Homeschool Workboxes

Well, there's a new fad in homeschooling, and I'm going to give it a shot.

Here's the brain behind the whole phenomenom, Sue Patrick... http://www.workboxsystem.com/

Here are some bloggers who have posted about it...
Joyful Mother of 6
Ginger-Snap-Shots
Our Life Song

So, I plan to implement this in my own way, of course...as we all do with each other's ideas ~ Make it work for our life!

Mary Helen is currently doing My Father's World Kindergarten. The wonderful thing about the curriculum is that it only takes 30-45 minutes most days. The bad thing about it is that it only takes 30-45 minutes most days! Very often she asks for more! So, she will be getting six boxes each day that will be completed after we do what we need to do together. Some days she will have MFW sheets in her box, sometimes not.

Some of the things I plan to put in her box are Bible crafts/coloring pages (we will do mostly Easter stuff for the next couple of weeks), things to extend our current letter and theme (right now we are on letter M and moon), math skills, and other misc. skills.

Here is a list of some ideas:
~piggy bank/penny counting game (I found it somewhere in blogland, if I find it again, I will post links. I'm quite sure it came from a yahoo!group) She will roll a die and put the corresponding number of pennies on the counting mat until she fills the mat.
~Next week, since we will be working on the letter M, we will have several M&M activities. See www.thevirutualvine.com under themes, then m&m for lots of ideas and printables. Also look here.
~Play doh
~dry erase books and placemats to practice handwriting (she loves these!)
~collage making - magazine, scissors, glue


For Anna, our 2 1/2 year old, I will also have 6 boxes each day. She likes to have her own things to do during school time. Her activities will also include Bible coloring and crafts. She will also have some of the ziplock activities in her boxes (See last Thursday's post).

Other things she will have:
~tearing and glueing construction paper
~cutting practice
~lacing cards
~sorting
~matching
~tong transferring (pom poms, plastic ice cube things from $ Tree)
~m&m activities
~stickers

I also have a book from Evan Moore (I think) of take it to your seat type center activities that I have for the boxes. I have a box with files for categories to pull ideas and activities from. It takes initial plannins, but I will be able to re-use many ideas and pull out stuff that we've long forgotten about or never get to. I *hope* to make a spreadsheet or some kind of system to keep up with what I've used to keep things rotated through.

*Montessori type activities are good for this as well. Here are a lot of ideas.

I am hoping this will be a good thing for us. I will take pictures of all the action next week, and make a post of how it's going for us.