What ELSE is in the box?

Today we're taking a look at what's in Marissa's boxes.  Marissa is in Kindergarten but has done a lot of first grade work this year.  Marissa currently has 5 boxes.  Come fall she will have quite a few more.  As of right now, these are her boxes. 

Her first box, like Trent's, is her Calendar Notebook and media coupons along with the pens to fill out her notebook.

Marissa's second box contains her Math.  We use singapore math.  I love using it.  It works for us for many reasons.  Marissa has completed level 1A.  After she completed it I decided not to start her out on 1B quite yet and to spend some more time working on addition and subtraction facts.  She will start 1B in the fall (when she is officially a 1st grader) or when she finishes all of her addition and subtraction fact assignments this summer (which she is nearly done with and May isn't even over yet).

 Box number 3 used to hold Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons but she finished it months ago.  Currently it holds nothing because her reading assignments are on the computer doing a program called Funnix.  When she finishes up with funnix, this box will hold whatever chapter book she is currently reading.  Therefore, I just took a picture of the tag on the workbox. 

 Her next box holds her Handwriting.  After learning how to write all the letters, using the Handwriting without tears approach, I moved her into this book by Evan and Moor.  I have really liked it.  She is reviewing all of the letters right now, then she will do numbers and number words.  After that it all becomes copy work.  I can already see improvement in her handwriting.  She will probably be working in this book until the end of first grade.  If she does finish is up before then her handwriting will just be that in her other subjects.

For some reason, unbeknownst to me, she chooses to keep random objects in this drawer.

 Marissa's last box holds her Science book.  This year we used Elemental Science's Biology for the Grammar Stage.  I keep the two older girls together on Science and History and split the difference in their grade levels right now.  We have really enjoyed this curriculum.  Next year they will be doing Earth Science and Astronomy by the same company.  I'm planning on sticking with this company all the way through High School, that's how much I love it! 

Here is a close up picture of her section of workboxes.  You can see that the bottom drawer has 3 tags on it.  In general (and this will become more apparent when I show you Audrey's boxes) I put the tag for whatever is actually IN the box on the left of the drawer.  Tags on the right of the drawer are a visual reminder of subjects that need to be done but don't need a drawer.  On the bottom drawer she has science (which is actually in the drawer), a tag for history (which was a flop this year but will hopefully be better next year), and a tag for English (which we began with but thought our curriculum was so dumb that we stopped doing). 

Next year Marissa will have the following boxes:  General School supply box, Calendar Notebook box, Math, Handwriting, Science, History, and Geography. 
She will also have tags for Reading and Piano

So there's a peek into the school life of my kindergartener.  She is one bright little cookie and catches on to almost everything like lightning.  I feel very blessed to be able to homeschool her where I can allow her to excel in her academics and spend lots of time on character training to help with her temper.

What's in the box?

As many of you know we do a workbox system over here.  I thought that maybe you would like to get an idea of how it's set up and how it all works at our house.  I have three sets of rolling drawers.  These work AWESOME for us.  They are portable and lightweight.  They hold most things I need to put in them and they're colorful.  Audrey has her own set, Marissa will have her own set come fall since she will have more drawers, and the purple one will be Trent's (yes, he chose purple) and Bree's.  The tags on our workboxes come from here. 

Our Workboxes:  Left - Audrey Middle - Marissa (And currently Trent) Right - Will be Trent's and Bree's come fall

  Today, we are taking a look at what's in Trent's workboxes.  Trent is doing preschool.  We use the curriculum from here.  Trent has five workboxes.   His first workbox holds his Calendar notebook, his media coupons, and the markers he needs for his notebook.  We do this box as part of our daily devotional after breakfast each morning.

The other four workboxes are divided up by day.  He does one box on each day of the week.  (We don't do formal school on Wednesdays right now.  That is our homeschool co-op day.)  He gets to choose which box he does on which day.  Here he is doing his yellow box.  The yellow box usually contains:  A playdoh page for the letter of the week, a counting activitiy, a card with his name printed on it to practice writing and spelling his name, and an extra activity of some sort.  Some weeks the contents of the boxes will vary depending on exactly what activities I have for the letter of the week. 

Here Trent is sorting colored raindrops.  Marissa had to help.

Sorting big and little Uu.

The purple box usually contains: A coloring page representing the letter of the week, a Leap Frog video, a puzzle for the letter of the week, and a pre-writing activity.  (Obviously this week is a little off in what's in each specific box)

The green box usually contains:  Lacing cards, a color matching activity, a card to play on starfall, and an extra activity (usually cutting)

This box has been completed this week, but not cleaned out yet, thus the mutilated cutting paper.

 His last box, the red box, usually contains:  A do a dot page for the letter of the week, Big/little letter sorting, size sorting, and an extra activity. 

 Trent has a lot of fun and asks to do his school almost every day.  He's progressing well and will definitely be ready for kindergarten in another year.  Next fall his boxes will get shaken up a bit as he will be ready for more "intense" work.  This year we have been focusing on learning to:  Sit and concentrate, recognize letters and the sounds they make, recognize the numbers 1-10, put a puzzle together, and motor skills like lacing and cutting. 
I plan on doing a post for each child's workboxes so you can get a better idea of what each of their school days look like.

Sometimes I just don't wanna!!!

Do you have those days where you just don't want to supervise, help with, and check chores?  That's how I feel today.  I want the house cleaned, but I know that my 4 year old isn't capable of doing all his chores on his own.  I know that the 6 year old needs to have some supervision to make sure everything actually gets done.  I know that my 8 year old needs to have the chores checked to make sure she followed through with everything.  I know that I have my own list of chores that need to be done.  I just don't wanna!!!!!!  Thank you for letting me rant.  Now back to your scheduled programming.

The Search for an English Curriculum

I have been searching for a good english curriculum that fits Audrey's learning style.  First, we tried First Language Lessons, but we found it to be SOOO boring.  I was bored and hated doing the lessons and my girls were nearly bored to tears!  So first language lessons went out the window and I started searching again.  I found a wonderful resource called "English Lessons for the LDS child."  It was free and very well written!!!  I love all the poems and scriptures that are memorized in the curriculum.  So what's the problem with it?  It requires a LOT of copywork.  Even when I scale the copy work down, there is a LOT of copywork, and little miss Audrey HATES writing.  She already has to write for spelling, and science, and write in her journal weekly, so adding THAT MUCH more writing on was causing a battle of wills.  So, on to the search again!!!  I am highly considering the Rod and Staff enlglish for 3rd grade.  I would do that workbook and continue the memorization following the ideas from English Lessons for the LDS child.  (Audrey LIKES to memorize).  The rod and staff seems to be more of a fill in the blank kind of workbook, which Audrey would be MUCH more willing to do. 
Does anyone have any experiene with Rod and Staff?  What do you think?  Do you like it?

The Math Plan

Both of my girls have finished up what I deem the NECESSARY math assignments for the year.  Marissa (kindergarten) has finished Singapore Math 1A.  There is no reason to push her into Math 1B yet.  She's already going to be WAY ahead come fall anyway.  Audrey (2nd grade) has finished Singapore Math level 2A.  I COULD get her started on level 2B, but when I looked at it, it is QUITE advanced for 2nd grade.  I guess that's why the website says that an AVERAGE 2nd grader will do 1B and 2A in second grade.  So we are taking a hiatus from our workbooks and focusing on addition and subtraction fact families from now through the end of the summer. 

The plan:  Both girls will be practicing the fact families 0-9 for both addition and subtraction.  They each get 5 minutes of practice time, followed by test time (Audrey gets 3 minutes, Marissa gets 5) to try and pass off their current fact family.  Each test has 50 problems and they have to miss less than 7 problems in order to pass off that family.  We are starting with addition from 0s and working up to 9s.  Then we'll tackle subtraction from 0s up to 9s.

The motivation:  I have fond memories of third grade math.  I remember working on the multiplication tables from 0-12.  Each table we passed off earned us part of a banana split.  The more tables you passed off, the bigger and more elaborate your banana split.  We have decided to recreate that this summer.  My girls are trying to earn a pizza and banana split party.  We have set the date for the party on August 20th.  Whatever the girls have earned at that point is what they will recieve at the party. 

The Breakdown:  The Banana splits are being earned with the addition facts.  0= spoon 1= bowl 2= banana 3= scoop 1 of ice cream 4= scoop 2 of ice cream 5= scoop 3 of ice cream 6= syrup (choloate, caramel, and/or strawberry) 7= whipped cream 8= sprinkles 9= cherries.
The pizza is earned through subtraction facts.  0= flour (for crust) 1= water for crust 2= yeast for crust 3= salt for crust 4= sauce 5= cheese 6= topping 1 7= topping 2 8= topping 3 9= topping 4.

Hopefully we'll have a big old party with tasty pizza and banana splits in about 4 months!!!  Both girls are already on the +2 fact family!

Where, oh where, has my motivation gone?

I have hit a slump.  It happens every couple months.  What slump, exactly, have I hit?  The "I have no motivation to keep the house clean, but I am bugged by the dirty house" slump.  The problem is three-fold:
 1) Inevitably I get in a "media" funk and stop being as productive as I should be.  The little things go first, like making my bed every morning, and getting a load of laundry done every day.  Then the bigger things slip:  not unloading the dishwasher in the morning and letting the dishes pile up, letting the kids slide on doing their chores fully, ect.  Before you know it, the house that was neat and tidy becomes disorderly and chaotic. 

2) The children stop doing their chores.  This starts with me letting them slide on doing their chores fully.  If I am not doing my chores, out of laziness, who am I to enforce them doing theirs?  Then we enter the "I won't get my chores done and I'll just take the priviledge losses that go with that" phase.  You see, my kids are not allowed to use media or play with friends until all school and chores are completed.  That's all fine and good, except on the days that they simply don't care.  This causes a new problem.  I refuse to do their chores for them but I get bothered by the kids not doing their chores.   Then I NAG, AND NAG, AND NAG, because I want them to get their chores done.   

3) So, now we have a messy home that has gotten so out of control that mom gets overwhelmed at the prospect of getting everything back into order.  I enter shut down mode.  Shut down mode is where I am so overwhelmed by everything that has to be done that I do nothing at all.  I call it the "Mary Poppins issue."  I want to be able to just snap my fingers and have everything put itself back in order, but life doesn't work that way.  So, I do nothing, and the house gets worse and worse, and I get ANGRIER and ANGRIER until I snap. 

THEN the house gets cleaned with a vengeance, but no one is happy about the process because mom is a tyrant.  Life resumes as normal with everyone doing their work and mom checking chores to make sure they are done properly.  The house is tidy and runs well for a while.......until the next slump.  I KNOW that the solution to this whole issue is to just avoid the beginning steps in the first place.  It's a lot easier said than done.  So, if anyone has ideas to help "cure" my family of this reoccurring plague, please share your ideas!!!

VERY Opinionated Post

DISCLAIMER:  DO NOT READ THIS POST IF YOU CANNOT TAKE IT FOR WHAT IT IS: SIMPLY MY OPINION.
When I tell people that I homeschool I get many reactions.  Most of them are negative reactions, but I knew that would happen when I signed on with homeschooling.  However, there are some responses that REALLY bug the crap out of me.  Some of these include: 

"If things got bad enough I'd homeschool":  Just HOW BAD do things have to get?!??! Enough said.  If that's NOT enough for you, check out this post by another mom, that nailed my thoughts exactly on Why things are already bad enough.

"I don't know how you do it.  I'd never have the patience.":  I am not a saint.  Some days I have more patience than others.  I do this because the LORD CALLED ME TO DO IT.  If HE wants me to do it, then who am I to argue?

"It's ok to homeschool if you......(keep your kids on track, do it like the schools do, ect).":  Frankly I have some friends who subscribe to an unschooling philosphy of school and their kids are just as smart, or smarter than other kids their ages.  What really matters is the mother being ENGAGED in the education of her children.  Not the way in which she goes about educating them.

And my ultimate pet peeve............
"My children would never learn from me":  Do you want to know what that comment tells me?  It tells me that your children are holy terrors that run your home.  Do you not teach your children to be respectful?  Do you not teach your children to clean up after themselves?  Do you not teach your child to follow the rules?  Teaching your children academics is no different than teaching them discipline and courtesy.  Is it hard?  YES.  Do we have good days and bad days?  YES.  It's all about the expectations.  If you want to leave the education of your children in the hands of others, fine, but DO NOT tell me that you do it because your children CANNOT OR WILL NOT LEARN FROM YOU. 

And that is the end of my post.  Remember that this is simply MY opinion and it in no way reflects upon you or your decision of how to educate your children. I simply hope that the decision you made was based upon revelation for your family and not simply the traditions of society.