First day using the Workbox System!

Today was our first day using the Sue Patrick "Workbox System". 

I set up the drawers last night with 10 activities, not sure how many of them we would get done considering we had music class in the morning.  

I created a simple sticker chart to keep track of all the activities in the chart, and there's a sheet of stickers in each drawer so that he can place a sticker on the chart for each activity he completes. 

What's in the drawers? 

Drawer 1: HWOT letter L (build L with wood pieces, wet/dry/try, trace squares worksheet, write L on HWOT Kindergarten workbook page for capital L 

Drawer 2:  See it , Build it, Write it SIGHT WORDS a, I, to 

Drawer 3: Word ladder, -at/-ay words 

Drawer 4: missing vowel worksheet 

Drawer 5: RightStart A lesson 9 

Drawer 6: Pattern block activity card 

Drawer 7: Math addition worksheets and transportation counter activity cards (this is one that D was able to participate in as well - while M was doing the addition and subtraction activity cards, I had D pull out all the airplanes and place them on her tray).  

Drawer 8: Read aloud time with mom/dad: "Click, Clack, Moo" (in preparation for seeing the play Click, Clack, Boo on Friday) 

Drawer 9: Coloring page using triangle crayons (for proper crayon-grip practice) 

Drawer 10: 24pc Puzzle (independently) and 48pc Puzzle (with help from mom) 

M completed drawers 1, 2, 7, and 10 today. I let him choose the order in which he completes them, as well as which drawers he will do.... (which is why the pics here may appear out of order)  

M played about 10 minutes of Starfall (clocks, pattern maze, action words  game) 

We also went to a Mr Richard music class at Kindermusik in the morning..... 

Listened to Story of the World during lunch ….. 

And played baseball outside with the neighbors in the afternoon. 

So far I am really happy with the system, if not for any other reason than it keeps me on track and sort of forces me to come up with enough activities to keep us busy (kind of the same reason I like using the Bento-style lunchbox  which forces me to create a diverse lunch with enough of each food group :) . The only downside I can see is that it could become tedious to set up every night.... but I bet I could spend some time on the weekend pre-printing and setting up activities for the week. … .we'll see! Maddox really likes it and he enjoys the autonomy of getting to choose which drawers we do and in which order. Ideally I'd love to get all 10 drawers done in a day, but I know that's not likely on days where we have outside-of-the-house activities. … and on Spark days we probably won't do many at all.  

I'm debating on changing out the drawers we already finished and start fresh the next day, or keep the drawers set until we finish all 10. I'm thinking on days where he has Spark the following day (or a busy field-trip filled day) then I 'll just keep it as-is to finish up the next day. I may even set up drawers for the weekends with more time-consuming activities that daddy can participate in (like science experiments!)...

Big Tree Park

Open Gym and Park day!

Verbal math word problems (concepts: 0+5, 6+3, 3+6). Demonstrated same concept using trains.  

Double Down Homeschool open gym from 12-1 

Park 1-4pm with friends T and H

 Nature play - saw a blue tailed skink, a Golden Silk Orb Weaver, and a red tailed hawk.  

Young People's Concert

Young People's Concert at the Bob Carr (Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra) 

From their website: 

Experience the wonder of live classical music, ballet and opera, while exploring geography, history, literature and more! 

From Vivaldi’s Four Seasons to Holst’s The Planets, the Orlando Philharmonic presents Classical music’s greatest works celebrating the natural world, brought to life for young listeners in a 45-minute concert featuring stunning visual displays, dancers from the Orlando Ballet, a special guest singer, and narration by an actor from Orlando Repertory Theatre. 

Spent an hour and a half at Monkey Joes' with friends TB and AB.

Enrichment day....a note from Ms K

enrichment center 10am-2pm 

Note from Ms. K

Maddox did well today.  He and most of the preschoolers get a little wound up and tired after lunch.  We are going to plan more hands-on separate activities for them to do while the older kids are doing their independent work.  He asked me to count again with the blocks.  It seems he really enjoys the hands-on learning style more than any worksheets, but maybe I just haven't found the right ones.  I know you mentioned he liked ones where you can circle the answer.  I have some of those to try on Thursday.  We are also going to work on cutting skills.   

  There are some more cool hands-on objects in the class for counting and learning.  We will implement those as well.  We did some Story Cubes with dice where they could make up stories.  I had my other kids draw pictures and write any words they could at their level, but he wasn't really wanting to do that.    They did some lacing and puzzles and he worked with clay today.  We started to do some counting with little blocks as well.

How to draw a Zebra.....

Watched "Zoo Train" episode of Signing Time 

Maddox wanted to paint a Zebra, so we went to the internet and found a video how-to (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyAnNf2h-Ig) 

He drew the zebra while following along step-by-step 

Then he wanted to paint. This time he did it without watching the video (but I did talk him through the steps). 

We played the Phonics Game (level 1) 

Worked on sounding out words and matching words by beginning and end sound, identified rhyming words. 

Focus on -at and -an words

Daphne wanted to wear ALL her PJ's at one time.... And then play on the computer 

Gecko skin under the microscope!

Practiced spelling his name usingBananagramtiles (he asked me to get down theBananagramsand then called me back in to show me what he spelled!). I suggested we learn to spell his middle or last name but he said."maybe later".  

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Learning to write number 5 

Next he asked if he could do two worksheets, so I gave him these from a Kindergarten math book 

 Which is more? (he got frustrated trying to write numbers so we went with tallies instead) 

Worked on concept of One More. 

PE: One hour open gym for homeschoolers at Double Down gymnastics  

When we got home, I found a small piece of shed skin while cleaning out the gecko cage. He decided to look at it under magnifying glass. He also wanted to put ice on it to see what would happen (the skin stuck to itself and ripped when it got wet).  

 I suggested we try the microscope next. Viewed gecko skin (which I mistakenly called a snake skin, so that's what he wrote), then he drew what he saw. He asked me to spell " Snake Skin" so he could write it on top. I had to talk him through writing the K and E .