Playing Catch Up

Whew! Where has the time gone? No I didn't fall of the face of the earth.  Oh, yes, I had a baby the day after New Years!  Things have both slowed down and sped up at the same time.  Having a baby sure does crazy things to your schedule!  New baby Girl--aka Sunshine--is doing well; growing, sleeping (sometimes), eating. All the things babies should be doing.  We are truely blessed! Our older kids love her to pieces and are amazing helpers.  So mostly our days are filled with getting as much school done as we can while she snoozes in the morning.  Some days that works and others....well, not so much! But we try!

One thing I have switched up for school are these:

Workboxes!

(This image is from: The Duckings which is so funny, because that's what I call my kiddos too! )

 Have you heard of them? Have you tried them? WoW! I am so excited about these.  While I don't have the space or the money to have the shelf with 12 shoebox size boxes for tree children, I did see and read about using file folder boxes as a great substitute. 

For each kid I bought one file folder box and I split up a box of 25 hanging file folers.  (I bought the colored ones--they're so much more fun, and we know I'm all about making school FUN, right?!)

Then I printed off some labels for the front of the box from here. I had to create one for my son using a guitar theme, so his is custom made, and it turned out pretty cool. I contact papered one to the front of each box. I put velcro dots on each numbered square and a velcro dot on each file folder. Then I made small numbered squares, one for each folder. The idea is that each kid do their activities in order and when they are done, take the numbered square from the file folder and stick it onto their chart on the front of their box. That way I know what they've done and how much they have left to do.  Clear as mud, right? Pictures coming soon!

Right now, my older two --a forth grader and second grader--have 8 folders each and my kindergartener has 6 in her box.  Every morning, I switch up what is in each of the kids' boxes. I'm creating a list of ideas for them based on what we already have on hand and using some ideas gleaned from other bloggy moms on the net.  Thank God for moms who blog about their homeschooling adventures, ideas and curriculum!!

So far I've got:

File Folder games

Brain Quest books

Geography worksheets from MFW

Science workbook from MFW

Silent reading

Spelling words

Eye Spy books

Reading comprehension books

Their Awana books and CD's

Math U See skip counting cd

Books on Tape

For Kindergarten:

dot-to dot pages

write on wipe off books

A Snip and Glue book

Math counters

Eye Spy bottles

Puzzles

Lapbook components

Books on Tape

 Right now it's a learning process for me and the kids. They already know they HAVE to do their math, reading and grammar every day, so I don't put those books in their workboxes. But these boxes have been a HUGE help when I'm busy with Sunshine. I can just tell them to get out their next workbox activity and they can pull it out and get something done on their own without too much help from mom.  YAY!!!

Keep the good ideas coming!