glimpse into this years planner for you all! Now I just need to actually USE it and start planning!

Our Homeschool Curriculum 2009-2010

I mentioned a few days ago that some of our curriculum choices changed after I attended our homeschool convention this past weekend.

By ‘our curriculum choices’ I mean the phone conversation between my husband and I went something like, “You trust me in choosing the curriculum we’ll be using with the kids, right?”

{crickets chirping}

“Oh. Yeah.”

So, after hours of wandering around the vendor hall I made a few last minute switches. Keeping in mind that our school year will already have some interruptions with reviewing for the Homeschool Crew, I think that the changes will work out very well for the groove that we are getting into as a family.

Here’s the planned lineup for our upcoming year. And ‘planned’ is such a loose word, really. More like ‘in an ideal world we would complete and finish all on our list’:

Bible ~ Discovering Jesus in Genesis by Susan Hunt. We’ve done more structured curriculum in the past, but this book offers 36 devotion-style book that focuses on covenant promises throughout the Bible.

Spelling ~ All About Spelling {no changes here}. Love the program and we are still working on it through the summer also.

Math – A Beka math based on the kids grade levels. I wavered between this and Saxon, but stuck with what was familiar to me at this point since the girls are doing well with it. We are going to add in some various math activities/manipulatives this year as well as some fun books I found called Daily Mental Math {again, based on the girls grade levels}. The Daily Mental Math books have a few small exercises for the girls to do just as ‘sharpening’ skills for their workboxes {purchased through Rainbow Resource}.

Language ~ This was the big switch for us this year! I sat in on a seminar by Jessie Wise and picked up the book First Language Lessons for the Well-Trained Mind. We’re going to start on some of it this summer and work through it a bit and see where Laurianna is overall. The main book is primarily for grades 1-2 and there are additional books for grades 3-4. Something just ‘clicked’ with me when listening to Jessie Wise and thumbing through the books.

Writing ~ We’ll be using the book The Complete Writer: Writing with Ease by Susan Wise Bauer {daughter of Jessie Wise}. Again, the convention was the trigger for this switch over too.

Handwriting ~ I switched our books in this area too! I picked up all of the levels in A Reason for Handwriting. The workbooks are based on Scripture verses and have the kids practice words and letters from the verse of the week. {manuscript or cursive depending on their grade level}

Science ~ Overall, we will be using Apologia. Right now we’re working our way through Flying Creatures of the Fifth Day. During the school year, both girls independently work on science reading using A Beka science that goes along with their grade levels.

Geography ~ Our primary focus for the year will be continuing our studies of world cultures and geography. This next year we will keep up with Galloping the Globe and finish our tour with Africa, Australia, South America, and Canada.

History ~ Even though we will be focused on geography overall, the girls will again be reading independently through their grade level books from A Beka in this subject.

Art ~ This is one area that I really feel a need to improve my follow-through {ahem}. The girls are begging to do more here and really want to learn. After using ARTistic Pursuits last year, we’re going to use that as our primary focus this year.

After listing it all out, it seems a little overwhelming in ways, but this summer my focus is working out a schedule to fit things in once a week (like art, Bible, etc…) and go from there. I’m also planning on using Sue Patrick’s Workbox system {most likely with some tweaking for our family} to help with the thought of having 3 kiddos officially in ‘school’ this year. Some of the things I’ll be doing with Zachary are a little different, but he’ll be doing handwriting along with us, math, reading, language, spelling, and geography as it all applies to him. :)

So…off to work on my planner, my plans…or maybe I’ll just kick back and rest for a little bit. I’m wiped just typing that all out!

Be sure to stop by and visit Kris @ Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers and see some of the other curriculum line-ups for this year! Darcy @ My 3 Boybarians is also hosting a “Not-Back-to-School” blog hop and the topic is curriculum.

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Homeschool Memoirs: Routines

So far this year our new schedule for homeschooling has been working pretty well. The kids have been enjoying the different setup (although they are definitely creatures of habit, because trying to switch things around at first made them dig in their heels a little bit).

You know your kids enjoy routine and schedule when you find them playing “school” with friends and your 7-year-old has literally drawn up a schedule for play school and is following it to the “T” – bathroom breaks included! Really, I shouldn’t be surprised! She about had a meltdown when I (gasp) suggested that we go outside and play since it was beautiful out – it wasn’t in the schedule yet!!

Anyway….back to our routine. We’ve added some things in this year (worship time together when we dance ourselves silly praising Jesus, Tot Time for Kaleb, and adding in a set time for extra art and game times…otherwise Mommy conveniently forgets…). The art activities vary from day to day, but I try to rotate a schedule on those also so that the kids have a chance to use the easel, playdough, fingerpaint, or do a special craft.

Our “schedule” does go beyond 3:30, but generally we are done with school at that point so we just drop into our regular routine.
Don’t forget to hop over and read about other’s Homeschool Routines too!

Read this document on Scribd: Kids Daily Schedule

My prayers for this year? To have this be a fun and meaningful year for me and my kids. One that involves lots of learning for all of us. Patience for me. And unlimited joy – epecially in Mommy! Not that I have to be the “end-all” as a Mommy, but I truly pray that our house is a place of fun and learning, and that our kids enjoy being home and being together as a family.