I was inspired to create this fun little game board for you to use with whatever skills you are currently working on. Feel free to make up your own rules.
Help the monkey follow the bananas to find the banana tree.
You can download this game here -->
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I have had many people searching my website recently for the Brick Building cards. Since the original post was lost when the server crashed, I thought I would write another one to highlight these cards.
Brick Building Activities is a collection of cards that you can use to incorporate building bricks (such as Lego or Duplo) into your homeschoolingl. These activity cards were created to put in the worboxes we use for homeschooling. If you don't use workboxes then they could be used simply to give you and your children creative ideas of things to build.
Confessions Of A Homeschooler mentioned these on her blog in her post about Kindergarten Workbox Fun.
You can download the Brick Building Activities here -->
Brick Building Activities (394)
~If you have mentioned Brick Building Activities on your blog, I would be happy to mention you and link to your post here.~
I got tired of so many teacher's manuals and I spent some time (a day or two or three - it's all a blur now) a couple of weeks ago and I merged everything into one binder.
I made a simple, blank, ten week chart (to get us to the end of the term). I used a fresh chart for each subject and filled in weekly goals. My homeschool binder tabs (which have yet to be labeled) are blank paper, Bible (group work), Language Arts (all three kids behind one tab), Math (all three kids behind one tab), Social Studies (group work), Science (group work), Art (group work), and Read Alouds (group work).
We read our Bible and related texts (Sonlight K and 1) during breakfast time. Then we start in on the Language Arts and Math sections and work on them throughout the day. I am still toying with the idea of rotating days - Language Arts one day/Math the next. Most of the day is spent alternating between teaching kids, nursing babes, and doing life. At lunch time we do our Social Studies and Science readings. In the afternoons we continue alternating between kids and their Language Arts and Math. At dinner or shortly after, we conclude our day by reading our Read Alouds.
I put everything needed for the week in that one binder (right behind the subject schedules) and then I have two baskets. The first basket has everything that we use when we are doing group work. In the second basket I put all of the items needed for individual work. This system is working out really well so far. When the boys come to work with me, they grab the basket and my binder and off we go. My oldest has even taken out the binder and his books and started working on his own (I love this) ticking off work as he goes.
Having a set of specific goals to work through for each week in each subject allows us to be flexible in our everyday (which is exactly what we needed). We just work around life and fit in school because most of life is school anyways... Like the other day when I made pancakes from scratch, Moses and Malachi helped and learned that oil and water don't mix. They also learned that oil helps to brown the pancakes.
I have to say that after 4 years of homeschooling, I finally found something that makes sense for our family. I discovered that I have really missed sitting with the boys while they do their lessons. I am more clearly able to know what areas need to be worked on and what areas they are surprisingly strong in. The boys work better without freaking out when I am sitting beside them interacting with them (independence will come eventually).
Where do workboxes fit? I have been asking myself that question. I know they do fit. I plan on weaving them back in sometime soon. I will post about that bridge when we choose to cross it.
I don't know if that all was clear as mud (hopefully clearer). If you have any questions, I will try and clarify. I will try and post pictures too if anyone is interested.
I updated the Workbox Resource Page with a ton of great links to workbox activities. Have a look at Workbox Resources and see if there is anything of interest to you and your family.
After a long break (from our formal curriculum) for the holidays, I feel ready to take on the next ten weeks of school (sort of). To be honest I am actually pretty excited about starting up again. I feel much more prepared and organized. I have to say that I even feel more rested. I have taken the last week or so to work on my planning for this coming term. I have purchased a planner, typed out a schedule, and begun to photocopy materials needed. I will be doing the photocopying weekly because that seems way less stressful and not so overwhelming to me. To me it makes much more sense to set aside a couple of hours a week to print out and gather everything needed for the week to come rather than to photocopy like crazy to get ten weeks of stuff prepared. I also think that I might lose excitement and momentum that way (or burn out rather quickly!). Having to take a new look at our materials every weekend will keep me inspired and being creative in our homeschool planning (at least that is the goal).
We are going to step back from workboxes for a week or more and get reacquainted with Sonlight and the rest of our curriculum after our break. This is how we approached school in the summer and it worked for us. We took the month of August to get used to our curriculum and then we added in the workboxes. We will be weaving the workboxes back in shortly (after we establish some routines and structure again). Don't you just love holidays? You take all this time to relax and then you have to rebuild all the routines and structure again.
Can I take a brief moment to share how impressed I was with my kids today? They were helpful and did some wonderful housecleaning jobs. I always wonder if they are capable of more and they clearly showed me today that I need to stretch them a bit outside of their comfort zones. Elisha (9) cleaned the upstairs hall and helped to clean the living room. Malachi (6) and Zion (18 months) vacuumed the kitchen floor together. I was very impressed.
My homeschool planning for this term involved taking all the scattered (and annoying) teacher's manuals and merging them into one binder. I made a document in Open Office and filled in each subject for ten weeks. (Noreen, you can see this when you come on Friday). I put the subjects in the binder in the order we do them. Bible, Language Arts (Malachi, Moses, Elisha), Math (Malachi, Moses, Elisha), History, Science, Art, and Read Alouds . Behind each schedule I put everything we need for one week of work including any notes from the Teacher's Manuals, any worksheets, and anything else. I also created two baskets on our shelf. Basket one includes everything needed for group work - Bible, History, Science, Art, Read Alouds, and everything related. Basket two includes everything needed for individual work (this will take the place of the workboxes and be the work with mom box for now).
Last night I spent time photocopying and organizing and made great progress. I was quite proud of my productivity and then... the printer ran out of ink. I panicked. All of my plans... I calmed myself. If we can't get ink before I start school on Monday it will be okay, I will do what I can. Do you hear that encouraging self talk there? It's okay if the plans fall apart... you just do what you can. We were able to get our ink refilled today... long story short.... thanks mom for helping out... so tonight, I am back to printing and preparing.
Just a note here - the printer ink didn't work! It printed 4 pages and then stopped. So weird! So back to the self talk... it will be okay. We can still do school this week even if everything didn't get prepared the way that I wanted it to. A few deep breaths. Look and see what we are really missing. Change things up a little bit. Work on being flexible and adaptable (both good character traits - some character building going on here!).
I thought I would pop in here for a quick visit and let you all know where our homeschool is headed this term. I haven't talked about our school for a bit because with the server crash and then the great disappearance there have been many other things to write about and focus on. I can't wait to get back to sharing more about our everyday school bits and pieces and focusing on what I love - spending time with and homeschooling my children.
The goal is to run hard for the next ten weeks and then take a few weeks break to garden, study poetry, and spend some time on a unit study about Canada.
Do you have any homeschooling goals for this new year? Have you done any planning, tweaking, rearranging, organizing of your homeschool or workboxes? I would love to hear about it. Please share a link to your relevant blog posts or leave your thoughts in the comments.