workboxes part 2

Hello!

How do we use workboxes in our school? (If you have no idea what I'm talking about, see my post over on There's No Place Like Home)

Before we get into the how - let's get into the why. A few weeks ago John made the comment that school wasn't that fun anymore. As I thought about it, I realized the child was right. We hadn't really been having all that much fun. It had been taking all my time and effort to get through the necessaries and unfortunately some of the spunky fun was getting left behind. I thought, researched, and thought some more. And I was led to the workbox system. It was just what we needed to put some of what the kids think is just plain fun (and sneaky Mom knows that it's really educational fun) back into our school day.

Now, on to the how. The kids work through their workboxes while I am tutoring their sibling. So while I am tutoring Madi in math, John is busy with his workboxes. By the time the end of our school day rolls around, the kids each have a folder or two left which enables me to get things recorded and wrapped up in the classroom. I have even found time to, you are not going to believe this, do some of my own studying. Can you believe it? I'm having a hard time believing it myself, but it is true.

What do we fill our folders with? I'll list for you what we have filled our folders with the last three days.

John Day #1

#1- Usborne art project
#2 - Journal
#3- Spelling
#4- Puzzle of 50 states
#5- Latin
#6 - Vocab
#7- Piano Theory Game (15 min on computer)
#8 - Handwriting
#9 - Read chp. of Farmer Boy
#10 - Recitation
#11 - Free Read (20 min)
#12 - Build something from history with blocks (He built a fine looking Trojan Horse)

Madi Day #1

#1- Sort the Seasons activity
#2 - Journal
#3 - Spelling
#4 - Write spelling words with magnets
#5 - Handwriting
#6 - Recitation
#7 - Read two books to dolls (she actually squealed with delight when she opened this one)
#8 - Dot to Dot
#9 - Piano Theory Game
#10 - Pattern Block Design
#11 - File Folder Game
#12 - Build with Lincoln Logs

John Day #2

#1 - Review Latin Vocab 3 times
#2 - One page from Look and Find
#3 - Vocab
#4 - Usborne Art Project
#5 - Read chp. of Farmer Boy
#6 - Handwriting
#7 - Journal
#8 - Crossword Puzzle
#9 - Recitation
#10 - Free Read (20 minutes)
#11 - Spooky Mansion computer game (15 min)
#12 - Graphing counters

Madi Day #2
#1 - Handwriting
#2 - Usborne Art Project
#3 - Puzzle
#4 - Recitation
#5 - Spooky Mansion (15 min)
#6 - Read to dolls
#7 - Worksheet on antonyms
#8 - Journal
#9 - Look and Find
#10 - Tell glove puppet story to dolls
#11 - Educational DVD
#12 - Work on stitching sampler

John Day #3

#1- Read designated book and make list of main characters
#2 - Spelling
#3 - Read designated book and look up corresponding website
#4 - Read chp. of Farmer Boy
#5 - Listen to story on CD
#6 - Recitation
#7 - Vocab
#8 - Art Project
#9 - Journal
#10 - Work on Cub Scout requirement
#11 - Free Read (20 minutes)
#12 - Free Time!

Madi Day #3

#1 - Listen to story on CD
#2 - Spelling
#3 - Read to dolls
#4 - Paint from history
#5 - Recitation
#6 - Read designated book and identify setting
#7 - Graph teddy bear counters
#8 - Journal
#9 - 15 min on designated website
#10 - Sampler
#11 - Dot to Dot
#12 - Free Time!

The kids really like knowing that there will be a few fun things mixed in during the day. They also enjoy the suspense of not knowing exactly when these fun things will happen.

This probably sounds like a lot of work. It really isn't. It just takes a few minutes at the end of the day to assemble the following day's workboxes. I am surprised that in the same amount of time it was taking us to complete all of our school work, we are now accomplishing so much more.

But do you know what the best part is? The smiles on the faces of my children reflecting their excitement at starting a new day of school.

Drills

One of our favorite parts of the day are our drills. We do drills every morning to wind up our morning meeting. I will call out a drill and then the kids will see how fast they can complete the drill. For example - today we drilled the 50 states (with the Fifty Nifty United States song - always a hit), definition of a pronoun, list of pronouns, the books of the Old Testament, books of the New Testament, books of the Book of Mormon, Latter-day Prophets, and the current Apostles. Most of these are just the songs from the Primary Songbook, but the kids love to sing them as fast as they can.

Why drill? As Susan Wise Bauer states -

Classical education depends on a three-part process of training the mind. The early years of school are spent in absorbing facts, systematically laying the foundations for advanced study. In the middle grades, students learn to think through arguments. In the high school years, they learn to express themselves. This classical pattern is called the trivium.

The first years of schooling are called the “grammar stage” — not because you spend four years doing English, but because these are the years in which the building blocks for all other learning are laid, just as grammar is the foundation for language. In the elementary school years — what we commonly think of as grades one through four — the mind is ready to absorb information. Children at this age actually find memorization fun. So during this period, education involves not self-expression and self-discovery, but rather the learning of facts. Rules of phonics and spelling, rules of grammar, poems, the vocabulary of foreign languages, the stories of history and literature, descriptions of plants and animals and the human body, the facts of mathematics — the list goes on. This information makes up the “grammar,” or the basic building blocks, for the second stage of education (The Well Trained Mind).

At the school I taught at before I had John, we drilled every day. Throughout the year I saw, first hand, the benefits that drilling had for the students. As both of my children are firmly in the grammar stage, ready to absorb as much information as possible, drilling seemed a fun way to reinforce the facts that we are learning. The kids love it, I can't seem to keep up with their demand for new and exciting drills. So if you happen to be on my doorstep around 9:30 AM on a school day, don't be surprised if you hear us drilling loud and clear!

Time Lines

My oh my, do we love a time line around our little neck of the woods.

History is decidedly our favorite subject. On Mondays and Tuesdays we study world history (today we studied the Peloponnesian War), on Wednesdays and Thursdays we study American History (our emphasis being Colonial America at the moment).

Our time line is beneficial in so many ways. It helps us to not only view the sequential order of history, but it also allows us to see events that were happening at the same time around the world. It has been especially interesting to see the different historical events that were occurring throughout the world in relation to the different events in the scriptures. The increased historical knowledge has helped our appreciation and understanding of the scriptures tremendously. Our timeline also serves as a constant reminder/review of all that we have learned this year. It gives the children a sense of their place in the grand scheme of things and how important it is to learn from those that have gone before.

I am in love with our timeline figures from Homeschool in the Woods. This company offers fantastic timeline figures with a brief summary to help keep Amenhotep and Cyrus the Great straight. After we finish studying a particular event or person we simply cut out the figure and sticky tack it on our time line.

Who could have known a time line could be so much fun?

snapshots of our day