One thing that our new house has that I absolutely love is a whole row of closets in our dining room. That means I have a super awesome homeschool closet right where we do all of our schooling, the combined dining/living room area. On an off I've tried a variety of ways of using a workbox system, from fun simple activities for a toddler to do to trying to trying to divide printable sheets out amongst them. But I finally hit a sweet spot!
DAILY
Bible: Right now we're actually using the Jesus Calling Bible Storybook, but in the fall we'll be using this for her Awana work. Reading: I put our FIAR book of the week in here, My Sound Box book, and this fall I'm thinking about adding Progressive Phonics, Bob Books or some other ones I got at the curriculum sale.
Letter of the Week: This is where I add any hands on activities, puzzles, or manipulatives that go with out letter of the week. She can play with these whenever she wants to practice her letters.
Writing: Right now we're using Kumon for the summer, but in the fall we'll use Handwriting Without Tears. We also use some laminated printables pertaining to the theme and handwriting from 1+1+1=1.
This is where the FIAR part comes in, we do social studies, language arts, art, math and science with each unit. It works really well to prep the activities once a week and get them all set up. We're currently rowing Make Way for Ducklings, so I'll use these an example. As FIAR suggests we do one of these subjects per day, but often times she likes to review the activities from the days before.
WEEKLY
File Folder: This folder holds any extra printable sheets that don't have a home. Some days what's on the schedule is enough and other days she's begging for more. So it's nice to have some extra fun waiting for her. Social Studies: We looked at map of Boston and followed the route the ducks took around the city. We also added another book to learn about where we live on the map, which is perfect because Addi has been rather confused with the labels since we've moved.
Language Arts: We practiced rhyming words since the ducklings names al rhymed. This was perfect since Addi has been obsessed with rhyming lately. Plus, the pictures made it perfect for her to "read" herself.
Art: We painted a duck with watercolors and assembled it. Then we also went on a hunt for six rocks to paint and practices 5 Little Ducks.
Math: Addi practiced rolling the dice then coloring in the correct circles. We also used the ducks from our art project to practicing group peanuts.Science: We assembled a simple life cycle wheel for ducks. Then we went on a nature walk to feed ducks and collect items for our Sink or Float experiment.
Cooking: Since cooking, specifically baking, is probably one of my favorite pass times each unit I include a fun little project in the kitchen. This weeks are eggs in a nest.
That's our workbox system. So far it works perfect for our family. I hope it's helpful to you. If you want to see more about how I find things for the workboxes, check out my Pinterest board. Also, excuse the mess of my blog. I'm still working on getting it back in order, but I just couldn't wait to start posting our summer fun.
