Workboxes are back... again

If any of you have been surfing around the homeschooling blogs over the past year or so, you'll know about the workbox buzz. It seems since it all hit the homeschool world, families have had their different approaches to the system, our family included.

Planner books don't get used in my house very much. I honestly get mad and want to throw the thing clear across the room. When first reading about workboxes, I loved the idea. I don't plan well. I didn't want to commit to buying the book so I did what others do, I modified.

It's laughable to think that I had the sq. footage to organize the system in it's pure form. Without spending money, I tried this rolling cart as seen above for Zazu and had my oldest use a file box to organize our day, both of which I already owned, which you may see in this post. I started strong but then I slowly got tired of the extra work the night before to load it up. Not just loading it up, but putting fresh stuff for my preschooler in there daily. I also had a little one on my hip and breast, and it was our second year homeschooling at that point. 

So I left it be for a while. 

Time went on and yet again I saw need to re-organize our routine so I then basically mimicked this with my boys.

It worked well for a time, until I again got tired of changing cards everyday and having my new very mobile daughter getting into EVERYTHING. I also tried laying them all out weekly, which meant I only had to rotate everything once a week.

Fast forward... Our home educating has changed over the last 3 years. I now am trying to use a more Charlotte Mason approach so we now have family work worked in and books, both of which  are a big part of our day. We use less worksheets and I've chosen more resources that are multi level which are used together in our family work time of the day. 


I now print off an online schedule for everyone. My oldest is now self motivated enough to follow the printed schedule with everything he needs,  either on his school shelf seen below (with the big red binder poking out) or at our cart. I really only need 4-5 drawers for Zazu and I see that carrying on through for the next year, until he  digs deeper into more grade/ability specific study.

Here's a portion of what Zazu did one week recently.

I had started Zazu on A Reason for Handwriting: Level A: Manuscript Student Workbook last month, but it doesn't seem to be a fit for him at this point. So this week it was back to more hands on for printing practice from Starfall. 

Go over to Homeschool Creations to see what Yolanthe and bunch of other mommies are doing with their pre-K and K's.

DINOSAUR LAPBOOK

The boys have been occasionally working on a dinosaur lapbook over the past 2 months.

Most of the contents are from Homeschool Share.

I also went to Enchanted Learning and with my subscription printed off a few more things. 

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This is Zazu's lapbook. 

I really appreciated that the Lapbook was from a Creationist view which lines up with what we teach at home to our kids. We had some interesting conversations about before and after the fall. The boys still bring up the diet of dinos including other meat eaters. Just the other day, somebody said, mosquitoes were probably somehow plant eaters right mom. This look into dinosaurs from a creationist viewpoint really opened up new conversations and understanding with other similar nature topics.    

His favourites were the colour by number (addition) page and the My Dinosaur page.

I love the creativity. It's always about the spikes. No matter what kind of creature Zazu designs, spikes are most often a necessity. I just laugh; he's a boy.

There wasn't enough room for Zazu to do his copy work on the original printed Enchanted Learning Dinosaur Booklet pages. I cut out the picture and info and pasted them to our M&S story telling paper. I like the pad of paper compared to

 another kind that I have. It's thicker and a brighter white. 

We read books and did other activities related to dinos. These activities were not mandatory, just for fun with our look into dinosaurs.

DINO mix & match pieces.

Here is a puzzle and fun dinosaur sticker activity book.

Kindergarten with Zazu

This week I pulled out these really cool dinosaur mix & match pieces (dollar store sorry no link). Zazu is able to create his own creatures with this set of parts. He had me take multiple pictures of his creations. I was happy to do so. He's so used to the camera during school time, well especially when we did TOT SCHOOL together; my camera was always snapping away. It seems now that most of the camera focus is now on the new TOT in the house, Miss Alba. So when I can I click away on his work. 

I've realized that taking a photo is more than a casual "good job", or "looks nice bud", stopping to grab the camera means "I want to take record of this", "this is important" which translates to "you are important". 

I'm able to capture a moment that speaks to his heart without having to say any words. 

You are SPECIAL! What you do has value.

AND

I am not shy about putting a dirty mouthed little boy up here either. I'm the mom that is buckling seat belts and checking faces to make sure they're clean before we go anywhere. I'm the mom that has been known to lose her cool for telling a child to wipe their face after eating and they then to find out they hadn't.

So, here he is. A cute little boy, fascinated with a book about ants. I'm proud to say that I took the picture anyway, without telling him to go wash his face first. The moment was more important than missing it for a little mess.

Here's a portion of what Zazu did this week in pictures.

I had started Zazu on A Reason for Handwriting: Level A: Manuscript Student Workbook last month, but it doesn't seem to be a fit for him at this point. So this week it was back to a more hands on and just different approach for printing practice from Starfall, as seen below. 

 

As of this post Zazu is on Lesson 40 in Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons. I told him when we working working on #40, "You are almost have way, just 10 more lessons!". He didn't seem as thrilled as I was. 

Zazu started Math U See Alpha last month and he seems to be really enjoying the build it, say it, write it aspect of the program and he is moving along through the material well.

 BoB Books are a treat. At the moment I schedule  BOB Books: Sight Words - Kindergarten andBob Books Fun! Level A, Set 2 (re-released as Bob Books Set 2- Advancing Beginners). By far the Sight Words pack is his favourite. At this point he gets frustrated quicker with the level A set 2 pack. Besides our reading program, I've noticed that these are the only books he doesn't get frustrated over.  

Weekly Wrap-Up - Jelly Telly, Pumpkins & BooBoos

This week was filled with climbing and falling, splashing and diving, slipping and gliding, cutting and painting, smiling and out right throwing fits and singing Happy Birthday to a special little 5 year old boy. Was that a super long sentence or what?

It was Zazu's fifth birthday. We spent a quiet day together and enjoyed a nice trail walk, along with presents and food to celebrate the occasion.

As for actual learning sit down school stuff (you like that), Eagle met all his goals for the week, which is great. Next week I plan on doing a lapbook with Zazu, which is hopefully enjoyable for him. I must say, that having a toddler while home schooling is easier than being pregnant or having a wee babe on your hip.

BIBLE TIME

JELLY TELLY

If you do watch Jelly Telly, who's your favorite character?

Can you guess who Eagle's is. Well it's a tie between Brother Louis and the pirate guy, Captain Pete.

We've watched the free weekly show for our devotional time in the morning. It's entertaining and the kids run to the computer when they here the theme song. 
We don't subscribe to it, but I have thought about it. 







Most mornings we (the kids) work on their scripture memory box. It's been a great tool to memorize scripture. It costs very little and just requires a little time to pull it all together at the beginning. Check it out.




The beginning of the week was spent on a fall craft with my younger two.

Pumpkin craft

Zazu making a pumpkin

Life Skills

Daddy and Eagle put up a bird feeder.
I've been wanting that done for a while.
We waited too long and now it looks like all the seasonal birds are gone.
Too bad.
All thats left are the graceful annoying raven and magpie.
Welcome to winter in northern Alberta. uuggg.

On to happier things...

look at that smile

I took the kids on a walk to the park with the intention of snapping some fall/school pictures. 
I got quite a few good shots. 
yeah!

Zazu's big bobo

Our adventure ended with a big fall off the playground equipment. 

His chin didn't need stitches and is healing quite well. Have I mentioned that I have a new fondness for butterfly bandages. They worked really well for holding his sad looking chin together. Just a few days later and we were thankfully able to go swimming with just a band aid over his chin.

Right before the fall

With all the excitement this week I'm surprised that I'm not more frazzled. I have noticed since yesterday that I NEED more God today and more of my regular routine back. I just can't be out of the house more than twice a week for any long length of time. It's now saturday and I have so much laundry and cooking and just little things to do, like the soap dispensers in the bathrooms. You know when your shaking and pumping like mad to get a little suds out. Thursday night I tossed and turned from the business of the week. I'm a home body, what can I say. 

Books of the Week

This may offend, but the boys fav book of the week was this. haha, It's actually quite a smart book.

Pumpkins with Zazu

This was a little fall craft that I worked on with Zazu, that I saw a few weeks back on Carisa's blog in this post. I haven't been feeling much in the mood for fall, seeing as our weather has been extra warm and beautiful. This week began our true fall weather so I whipped up this craft for Zazu and we had some fun.

I followed closely what Carisa did for this and it worked out quite well.

I drew a pumpkin shape on paper and Zazu did the cutting.

I set out a little liquid tempera paint in a paint tray and a marble. The marble actually was found this very morning by Zazu and when it was brought to me I immediately remembered the marble/pumpkin craft that I had seen previously.

I didn't have a box so an old plate that we use for painting worked fine.

After making a few pumpkins with the marble, 

Zazu decided to paint some with a brush

and his finger.

Here's our new fall decor.

ain't it pertty

Handicrafts - SEWING for Boys?

Here's a sample of what we do in our home school time for handicrafts, ala Charlotte Mason.

Sewing.

Sewing for boys?

Yes!

Simple lacing is wonderful for young children.

Zazu started lacing at age 3 with difficulty. Now at almost 5 he enjoys the process and is able to go through every hole on his own.

While Zazu was practicing his version of sewing with a homemade garbage truck lacing card, Eagle was exploring the craft of sewing with needle and thread on a scrap piece of jean.

Eagle is 10 years old and has aspirations of making his sister a doll, I told him he needed to start somewhere.

1. The first stitches were to just to see how it worked.
2. I made a sample line for him to follow.
3. Finally, he wanted drew a square and followed that with great accuracy.

That was it for sewing that day.

So back to the question of

Sewing, for boys?

I believe in a well rounded education and that includes boys exploring a little of what we call women's work.

• I want my boys to learn and appreciate what it takes to make what we use and wear on a daily basis.
• I want my boys to learn the value of things and if they're on their own one day and need to sew a button, they can. Most people nowadays would surely just throw out or give the shirt to the thrift store.
• I want my boys to learn to use their hands for not just playing trucks and Lego. Sewing by hand is definitely something to strengthen those fine motor skills, don't you think? 
• Lastly, as a bonus, I just love the silence and the atmosphere that this type of craft/activity creates in our house. I love handmade things

Thank you Charlotte Mason for encouraging me.