If you’ve been reading this blog very long at all you know I don’t like math worksheets.  I am convinced there are better ways.  This past week Brother and I stumbled upon one.

On our last trip to the library, someone (not me) picked up A Dollar for Penny by Julie Glass.  It’s called a “math reader” and it’s particular brand of math concerns money.  Anyway, I spied it in our library bin and added it along with a handful of various coins to Brother’s math workbox.

When math time came he and I had the most enjoyable time.  He read the story but I held the book which meant that at appropriate moments I could close the pages and ask questions like: “What do you think she’ll charge this time?” or “What coins do you think that person will use to pay?”  or “What other ways could they pay?”  For each question he created an answer using the coins. 

We played around with this relatively short story for nearly half an hour and by the end of it I discovered two things.  First, Brother is a better reader than he (or I) had realized. (He was quite concerned in the beginning about the book being a “step 2” reader but in reality he had no problems at all.)  Second, although he’d done several worksheets about coin values this year, he had actually retained very little.  This simple 30 minute lesson consisting mostly of reading and giggles conveyed far more than any piece of paper has.

This whole experience has be re-evaluating (again) each part of our curriculum.  Every book must now answer true ~ “Is this the best way to teach this topic to my kids?”  Is this topic even worth teaching right now?, ever?  Not surprisingly a number of my original choices for the year have been set aside. … but, for now anyway, math readers are in.

This morning our homeschool coop had a picture day.  So much better than the typical school picture day because 1. The atmosphere is relaxed.  2. The photographer actually takes the time to get a good shot. and 3. Since we are homeschooling “families” you can include as many people as you want in your time slot.   Number three is especially nice for me because while I’m not the type to schedule a photo session I do like having a regular family portrait.  Will took off work for the occasion and after a leisurely morning of getting ourselves all pretty we left for our appointment.  We did not “do school.”

Seeing one of the other waiting children working on her schoolwork I confessed to the mother that we were playing hooky for the day.  It really did feel like a confession because I really did feel guilty about it especially because I know how difficult it is for us to get seatwork done of an afternoon and that, consequently; there would be no redeeming of the day… schoolwise, anyway.

Back at home, we took advantage of Dad’s presence and started a game of Quirkle,  (You know that one that requires matching, addition, critical thinking and spatial reasoning skills.)  I had to skip out about halfway through to go pick up groceries so Dad and the Littles played outside while the big kids continued their marathon of “What’s in the Bible” watching.

Later, after lunch and after Will headed off to work, there were still a lot of groceries to put away.  I had Brother help me. 

“You do all the cans in the pantry.  Try to keep like with like so things will be easier to find later.” 

In the process of clearing space in a cabinet I came across a package of sunflower seeds and some old fruit bits.

“Sister, see if you can figure out something to do with these.  Maybe the birds would like them.”

Brother had finished by this time so I handed him the back off an empty cereal box. 

“Look, this one has puzzles.  Do you want it?” 

“Sure!”  He grabbed a pen and sat down at the table to work the challenges.

Sister finishes up her bird feeder made from a plastic cup.  She’s mixed the seeds with peanut butter to make a paste for smearing all over it.  It doesn’t work as well as she’d hoped so she starts in on another plan.

I notice that two packages of toilet paper have yet to be put away.  I set Brother to the task.

“Take care of these, please.  We need a third in each restroom.”

There is a little confusion at first about what that means so we have a quick review of fractions.  Explanation complete, I go to put the Littles down for a nap.  When I come out Sister has finished her task and is practicing piano.  Brother has finished his task and is exploring PBS Kids. 

“Do you guys want to finish our Quirkle game?” 

It’s close to the very end but Brother pulls out the win in a last grand move. I’m kicking myself that he spotted a quirkle I missed.

Dad will be home soon so Sister starts supper while I take care of the waking Littles.

Later, Sister and I head to Hobby Lobby.  We need candle making supplies for a project she is doing with some friends.  We also get one of those US maps that hold a 50 State Quarter Collection.  After several weeks of looking, Sister finally has a complete collection and she wants to display them.  Of course, she fills the map as soon as we get home.

In our absence, Will and Brother have been playing a puzzle game on the computer.

Bedtime arrives.  The kids grab their nighttime books and turn on their reading lamps.

“Good night.”

“Good night. I love you.  See you in the morning.”

You know…. maybe we did do school today after all.

Sometimes the best ideas evolve out what’s right in front of our faces.

Dora has a little activity shelf near our school area to keep her busy while the big kids do seatwork.  I change out the toys every week or so to keep it interesting.  Apparently, on this week, what I chose wasn’t interesting enough because passing by I spied this.

Do you see it?

Maybe a close up will help.

She placed the grasshopper and frog with their matching colors.  Funny thing was that while I had pulled out the puzzle for her to play with; the little figures came from who knows where.

That got me to thinking about other color matching we could do with that puzzle.  A quick house search yielded magnetic refrigerator clips and Candy Land cards. 

I cannot even explain all the games they derived from these simple tools. But they had fun.  Lots and lots of fun.

And I had quiet.

Found this tutorial over at Counting Coconuts and thought I’d make some myself.

Sew So easy and Brother has already gotten use out of them while working math sheets but mostly they’ve been used as pretend pizza.

It took me an afternoon of cutting and sewing off and on to complete the set but I’m sure it could be done in less time sans interruption.  The double layers of felt make them very sturdy so that even the littlest can have a turn.

If you missed Part 1 of this series you can find it here.

Don’t know what workboxes are?  Check out this link.

In baseball, a change up is a off speed pitch meant to surprise the batter and throw off his timing.  However, the pitcher doesn’t plan at the beginning of the game when he’s going to throw a change up.  Instead, he waits until he needs it to shake things up a bit.  In my workbox world the concept is similar.  When I see interest waning in a particular subject, I know it’s time to throw a change up.  I keep a list of ideas handy and whole host of supplies in standby mode for just such an occasion.

Here are some examples from the past few weeks:

Sister’s writing box usually looks like this:

but one week I could tell she needed a little boost so I replaced it with this:

The skills required to draw a detailed picture are the same ones that develop good handwriting but I didn’t tell her that.  Instead I assigned some pages to complete in lieu of her regular work and told her to have fun.  She did and she produced a great picture in the process.

Brother’s History box usually looks like this:

But he’s six and world history at six isn’t a particular priority to me.  We’d been having some trouble keeping up with our read-aloud (I usually read it at breakfast or lunch while the children eat.) so on this particular week we replaced History with Charlotte’s Web.

I can hear you now, “but won’t that put you behind schedule?”  I don’t think so.  The whole point of the skeleton plan is to allow for flex.  I know that at a chapter a week we could finish the designated portion of “A Child’s History of the World” in 36 weeks.  I also know, having skimmed the material, that there are several chapters I will probably just summarize rather than read.  As I said, he’s six.  Armed with this information I know I can probably skip a week of History and it won’t affect is ability to get into Harvard.  But let’s suppose for the sake of argument that this did put me behind schedule.  Very few school children completely finish their textbooks by the end of each year, why should I feel the pressure to make my kids finish theirs?  We’ll get as far as we get and if we need to we can always pick up there next year.

Sometimes the idea for a change up comes from a book already in the schedule.  Brother’s history includes a number of Usborne books which often have little activities in the sidebar.  If, as I read ahead the night before, I see that I have the materials available and I’m interested then I’ll add them to the box for the next day.  If I don’t or I’m not then I won’t.

Sometimes an idea starts as a change up but works so well that it sticks.  Sister doesn’t like to write very much so I relieve this stress for her where I can.  She says her spelling words out loud and only has to write the ones she misses.  In one workbook I allow her to highlight the answers within the text rather than writing them out.  Both of these adaptations started as change ups.

Sometimes change ups come from an outside source.  Aunt R gave Brother several small science experiment kits which I knew he would enjoy but which I also knew would get lost and never used in the chaos that is our lives right now.  To keep that from happening, I tucked them into my supply closet and over time, as I saw them and remembered,  they went into  his science box.

Sometimes change ups are not even about the kids.  I recently came across the Postcrossing website and thought it sounded like fun.  Since I didn’t have any extra time to devote to setting up such a project we replaced Geography this week with postcard writing.

Or what about this one?  I don’t really enjoy the book “Leading Little Ones to God”  We have it.  It’s an easy fall back and it has generated some great conversations; still I’m always on the lookout for ways to change up Brother’s Bible box.  This week his Sunday school lesson was lying on the table as I prepared for the school  week so I popped that in for discussion.

The possibilities for change are endless.  The biggest challenge is letting go of the notion that you are not “following the schedule.”  If they are learning and enjoying learning then I say you are right on track.

So there you have it.  More than you ever wanted to know about how we workbox. Certainly it’s more than I ever intended to write.

If you missed Part 1 of this series you can find it here.

Don’t know what workboxes are?  Check out this link.

If you’re like me then all this instruction is nice but what you really want to see are pictures.  What does it actually look like?  So, here you go.

                  Sister’s Boxes                               Brother’s Boxes

BIBLE STUDY:

Sister ~ The ICB Illustrated Bible: New Testament and Memory Verses from anAWANA book we had on the shelf.

Brother ~ Leading Little Ones to God, a copy of The Living Bible, Missionary Stories with the Millers (which we read on Fridays) and whatever scripture I’ve chosen for him to memorize.

HANDWRITING:

A Reason For Handwriting Series (each at their own level).  These books have 4 days of practice and on the fifth they copy a scripture in their best handwriting onto a special decorated sheet to be given away.

PHYSICAL EDUCATION:

Homeschool PE by Anne Elliot

This isn’t really seatwork but we do it together and I do consider it part of our curriculum .  Sister is our equipment manager so she reads the lesson plan and collects supplies for the day.  I haven’t yet figured out how to fit balls and bats and such in the box.   Brother is our water boy so he gets drinks for everyone while Sister gets the equipment ready.

LITERATURE

Sonlight Readers (Sister at 4th grade level and Brother at 1st)  These boxes do get changed up quite frequently but since I’m using Sonlight there is a plan is already written out for me.  To make scheduling even easier, instead of following the exact page numbers presented in Sonlight’s guide I figure out the average number of pages they need to read to finish on schedule and assign that.

MATH:

Sister ~ Math U See Gamma 

Brother ~ Horizon Math (1st)

Math for each progresses at a “until you understand it” pace.  For Sister this means that she watches the video and completes one practice sheet each day until she is confident in her ability to pass the test.  She may take a test at any time but if she hasn’t worked all the practice sheets then she must make a 100% or the following day she’ll do more practice. … She’s very good at knowing when she’s ready and has yet to miss the 100% mark.  For Brother – none of the concepts are really new to him, yet.  Mostly, it’s just practice to help him work faster.

Friday’s are for Fact Practice so I try to come up with some fun way to approach these exercises.

Critical And Creative Thinking Activity workbooks (each at their own level)

Brother’s Critical Thinking workbook makes an appearance in his Math box but Sister’s sits in her Spelling box.  Both of them do a couple of pages each week.  Brother adores his.  Sister, not so much.  She doesn’t like that many of the questions don’t have “right” answers.

SPELLING / PHONICS

Sister ~ Sequential Spelling

Love, love, love this.  Sister is actually a pretty good speller but she lacked the confidence to just try when she was unsure.  This book has shown her just how many words she knows.

Brother ~ Explode the Code 1-3

These correlate somewhat with his Sonlight readers and the exercises are very much helping to improve his speed.

HISTORY

Sonlight Core (Sister at 4th grade level ~ American History 2nd Year and Brother at 1st ~ World History 1st Year) 

I basically do the same thing here (averaging out pages) as with the Reading boxes above.

ON THE SUBJECT OF LIFE?? (This is our box labeled BANK.)

Earn It, Learn It: Teach Your Child the Value of Money, Work, and Time Well Spent 

This isn’t really your standard sort of textbook but we are having a lot of fun with it and learning about all sorts of jobs in the process.  Each month they choose a career and complete tasks that replicate real world work from that career.  We decide ahead of time how much “cash” each task is worth.  At the end of the month,  I open my “store” where they can buy small items with their Earn My Keep cash.

ART

Discovering Great Artists: Hands-On Art for Children in the Styles of the Great Masters (These pictures are from our week studying Claude Monet.)

Because Art is a rather time intensive and sometimes expensive “do-together”, it only comes around once every three weeks. This three week window allows me to budget for the next project, order books from the library and acquire any hard to find supplies. On Art week we spend Monday delving into a particular artist, Tuesday continuing our study and getting supplies together and finally, on Wednesday, we complete a project related to that artist.  Originally, I meant Thursday and Friday to be focused on etiquette but so far our art studies have spilled over into those days.

You will note, of course, that three boxes are missing from my list.  Like Art, our Geography and Science studies are time-intensive “do-togethers” so they also follow a three week rotation.

GEOGRAPHY

A Childs Geography Explore His Earth

On Monday, we read the lesson as a family, Tuesday is for making a pretend postcard as if we visited the place in our lesson, Wednesday is for a Reaching Out activity and on Thursday we complete one of her “Too Fun To Resist Excursions” which is often a craft of some kind.  Each chapter includes a list of extra resources to look at and I love that I have three weeks to order them from the library.  On geography week I don’t assign these extra books but instead strew them about the house for the children to find.

SCIENCE

Sister ~ The Nature Connection: An Outdoor Workbook for Kids, Families, and Classrooms

Brother ~ Nature in a Nutshell for Kids

Real Science 4 Kids (Biology) Sister ~ Level 1 and Brother ~ Pre-Level 1

On Week 3 we tackle science.  Monday and Friday are for Nature Notebooking.  On Tuesday we read our lesson.  Wednesday we experiment and Thursday we work on creating a study folder related to the lesson.

OKLAHOMA STATE HISTORY

My State History Funbook by Joy Dean

They each have a copy of the same book and fill it out to the best of their ability. In addition to that, I ordered a slew of travel brochures (free!) from the OK Tourism Department.   We have yet to hit this box this year but last year we took a week here and there and did it instead of our standard fare.

So that’s our base curriculum for the year.  But obviously, the same old thing day after day gets boring (and that’s just for me!  Imagine how the children feel?)

Next time: the change-up.

If you missed Part 1 of this series you can find it here.

Don’t know what workboxes are?  Check out this link.

Before our week starts, utilizing my skeleton plan as a guide, I flip through the pages each child will encounter that week.  I note any special supplies they might need and either place them in the boxes ready for Monday or set them aside for use later in the week.  I check that all the tags are in place (Toddlers LOVE the sound velcro makes.), write down any special instructions on sticky notes, place those in the appropriate boxes and then I’m done.  (This part takes about 40 minutes to an hour for both kids.)

On Monday, after breakfast and morning chores are complete, the children start working through their boxes.  We don’t start at a particular time.  Even so, “school” tends to be in full swing by 9am and complete before lunch.  In addition to the subject tags, there are numbers on the boxes which contain assignments for that day or a “Do Together” tag if we will do the activity together as a family.

On a typical day their loaded boxes will look like this:

(Yes, we have carts now.  I got them here and we love them.)

You’ll note that on this day each of them have 9 total boxes (7 independent + 2 “do-together” ones).  Assuming I stick to my skeleton plan, this is the most they will ever have in one day.

So here’s the routine …. FINALLY.
** Each child pulls out the materials from their first “tagged” box,

** completes the assignment noted on either a sticky note or daily schedule card (getting help where necessary),

** has their work checked by Mom,

** cleans up any mess,

** returns materials (and the number tag) to the box and finally,

** moves on to the next “tagged” box

The child is done for the day when there are no “tagged” boxes remaining.

That’s It.

Really.

Which begs the question, if the process is so simple why did it take me four blog posts to get here?  In one word ~ preparation.  Workboxes are all about having the materials ready and waiting for your little learners and as I stated back at the beginning one can easily spend an hour plus each night doing all that prep work.  My hope is that the posts leading up to this one will give you some ideas on how to overcome the preparation monster.  Sure at the beginning of the week I might spend an hour reviewing assignments and pulling supplies together but on Tuesday I can reset both sets of boxes in about 10 minutes.  It’s the same on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.  So for comparison ~ old way: 5 hours MINIMUM prep time; new way: 2 hours MAXIMUM prep time.  Big difference.

So in case you missed the previous posts or just need a recap, here are the highlights:

** Only keep the parts of the system that work for you. (we tossed schedule strips, learning centers & waiting stations)

** The bulk of your curriculum should work even when you don’t plan it.  (if your instruction note can simply say “next lesson/chapter/page” then you’ve found what I’m talking about.)

** Don’t think you have to plan all 12 boxes every day!  (Or if you do, fill each one with a very simple assignment.)

** Have a plan but make it as general and flexible as you can.  You’ll be building in fun on the fly and you don’t want your precious plan to cramp your style.

Next time: What’s in our boxes.

If you missed Part 1 of this series you can find it here.

Don’t know what workboxes are?  Check out this link.

Please don’t misunderstand the title of my last post.  “Ditching the Plan” does not imply having no plan at all. I am well aware of the “he who fails to plan, plans to fail” concept and all that.  “Ditching the Plan” means that I am comfortable and willing to deviate from the plan when the situation calls for it because I haven’t wasted time putting my heart and soul into the creation of every detail and because I am trusting that God is much better at mapping out the nuances of my days that I am.  What I am proposing is a plan that is flexible enough to absorb exceptions with ease.  Indeed such a plan will invite exception and the learning experience will be all the richer for it.

Having developed and embraced this new (to me) philosophy, I finally began to choose my curriculum for the year and create what I call my “Skeleton Plan” ~ a framework upon which I could hang ANYthing.

Here’s how the process played out.

First, I decided what material I wanted to cover and what “subject” that material was best categorized as.  Then I assigned a box to each of those subjects.  The boxes are tagged to help the kiddos keep track of what they are working on. We have boxes for Bible, Writing, PE, Math, Reading, History, Spelling/Phonics, Art, Geography, Science and Oklahoma History.

Next, I decided how often I could truly touch each of those subjects and scheduled them accordingly.  The resources I chose for Art, Geography and Science all require a significant amount of preparation and/or project time so I knew that realistically I could not do all of those every week.  Even two in a week would be a stretch so I put those boxes on a three week rotation.  Bible time is very important to us so that box gets filled every day.  Our writing curriculum had a natural 5 day schedule as did the one Will chose for PE. We use Sonlight for our History and Reading and though in the past I’ve tried the 5 day schedule, this year I recognized that for us the 4 day plan would work better.  The Oklahoma History book I have really works best if approached in spurts so I didn’t schedule it at all instead we will pull it out when interest in the other subjects wanes and we need a different kind of week to get us motivated again.  That left me with one empty box.  I had several “fun” books I’d been wanting to incorporate somehow so I picked one, assigned it to the last box and made it completely optional.

This is my skeleton plan for the year.

(It hangs on a ring in my supply closet for easy reference and since you can’t read the picture, here’s what it says.)

I know it still looks kind of complicated but you should know that it took several drafts to reach this point.  The hardest part was not the arranging or scheduling but LEAVING ideas OUT.  Each time I finished a draft I would go back and closely examine every item.  Did I really think this was an activity that I could maintain (or would it be worth the effort required to maintain it) ??  If not, then out it went.  I kept cutting in this way until I was satisfied that the remaining plan was quite general, flexible and sustainable.  Even so, after the first week I still ended up tweaking it two times more.

Then I made tags for each of the boxes.  This was completely unnecessary but it was fun.  It looks cool and the tags help the kids (and me) keep track of what they are working on.

These are Brother’s tags – some of Sister’s look slightly different.

Next time: a step by step through our day.

If you missed Part 1 of this series you can find it here. 

Don’t know what workboxes are?  Check out this link.

In July I began my planning for the 2011-12 school year but before I started searching for curriculum I attempted an honest assessment of the previous year. What had worked and what hadn’t.  I applied the 80/20 rule to help me focus on what deserved our time and what was just fluff.

Resetting tags and schedule strips, creating and maintaining learning centers and waiting stations, as well as being a slave to the notion that all 12 boxes must be filled every day had consumed most of my time.   In addition to these I realized that my detail oriented personality had been a significant part of the planning time problem.

What?!?  I was part of the problem?  Surely not!

But it was true.  I had wanted every detail of every box planned out in advance for the entire week.  Then when interruptions happened ~ as they inevitably would ~ my whole plan had to be completely re-vamped before we could continue.  Translated that meant I spent a lot more time planning than doing.  I even spent some time preparing lessons that we never used ~ more time wasted.  And to top it all off, the combinations of lessons I planned were complicated.  (book 1 on Monday, book 2 on Tuesday, back to book 1on Wednesday, project on Thursday, back to book 2 on Friday)  This meant that most every box had to be refilled from scratch every day.

What I needed were books that planned themselves: base materials that would remain in the boxes for long periods of time.  That would eliminate all the switching and refilling.  But what about the fun?!  The same books day after day would get boring.

What I really needed were books that wouldn’t get boring because we’d only use them as written when I didn’t have a lot of time to prepare special projects but otherwise we would use them as jumping off points for further exploration.

Okay, so now I’d established that I needed non-boring curriculum that planned itself, which sounds like crazy talk but actually it was an epiphany.  A strange little stirring began in my soul and let me tell you that even though this post is supposed to be about workboxes it’s also about God and about the every day minutia of our lives that He uses to speak to us.  My workboxes were in trouble because I planned way too much.  I hadn’t yet discovered a way to be flexible and follow the flow of each day.  My life was in the exact same situation.

Scripture directs us to acknowledge God in “all our ways” and then it goes on to say that if we do that “He will direct our paths” but this whole problem I had of planning every detail, it totally cut God out of the picture.  It said, “Don’t worry, Lord.  I’ll cut this path myself.  Why don’t you go find someone who really needs your help?  I’m good here.”  But in reality, I wasn’t good ~ far from it.  Because while the paths we cut ourselves may seem okay, God’s paths are always better.

So when I had this epiphany about non-boring curriculum that planned itself for our workboxes I heard that still small voice say, “You need that for your life too.”  And I knew exactly what He meant.  The Bible would be my base but the part that would keep life interesting and make it fun was acknowledging God and being flexible enough to follow His voice.

Like all epiphanies the idea came before the practice and in regards to the whole “minimal planning” idea I needed a LOT of practice and it started with the workboxes.

to be continued ….

I love, love the Impressionists.  Looking at their paintings always makes me feel peaceful and happy; so I was delighted this week to continue our Impressionism study with Claude Monet.  Last time we pulled a lot of resources from the computer but this week I was feeling more hands on so mostly we looked at books from the library.

(clicking the image will re-direct you to Amazon)

All of these were wonderful books but our favorite thing was watching an animated version of Linnea in Monet’s Garden on Netflix.  It starts out a bit slow and I could tell the children were simply watching because I asked it, not because they wanted to.  Brother sat on the floor flipping through the stack of other Monet books.  Sister languished over the back of the couch. But somewhere around minute 5 they were hooked. 

“Look, Mom!” Brother says, pointing to a picture in his book, “That’s the one they’re talking about.”

“Is that a real place?!”  Sister asks when presented with a photograph of the actual garden. 

“Yes.  And you can actually visit it.” 

“Wow!  Really?!”  Since so many of her own pictures come from books or her imagination I don’t think she had previously made the connection between Monet’s art and the real beauty that he copied.

As a side note I will mention that if you don’t subscribe to Netflix already you should consider it. They don’t always have the most popular new releases for instant viewing but there is a wealth of educational materials available.

For our art projects this year we are mainly working from the book Discovering Great Artists: Hands-On Art for Children in the Styles of the Great Masters by MaryAnn F. Kohl and Kim Solga but since the activity this week called for painting outdoors (which Monet would have loved).and since we are STILL in a heat advisory I found a replacement book with and INDOOR activity.

So many of Monet’s paintings incorporate the use of reflections on water so our project this week explored that concept.  First, we covered the bottom half of a light blue sheet of construction paper with a darker color of blue construction paper, gluing the two together.

The little board book you see is one I picked up for Dora so she would have an art book too.  She loves to be just like the big kids.

After gluing we used colored chalk to draw an outdoor scene on the light blue paper.

We lightly misted the drawing with water and folded it over onto the other half. 

A coin rubbed across the back helped transfer the image. 

After the paper had dried we had our own art and its reflection.  Not how Monet did it, I’m sure but fun nonetheless.

Brother’s Masterpiece

You will note that there are no pictures of Sister’s finished artwork.  She was very displeased with her attempt and so crumpled up the paper and threw it on the floor.  There was no point arguing with her about the quality of the work. She truly is an artist at heart. My saying her picture was good wouldn’t change her thoughts on it in the least.  Still, I couldn’t have her throwing trash about.

“Sister.” I said sternly, “Is that what Monet would have done with artwork he didn’t like?”

“No, he would have burned it.”

“Well then??”

So that’s what she did.

Just because it’s not the lesson I planned doesn’t mean it wasn’t learning.