Workboxes

Some days I feel like a traveling circus.  Today was one of those days.  My apologies to anyone who met us at the library.  That was when the circus turned into chaos and we immediately went home.  

School was alright today.  The workbox idea needs some work.  And actual boxes.  Work folders didn't work so well.  I ended up with disorganized activities all over the room.  But here is what I learned:  1) This is a good idea, it just needs fine tuning.  2)  Adeline thought it was great.  Braxton seemed indifferent.  3)  Five workboxes is too much for Braxton.  I'm prepping 4 for tomorrow with the hope of getting through 3.

Here are the activities that were in the workboxes/folders:

This week we are covering fire safety.  I made these booklets, one for each kid, from the U.S. Fire Administration website.  We'll do 2 pages a day.  This was their first workbox so we could do it together.

Braxton's next box was counting.  He thought this was fun.

Adeline's second box was also a counting activity.

Her third box was number tracing.  She loved getting to use the dry erase marker!

Then a missing letter activity.

Braxton is starting over with letter A this week using the Letter of the Week material from Confessions.

For her final workbox, Adeline had a couple mazes.  

The workboxes are in addition to our regular curriculum.  It lengthens our day by about an hour.

We started reading Matilda today, too.  I think we will do a chapter a day.  The first chapter was a bit long.  Adeline enjoyed it until the last page or two, then she got tired of listening.  I think I'm really going to enjoy re-reading books from my childhood and sharing them with my kids!

Oh, we also started our first Five in a Row book today, Madeline.  We will read the book each day and have a different lesson related to the story.  Today we read the book, then found Paris on our map.  Tomorrow we will talk about some of the big vocab words in the story like "appendix" and "solemn."