Conman's Workboxes

Another fairly smooth day today. Everyone was done by noon again without any major issues.

We started our picture study this week. I hung up a printout of Barn Owl by John James Audubon. The kids studied it and then I asked them to tell me all that they could remember about the picture. Blakester and Lulu gave me descriptions of what was in the picture and Conman told me a story about what he thought was happening. Always a little different, that one!

We started a new read-aloud yesterday. The vote was 2 to 1 for Heidi.

Even though we're transitioning to Charlotte Mason, I'm continuing to use workboxes for their scheduling aspect. I thought I'd share what was in Conman's workboxes today.

These are in no particular order:

2 pages of Math U See Beta workbook. He is working on measuring this week. Part of the 2nd page we completed orally. It works better for him sometimes.

A synonym file folder game from Language Arts Mix and Match Games. These are fun because you choose the topic to work on and the game board, so all the games can be mixed and matched.

Copywork for Little Boys from Queen Homeschool. He does one lesson a day.

Since last week we spent our nature time scouting for bugs, I threw this book sticker book into one of his boxes. Just for fun...

We have a couple more weeks left in our science study of the human body. This week we've been focusing on lungs, breathing, air, etc. This box has a printout of a lung to label and the book Air Is All Around You. This one came from the library. I love the Let's-Read-and-Find-Out Science Books. The illustrations are colorful and the text is simply written, making it very easy for a second grader to understand the concept being taught. This one had a simple experiment in it to show how air can be contained underwater. He was really pleased that he could do it on his own.

Language Lessons for the Very Young from Queen Homeschool. He enjoys this so we complete anywhere from one to three lessons a day. It usually equals a page of work.

Building Thinking Skills workbook. He completed the lessons today orally, since they entailed quite a bit of writing.

This is an addition chart I downloaded from themasterplanner.com. Sorry, I'm not sure if it was on the free downloads or if it came with a planner I bought. I laminated it (yes, real laminate this time-no packing tape) and had Conman use a dry erase marker to fill in the sums. Of course, he didn't complete the whole chart today. This will be an ongoing project.

And finally, another library book about fruit. This ties into our food pyramid study.


After looking at the realistic pictures in this, he requested a fruit and yogurt parfait for lunch, just like in the book.

Till tomorrow~

Our Curriculum

I know the date says Monday, since that's the date I started this. But really I finished it today, Thursday!

Since I've shown you our schoolroom, introduced you to my "students", and described our group time, I wanted to give you a rundown of our curriculum outside of group time.

Lulu, 7th grade, is working on the following:

Math-U-See Pre-Algebra-we really like Math-U-See's program. The teacher's guide makes it simple to teach new concepts and the DVDs are great because the kids can listen to someone else teach it as well. If the parent is unsure about something, watching the DVD can help, also. One of the main reasons we chose this program was because of the capability of using their manipulatives through Algebra. We plan on sticking with this curriculum with all the kids throughout the high school years.

Apologia Exploring Creation with General Science (We use the notebooking/lapbooking/lab forms from Knowledge Box Central.)

Beautiful Feet Ancient History Study Guide and the books suggested that go along with it.

Easy Grammar 6 and Daily Grams 6-we do this during group time with Blakester. They are really liking it. I'm pretty sure this will be what I use from now on with the oldest two.

Critical Thinking Company's Building Thinking Skills-Book 3 Figural-this is one of her favorite things to do. She usually wants to work ahead. I guess because it's more fun than work.

Dover Coloring Book-Human Anatomy-She does one page a week. Each page gives a diagram of a part of the body, a detailed description and a color key to follow. The kids enjoy this brand of coloring books because the drawings are more realistic and include written details about the subject.

For literature she's currently reading Watership Down by Richard Adams. I assign certain books to read each term, but they also are able to pick books from their book list or off the shelf for free reading.

Blakester, 4th grade, is working on the following:

Math-U-See Delta-he is only about 8 weeks away from completing his 4th grade book and then we'll move right into the 5th grade book.

Apologia's Exploring Creation with Zoology 3: Land Animals of the 6th Day by Jeannie Fulbright. This is from their elementary science program. We use the notebooking pages printed from the website along with it. Again, this is a keeper. We'll use Apologia Science throughout high school. Next year, I plan on teaching the boys together for science.

He is also reading Christian Liberty Press' Nature Reader 4.

For California History I'm using the workbooks from Starline Press. They integrate a character trait in each book. This is not the curriculum I started with. We used a different company for his westward expansion study at the beginning of the year; however, I did not care for their California History after I received it. Sooo...I found this on the Homeschool Reviews swap board for a really decent price. So far, so good. It starts out by explaining our universe and solar system and where California is in relation to it all. In addition, he's reading some historical fiction/non-fiction on pioneers. His current book is The Journal of Douglas Allen Deeds-The Donner Party Expedition from the Dear American Series.

Critical Thinking Company Building Thinking Skills Level 2

Rod & Staff Handwriting 4

His current literature assignment is Gentle Ben by Walt Morey. I feel blessed because all of my children are readers.

I also have each kid read aloud something of their choice to me once a week.

We use the workbox system to keep things in order and add some fun to the day. Here's some items he had today in his workboxes. (I was going to post pics, but it's late & I haven't loaded them):

• Owl Pellet Biology Kit from Rainbow Resource. His assigned experiment was to dissect owl pellets, and it's very handy that you can purchase a ready-to-go kit! So far, in one pellet he found 3 skulls and a bunch of teeny-tiny bones. He has to finish that pellet and then he has a second one to work on and then he can try to identify the bones.


• Mazes on Mars book. A fun maze book with facts about space and Mars.


• Blast Off! file folder trivia game I found a while back at the dollar store.

Conman's day is structured as follows:

Math-U-See-Beta-I've discovered if I take the worksheet out of the book he's more likely to complete it without complaint. There's something about having the whole book sitting there that intimidates him.

I'm doing a little science with him from Guesthollow.com. She's put together a science lesson plan that I've condensed & tweaked that covers the human body, five senses, etc. Each week we read some books about what we're studying, maybe do an experiment or online activity and then add that body part to an outline we drew of Conman on butcher paper.

He's also reading through Christian Liberty Press' Nature Reader 2.

We're not really doing a set history lesson right now. We've worked on continents, oceans, states & capitals, and he listens in on Blake's readings. When this year is through, hopefully he'll be more ready to sit for a set history lesson.

Critical Thinking Company Building Thinking Skills Level 1

For handwriting and grammar we use Queen Homeschool's Copywork for Little Boys and Language Lessons for the Very Young. We alternate days on these. Each book will probably last us longer than a year. I sometimes have him do other copywork such as Draw Write Now or just copying his address. Copywork is something that Charlotte Mason believed strongly in, and I feel it's a good way for him to practice handwriting without continually doing worksheets.

His current literature reading is My Father's Dragon by Ruth Stiles Gannett. He reads at least one chapter a day, sometimes more if he's in the mood.

His workboxes today had a few fun things:

• A Telling Time Bingo Game-again, games are better than worksheets for him.
• An alphabetizing robot file folder game that I downloaded from filefolderfun.com. This week he's discovered he loves learning with file folder games, so I need to load up on them! The other kids were working on some alphabetizing this week and he was struggling with the basics on paper. Being able to manipulate those little robots around seemed to really help!

I think I've covered all the bases. There's always something new and fun waiting out there for us to try-I'll keep you posted!

Cheap Finds

I was so glad to see the sun out today!

We had to take a break this morning from school to run a few errands and I decided to stop at a favorite thrift store of mine. Usually I visit this store on Tuesdays, because everything is 50% off. But I was in the area today, so why not? I was happy I did because we found a few treasures.

I found three interactive poster sets. They are the history of flight, the dinosaur era and dinosaur giants. The sets include the poster, 20 reusable stickers and a teacher's guide. These were marked with a retail sticker of $7.95, but I paid only....are you ready for this.....29 cents each!





I bought this Hexed logic puzzle game. 49 cents. Thought it might be a good workbox item.

I picked up this Children Around the World poster set. There were supposed to be 16 posters, but it only had 8 in it. I have some workbooks & flashcards that I can use with these for a children around the world study. This was 99 cents.

This next one might very well become a favorite of mine. It is Teacher Tested Timesavers, a workbook filled with reproducible forms. I skimmed through it and found so far: award pages, bookmarks, subject banners, story starters, checklists, blank calendars, month banners, game board sheets, word lists and planning forms. I'm going to look through it more tonight. This had a retail sticker tag on it for 99 cents and I paid 29 cents.

For crafting, we found a bag containing 220 small googly eyes for 29 cents. Lulu picked out a bag of fabric scraps for quilting for a dollar.

I always find a few books to bring home. Today I found:

"Feelings" by Aliki

"What Time Is It? A Book Of Math Riddles " by Sheila Keenan

"The Cloud Book" and "The Mysterious Giant of Barletta" by Tomie de Paola

"Maggie and the Pirate" by Ezra Jack Keats

"What Am I Made Of?" by David Bennett

"The Crayon Counting Book" by Pam Munoz Ryan

"Counting on the Woods" by George Ella Lyon

Pilgrim's First Thanksgiving by Ann McGovern

"Where's Gomer? " by Norma Farber

These were all 29 cents each!

I also picked up a couple magazines for the kids to cut up to make a large food pyramid and a book for myself.

Can you tell I love a good deal? Homeschooling can become expensive if you let it. I'm always on the lookout for something inexpensive to add to my supplies. So I'll post a "cheap finds" section when I find some good deals!

Our Schoolroom

Thanks to my friends and family, and to my new friends from the homeschool groups & forums, for their positive emails & comments! I have to admit I was rather proud of myself for tackling this project! Now I'm off to look up verses on humility:)

Ok, so on to the topic for the day....our schoolroom.

Since homeschooling is my subject and my life, I thought I'd show everyone where the learning takes place. Actually, it doesn't all take place here, it takes place sitting on the couch, at the kitchen table or counter, lying on the floor or bed, sitting on a rock or the grass outside, in the car, on a nature walk ,and, for one of my kids, sometimes standing on his head...but you get the picture. Even though we have a schoolroom, learning is happening all the time, no matter where we are.

Some of you have seen this room, but maybe haven't been told all the components of it, and for those of you that are new, I'll do my best to describe it. Enjoy the tour!

Our schoolroom is in our den, which is right off the kitchen, so you do see it when you come in the house. Not my ideal location, but we make it work. There is a woodstove in the room, so we get to read by the fire on cold days, so that is really pleasant!

This is the boys workbox system. (More on that later) The bookshelves are inexpensive ones from Wally-World. They are sitting on top of a large credenza which houses supplies for our workboxes: math, science, language arts, thinking skills, teaching aids, music cd's. The workboxes are dollar plastic shoebox bins. Underneath are two blue bins, which hold the boys current workbooks until they get placed in the workboxes. Lulu has her own bookshelf in her room with her books and she works off a checklist.


This is the bookshelf where various supplies are kept. The top shelf holds teacher manuals, art & game books, Highlight magazines, Zoobook magazines and my workbox components. The other shelves hold art supplies: scissors, punches, adhesive, crayons, markers, pencils, etc., coloring & how to draw books, stickers, Math-U-See manipulatives, construction, drawing and origami paper, and some other misc. how-to books. Above the shelf I have posted the books of the Bible on index cards. The kids are working on memorizing them. Conman has actually memorized all the OT books. To the right is a poster of the Ten Commandments (which I got at the Dollar Tree!) and a word strip holder (another $ find) which we use for spelling words or parts of speech. The red bin in the corner is full of building blocks. Always popular no matter what age you are.

This is our table for crafts, planning, etc. Right now I'm working on putting together mini-offices for the kids, so that's what's spread out on it. This red bin on the floor is where our current read alouds and library books are corralled.

Here is my comfy teacher chair & the whiteboard we're going to start using for group time. It's not going to stay there, since it's in front of the woodstove. I'll probably move it to the kitchen for use.

Here are just a few of our books. The bookshelf on the left is arranged by subject: science, bible, history, space, writing, reference, etc. The bookshelf on the right is arranged by grade. The books piled on the top of that shelf are free reading. I do have a program on the computer for keeping track of these. I'll post a link to it later in case anyone is interested. We have our United States map and World map on that wall, along with the globe on top on the bookshelf for our geography.

This is our geography basket in the living room. In it there are reading books, coloring books, atlases, word searches, wrap-ups, map workbooks, flash cards, games, puzzles, and anything else I can find that relates to geography.

This is the final item in our schoolroom-a place for the kids to sit. Yes, it really is a church pew!

As for me, I have some areas where I keep my goodies. I use the bottom half of a curio cabinet for extra school/office supplies. I keep current books I'm reading or researching in a basket by my chair in the living room. I plan out schoolwork either at the table in the schoolroom, my desk in the office area or sitting in front of the tv. All in all, it works!

Tomorrow I think I'll introduce you to my students!