Working Hard...

Well we have used work boxes and schedule strips for one whole week and I am really pleased with the results. As I imagined, they are just what Kai Kai needed... he knows what is on the schedule for the day and he has a sense of accomplishment when he takes his last square off the schedule strip. No more questions like " what's next?' or " how many more questions do I have to do" or " why do I have to do penmanship?" He can see what is ahead, including the fun stuff and that motivates him to get through the subjects he is not too fond of. It frees me up to spend one on one or one on two time with LiLi and Buttercup. LiLi got the hang of the strips and the boxes by the end of the week and he even now looks forward to seeing what he has to do each day... I do have to guide him along quite a bit but it does help to keep us all on track. Buttercup who refuses to be left out because "I a big girl now" has enjoyed her free play boxes and her tot school boxes, proudly taking them off the shelf and finding a spot to sit down and get busy. We have to work on her packing one up before she moves on to the next but that will come. All in all week one was a success! I do have to be much more organised the night before and last week each night took me quite awhile but I see it getting better as I get more used to planning what each child will be doing. I spent a few hours yesterday planning out this whole week so I feel good as we move into week two.

So what have we been up to all week? Here is a summary of what we accomplished:

Raising Rock Stars (for an explanation of this see an earlier post)

Our Bible lessons continue to focus on creation and we finished up Day 3. We spent quite awhile over the past couple months learning about the land (soil, rocks, sand), grass, bushes, trees and last week we finished up with plants we can eat and other uses of plants. The curriculum we are using definitly leaves no stone unturned in the discussion of Creation (It took us 3 months to get through days 1 to 3!!) Kai Kai was pleased to know that we are moving on to day 4!!!

our wood and mud (craftstick & homemade playdough) house (God gives us trees so we can use the wood to make things). (It collapsed about 3 seconds after I snapped the picture!)

They have learned and continue to recite 6 verses pertianing to creation and we will continue to add to these as we move through the days. We are also continuing with Kai Kai's Olympian memory verses and the Songs for Saplings verses that we began last term.

to see what others are doing as they Raise their Rock Stars check out this blog.

It's All Elementary ( The School days of Kai Kai)

Kai Kai continues to enjoy math and is working on topics such as addition, subtraction, fractions, place value, telling time and counting money. He is definitely a "worksheet child" and is doing well with the Horizons curriculum. I am sure we will continue with Horizons math next year.

Phonics, spelling and penmanship aren't his favourite but he is a trooper and gets it all done.. I usually put something fun in the workbox after these so he has something to look forward to. He continues to love reading though so I schedule plenty of reading time in our day.

We are currently studying about the medieval period for History/ Geography. Kai Kai enjoyed making a pouch out of felt and string which replicated one that someone of that period would have worn around their waist.


Kai Kai continues to do well in piano and recorder and he started tennis lessons last week which was definitely the highlight of his week!

Preschool Corner( All about LiLi) & Tot School( Don't forget the Princess!)

P is for popcorn, pizza, peanut butter... yes, last weeks focus was on the letter P. I had some activities that were specifically for LiLi and some for Buttercup but many of them were for them both to do together... even the big brother wanted to get in on some of the action!! Here are some of the things we did all week:

Note: you will notice LiLi wearing his bike helmet in some of the pictures.. he just got it last week and insists on wearing it to school... I pick my battles:)!!

recorder practice

math... numbers and cutting

penny addition

a pumpkin file folder game (found here )

gluing pompoms on the letter P... notice LiLi's orange and green pattern he was very proud of!

a puzzle for Buttercup

spooning popcorn (Buttercup)

playing with pumpkin pie playdough (recipe here)

"p" picture hunt


homemade pizza

a trip to the playground

making felt pizza

colouring a princess


potato prints


making peanut butter cookies


We had a great week! Stay tuned for more next week!

The Adventure Continues...

Happy New Year!!

School's been out for 2 weeks and we are all ready to jump back in tomorrow! We have had a great Christmas break with family and friends... plenty of food, laughs, new toys and lots of fun!

here's a picture of our gang on Christmas morning:


I have spent this past week gearing up for using our new workbox system. I have created, printed, cut, laminated, velcro'd... whew! I LOVE our new Ikea shelving (did I mention that before:) I have to thank my friend Michelle for suggesting it. Kai Kai helped me with some of the preparation and is looking forward to actually using it. It will be interesting to see how LiLi adapts to it... I am guessing there will be lots of prompting and assistance from me for a while. Buttercup also has "workboxes" which I will fill with toys and activities for her to keep busy during school. I will also prepare her tot trays for Tot School at least 3 times a week... she likes to be involved with whatever LiLi is doing anyway so she is getting plenty of intellectual stimulation!

Here is a look at our workbox system... I was inspired by many fellow bloggers, I took ideas from here and there throughout the internet but I was particularly inspired by Jolanthe of Homeschool creations and Carisa at 1+1+1=1 and Maureen at Spell Out Loud. They had great information on their blogs about workboxes and links to many other blogs that I also loved to read through.
Here is the set up. Each child has a column.. (Buttercup quickly tells anyone who will listen that her boxes are pink :)


LiLi and Kai Kai have schedule strips that are hanging on the side of the shelving. When they come into the school room in the morning they will take their strips and look to see what the first tag tells them to do.

If it is a card with a number they will go and find the corresponding workbox and begin working on whatever is in that box. If it is something I need to work with them on, the box will also have a work with mom tag. Each tag is velcro'd on so I can change the strips daily. As they complete something they remove the tag so that they can see what is completed and how much more they have to do for the day.
There are a variety of activities in each box, from books, to spelling tests, to worksheets, to craft activities. Here is a look at one box for each child for tomorrow...

Kai Kai's reader.. the sticky tells him which pages he needs to read.

LiLi's read aloud books that I will read to him and then he will draw a picture to describe his favorite part... we are working on letter P this week.

One of Buttercup's tot trays... spooning popcorn seeds into a muffin tin

Then there are subjects that we all do together like Bible, science, music etc. which won't be in a box, but they will have a tag on their strip to tell them it is on the schedule. They will also have tags for music practice, breaks, lunch, rest time etc.

I am sure this will be a work in progress... I will be tweaking and making the system really work for us but this is how we will begin! I'll keep you posted on our progress!!

During the break I also started reading "The Well Trained Mind". My friend Marielle lent it to me sometime ago when I first decided to homeschool.. I picked it up read the introduction and decided it wasn't the book for me... and at that time it truly wasn't.. it would have overwhelmed me. Now with a better understanding of homeschooling and what it means to me and our family I was ready to pick it up again... I started reading it one evening and couldn't put it down until I reached the end of the section geared towards my kids' level. I have started making decisions about our curricula for next year and this book is going to be a great guide. Of course I probably won't follow it to a "T"... I am sure there are very few people that do, but it is a great guide to providing your child a rich, exciting and challenging educational experience.

Stay tuned to our continuing homeschooling adventures in 2010!

Ready or not Christmas is coming...

Do you ever wish you could hit the pause button? That's how I feel right now... I want to hit a button that would bring everything and everyone to a standstill for a day or two... or three but still allow me to get stuff done. I feel like I am so behind and I am not sure if I am ever going to catch up!! There isn't one Christmas decoration up yet, some gifts still to be bought, baking to be done and in the midst of all of that we are reorganizing the classroom (which I am pleased about...see why in my previous post).

I am trying my best to make it Christmas-y around here even if the obvious Christmas time things are not evident. We have been playing Christmas music, I have been reading the kids the Christmas story a little at a time for our Bible lesson each day and we spent the whole day on Wednesday making Christmas ornaments which WILL go on the tree at some point before Christmas morning! The kids had fun making these (but I think I had more fun!) Here are some pictures of our creations:

We saw these cute reindeer in a craft book we checked out at the library and I had the clothespins waiting for me to do something with. They were fun and easy to make although most of it was hot glued so the kids picked out the colour ribbon the wanted, the bell, the googly eyes and I helped them put it all together...


k




I saw these stars and snowflakes on Mama Jenn's blog and knew the kids would like them... I was right. I would have made mine a little less colorful but I gave them full artistic liberties!




These wreaths are my recreation of a kit I saw advertised on Oriental Trading. They too were fun for the kids to put together.




Lastly, these are snowflakes the kids decorated for a contest a local toy store was having... their entries gave us a coupon for 10% off craft supplies so I will be sure to use that in the near future!

Our Workbox Adventure begins...

If I had been blogging regularly, you would know that my latest pursuit in the homeschool sphere of my life is workboxes. I stumbled upon the concept while reading the many homeschool blogs that I peruse. What exactly are workboxes and why am I so excited about them?

The WorkBox System was developed by Sue Patrick and is "An effective teaching system to reduce your organizational time and increase your child's self-control, independence and learning." You can find out more on her website. There are tons of other blogs outlining how others have used workboxes... here is a great link to some of those.

It became clear to me a couple of months ago that I needed to develop a system to organize what I did each day with each child. Since September I have tried various methods, created many forms, made tons of lists and nothing seemed to work in the long run. Having 3 different age and ability levels to teach, I want to be sure each child is getting exactly what they need. I loved the concept of Tot trays which I have been using with Buttercup (and a little with LiLi) but I was having the problem of where and when to set up the trays as we have limited space. I am also trying to encourage KaiKai to be more independent. He spends a lot of time coming to ask me how to do something, or waiting for me to give him the next thing to do. He is a child who likes to have a plan and know when something is going to start, end and every step in between. When I began reading about work boxes I started using a 5 part intray to layout KaiKai's work each day. He loved that... he could go and get on with his worksheets/ activities and only come to me if there was something I had to work with him on. The limitation with the intray, is that I can only fit a sheet of paper on each tray... If I have a puzzle, game, manipulatives to go with an activity, or a textbook, they will not fit on the tray.

There are a lot of ideas in Sue Patricks book which I eventually ordered and read that are helpful and some that I will tweak as have many who have used the system. The original system uses a cart with 12 shoe boxes but people have used a number of different types of shelving and trays. So what would work for us and the limited space that we have. I couldn't possibly find room for 36 boxes and there was also the challenge of not having Target or Walmart to run to to find the sterlite or rubbermaid containers/ drawers that many were using. I spent tons of time on line and at our local hardware store looking for the perfect solution and then a friend suggested the Ikea Trofast system. It looked like it would work for us. There is a company here that places your Ikea order and then ships it on to the island (for a significant markup but oh well what can you do :) Because of the holiday season the said it would probably be in in mid January... okay I would have to wait, using my improvised system.

I was so excited yesterday when the company called to say the order was here and ready to be collected!!! Yay!

I can't wait until they are set up... since we are on Christmas break after tomorrow I won't plan on using them until January so I have a couple of weeks to get things organized the way I want it. Stay tuned for more on workboxes...

The Metamorphosis of a Procrastinating Perfectionist

Over a month and I have not blogged :( I have created so many blog posts in my head but I never seem to find the time or motivation to actually sit here and blog... WHY??

I LOVE reading other peoples blogs, I LOVE the thought of having my own personal record of our adventures, I LOVE other people being able to keep up with our adventures through my blogging, I LOVE the comments left by others who have been inspired by ideas I have posted, and I LOVE the possibility of making friends through blogging....

SOOOOO... why haven't I been blogging??? I think I could come up with 1000 reasons focused on not having time to blog.. and I really don't have a lot of time, BUT I think the REAL reason is that I am a perfectionist which manifests itself in procrastination. I think I have fear that if it is not perfect than it is not worth doing... but I raise the bar for myself WAY TOO HIGH. I am afraid to fail so I don't do it at all. It has taken me 36 years to figure this out about myself but as I think back through my life and all the times I have started and not completed things that is the underlying reason.

So I am going to work on not having to do things perfectly, not setting the standard at impossible, and not comparing myself to others... not just as a blogger, but as a mother, wife, Christian... and all the other roles I find myself in. This is a work in progress... change takes time... change takes effort... change is possible through Christ...