How workboxes work for us

I was inspired recently to actually remember that I have a blog when a fellow homeschool mom announced that she had found workboxes. I got excited! Workboxes are the ONLY way to survive homeschooling, in my humble opinion. As we enter our second year using them (and- wow- 7th year homeschooling!) I simply wouldn't homeschool without them!

This morning I took some pictures of our workboxes to give you an idea of how we use them.

Here are Logan and Kelsey's workboxes. They each have their own style of numbers so it's easy to see who it belongs to. The numbers are velcroed on. The subjects are the same, in the same order, for everyone. That consistency helps us always know where to find what we are looking for (the consistency is mainly for me- I know to grab drawer 6 for science, no matter whose workboxes I am working with).





Logan's math drawer. I only allow one drawer out at a time. Everything they need for that subject will be in the drawer. When they are done, it all goes back in and the drawer gets put away before pulling out the next one.



They each have a large 3 ring binder that I customize, which holds all their completed work. I remove and check their work from the drawers and file it in their notebook.





Grant's workboxes. We keep books that are used daily and are too big for the drawers, on top. It works well for us. Logan and Kelsey have HUGE saxon teacher manuals that I use daily so they stay right on top of their workboxes. I can easily grab them when it's time for the math lesson.




The kids at work. Grant is on the computer because he uses Alpha Omega SOS this year. So far so good. He still uses Saxon math and IEW writing and Phonetic Zoo spelling with me though.

There's Logan working on his math. Notice his math drawer and that monstrous math teacher's manual next to him.



Kelsey is doing Language Arts. The pink drawer is hers. I sit in between them and field questions and issues.



I fill the workboxes on Friday or over the weekend, for the entire week. I used to fill them daily and it very quickly became drudgery! I have an excel file that I use to print out weekly assignments and place that in their first drawer, so they know what to do for the day, but all their printables, books, worksheets, etc are in there for the week. I try to go through daily and pull out and grade completed work, but if I don't, it's not a big deal. They know to put completed work on the bottom so it doesn't get in the way.

As they finish with a drawer, they remove the number and throw it in the drawer. That is a big deal for them. They like that tangible sign of progress. I put them back on at the end of the day to be ready for the next day. I am not bogged down during the week because their assignments, etc are all ready for the week. I do spend 2-3 hours on the weekend prepping for the following week, but it is worth it to me to avoid the daily drudgery of having to setup for the next day.

Our first drawer is Bible and we try to always do that first. After that, I schedule subject according to who is going to need my help. Grant does Bible, History, Science, and Language Arts on the computer, though he needs occasional help. It is mostly juggling the 2 younger ones needing me, and Grant with Math. We do read alouds in the afternoon, and Kelsey reads to me in the morning from her Bible reader and again in the afternoon from her choice, usually a reader from the library or a Sonlight grade 2 reader. Logan always reads our devotional out loud.

I am using Institute for Excellence in Writing's Writing program for all 3 of them this year. I love them so far. Grant is doing the student writing intensive and the others are doing a lower elementary program. We are also using their spelling, phonetic zoo for Grant which I mentioned earlier and All About Spelling. Fabulous programs.

We are using Lesson Pathways (a free program) for the first time this year for History and Spelling, plus supplementing our Language Arts, for L and K. I think it is a really thorough program and I love it so far. We have found tons of great books at the library to enhance our studies. The library system here is fantastic. I can easily go online and reserve any book I need then pick it up in a day or so. Perfect for Lesson Pathways. I plan to have what I need about a week in advance, since we can keep the books for 3 weeks. We have learned so much already!

I'm going to wrap this up as I am rambling off topic now LOL. Don't get me started on curriculum! I could go on all day!

Happy Homeschooling!

That Snow Joke!

Last weekend we finally made it up to see Jason's parents. "The Inlaws"- well actually I love them so that whole connotation is lost on me. Anyway, one of the highlights of the visit was their hot tub. This is kind of fun- the last time we were at their house was Christmas of '03. Jason and I were planning to surprise the family with our announcement that I was 7 weeks pregnant with what would turn out to be Kelsey (whew, that didn't come out sounding too nice, did it?) Logan was only 8 months old. Grant, Jason and Poppy played in the hot tub with these very same rescue heroes that you see in this picture! How fun! At the time (in '03), Grant was BIG TIME into Rescue Heroes, and we brought some with us. Wendy Waters and Billy Blazes, seen here, along with someone else whose clever name escapes me at the moment, were especially cool because they had water hoses they could squirt. Eventually our family outgrew Rescue Heroes and got rid of (and mostly forgot about) them. Well, we were so excited when Jason's mom pulled these characters out, that we apparently left behind on our last visit 7 years ago! It was Kelsey and Logan's first time in the hot tub, and although Grant says he remembers, he was only 3 1/2 so I'm thinking he just remembers hearing about it.


Oh, and for the record: the highlight of my trip was mixing up Mojitos with Jason's mom;)

Okay, here we are doing school. But first, you might remember this:

Uh huh, he still likes to sit in chairs that are too small for him, with legs hanging off all sides. I love this dog.



It finally occurred to me that I don't have to be the only one who does any work around here, and so I taught the minions to do laundry. Guess what? They *LOVE* it. They fight over whose turn it is. Cracks me up. Here's Kelsey, using the kitty litter as a stepstool so she can reach into the washer.


The kids have been begging me for years to buy a stupid coconut so they could crack it open. Last week, I got tired of hearing about it and brought one home. The next morning they were in the kitchen bright and early, armed with a hammer. The coconut milk (juice, water?) was nasty. Now I can browse the produce section in peace.


Big news! I bought a lens I thought I would never touch. No variable ap lens was good enough for the likes of *me*. It's amazing what a limited budget and a football playing kid will do to change your mind. Here's why: I finally got a dslr after having sacrificed my true love D700 in the name of a vacation to see a Mouse. I needed lenses. It was like starting over. I couldn't, however, afford all the lenses I wanted. So I chose carefully. I started with the 50 1.4, of course. The must have. Then, after literally agonizing and reading reviews for days, I chose the 85 1.8 (I agonized over the 1.4 vs the 1.8). Jason was a go for the 1.4, but the cost, being like 3x more, was just too hard to justify. A few days later, I found a deal too good to pass up on the 35 1.8. Oh wow, I LOVE that lens. Sooo sharp. Anyway, I wasn't in love with the 85 1.8. Enter the ....

wait for it...

Nikon 70-300 3.5-5.6

I KNOW! I never thought. But someone on Clickin Moms was selling one, so I started looking into it. I called B&H and talked at length with a sales person. I realized that, in order to get the zoom i wanted for Grant's football, I was either stuck with the 85 1.8 which, for the limited zoom, wasn't all that. I ended up returning the 85 and purchasing the 70-300 from B&H refurbished. Turns out, I LOVE it.

Check out this shot. Tell me that bokeh is not gorgeous. (I know, I was in such a hurry to test it I used an orange. This was taken moments after taking it out of the box).


You see, bokeh is determined not just by your depth of field, or aperture, but also by your focal distance (this baby has a great focal distance) and distance from subject. The closer you are to your subject, the greater your bokeh. The orange was shot at f/5.6 and 300mm. I was right at the minimal focal distance (if I got any closer to the orange I wouldn't have been able to focus).

I never took these facts into consideration before. All I knew was you needed a wide aperture to get good bokeh. Not so, my friends.

Okay, in keeping with the nature of this post, I will continue randomly jumping around.

We visited COSI in Columbus last week while Jason spent the day at the Columbus VA. We would later continue on our way to his parents for the weekend.

This leetle lizard was shot with my lovely 35mm lens.


This is about as close as you're gonna get to a self portrait. I was hiding behind Logan to snap this ball on a display that proves the earth rotates. It continues to swing back and forth all the time, while the earth's rotation causes it to gradually knock all the balls off the rim. It was fun to wait for it to knock the next ball off.


Logan, the Lego man, created this ship and asked me to photograph it so he could submit it to Lego magazine. We will be anxiously watching our mail for the next issue. Fun!


And finally, what the hell?!?!? It is snowing tonight. Um, hello, Spring is in 10 days. I'm over it. Poor Grant had to practice in this cold, wet snow on a cold, flooded field. He didn't even dress for it because he was so sure practice would be cancelled. Oh well, it'll toughen him up.

Bee City

Two field trips in one week is a little unusual, but so it was for us this week. I actually really needed to get out, personally. Sometimes the school week can be a bit of a drag. It's not the school work, it's the fighting that gets to me. Mentally, it was a perfect week for me to be in the "world classroom" this week.

Bee City was alot of fun. We learned much about bees. We made candles, bottled our own honey to take home, and make wax figures. There were so many animals at the petting zoo. That was really our favorite part. Particularly enchanting were the lemurs. We fed them "monkey-o's" (aka cheerios) by handing it to them. We all just loved how their little hands felt as they took the food out of our fingers.

The capuchin monkeys had little buckets on a pulley system. You drop a monkey-o in the bucket, and the little guy pulls the bucket to where he could reach it and grabs the treat. It was really cute.

You can click (twice, I think to make it even bigger) to see the page better. It is a busy page but I have been waiting a long time to use this honeycomb page template, and I had alot of pictures to put in it.



And look- Kelsey finally got to sit on a horse since we left NM;)


In other news, Jason felt sorry for me in all my depression, anxiety, etc that I have been experiencing lately and came home from Georgia the other day with my Christmas present, albeit extremely early. However, he insisted, and I am now the (co) owner of a shiny new iPad. I say co owner because there is not a living creature in this house that can keep their hands off of it. I have to say, it is very cool. Possibly even habit forming.

How do you measure up?

We finished up our unit on sea turtles today with a behind the scenes tour of the sea turtle hospital at the South Carolina Aquarium. That's one good thing about living near the coast. We have been able to witness the release of several rehabilitated turtles at the beach on Isle of Palms. Today we got to see them in the hospital.

I'll share more pictures later, but for now we just got home so here is one. I love how we can size up in comparison to the 4 turtle species that are found off our coast. Last week we drew the leatherback in chalk in the driveway to scale so we could see how huge they are, but I really like how this picture illustrates it!

Homeschool History Days

Whenever we go on a field trip or other educational activity, I try to make a page to summarize it for their portfolios. I also *try* to assign the kids some sort of follow up, but with our already full school schedule it doesn't always happen. Thus being the case for this trip. I worry, too, that field trips will turn into groans of "oh, no! Another field trip. This means we'll have to write a paper." So rather than have them do something on paper, I let them make more butter. Fun. And tasty. Though admittedly it is much easier to buy sticks of butter from the grocery store.

Anyway, we try to go to the homeschool events at the Charleston Museum as much as possible. It is a wonderful museum and we've learned so much about local history.

Here's our portfolio page for October's homeschool day.



I should credit my brother and sister-in-law for gifting us last Christmas with a family Museum membership. I didn't know about this museum or its homeschool program but thanks to Doug and Barbara we have this wonderful membership which we have enjoyed all year long!

Working for Peanuts

I like to inject a little fun into our homeschool routine. I keep several file folder games handy for each of the kids. Logan was learning about compound words so I pulled out Working for Peanuts, a game that allows him to put compound words together and then write them using a dry erase marker. They enjoy opening their workboxes and finding a fun game to break up the routine.

Click to see larger.



I find most of my file folder games on this site: File Folder Fun. They are free to print out and easy to put together. I did invest in a laminator for $20 which makes the games reusable. I hope to pass them down so that is important to me.

Homeschooling

One of the reasons I set up this blog was to share some of my homeschooling ideas that are working for us. Since we are in the full swing of the new school year, I am going to share 2 of my favorite ideas to make our homeschool experience easier and better organized.

The first one I came up with totally on my own, and I'm rather proud of it. It is a lifesaver, argument preventer, and major task helper. I have grabbed it to bring along to doctor appointments, grandma's house, or just about anywhere that we want to do school on the go. This one item, along with my canvas Sonlight tote bag filled with a few books or worksheets, is all we need on the go. At home, it sits in the middle of the dining room table where anyone can reach it.

It's our supply caddy. (link is similar but not exactly the same as mine).Purchased from Walmart a year or so ago, I have also seen it (for more money) at Michael's. It is advertised as a scrapbooking caddy. It has held up to our abuse remarkably well and has no shortage of pockets, both flat and zippered, as well as internal elastic pockets which I use to corral the markers and colored pencils.

Without further ado:



On the side we store all of our scissors (plenty to do crafts with friends and no fighting over scissors!) and pencils.


On this side we keep all our dry erase markers and erasers. We use these alot for handwriting, clock practice, and for fun. We have several tablet sized dry erase boards, with and without lines, that fit right in the middle section of this caddy for on the go fun.


Elastic pouches inside each section corral markers and colored pencils so it's easy to grab the color you are looking for. On the other side there is room for glue and glue sticks, and it comes with a velcro pouch to hold erasers. Rulers go in the middle.


Math manipulatives like protractors and small rulers fit in here.


There is even a big zippered compartment for index cards, small post it notes, and card games.


My other favorite favorite homeschool help is workboxes. We just started using them this year, and it has transformed our homeschool. I just simply don't know how I coped before they came into the picture. Well, I know I was much less organized. Here is one quick picture of our workboxes. I will add more in another post:)