Workboxes & Homeschooling

  I love using workboxes! It has made a huge difference in my school year as I mentioned a few posts ago. Sue Patrick's Workbox System a User's Guide is a recommended book for using workboxes. Amazon sells both hard copies & on Kindle. Click here to see samples or purchase the book.  .

I wanted to share this video of another mom who uses workboxes.
http://www.confessionsofahomeschooler.com/blog/2013/01/workbox-system-video-tutorial.html

    I LOVE her schoolroom. Creating an environment of learning and having everything organized makes for a productive school year. A final but most important ingredient  in the recipe of homeschooling is faithfulness to the Lord. Its not the government I fear but a higher King, the King of Kings knowing one day I will stand before Him . He wants my children to have a good education. I need to be faithful to His commands while depending on Him.  A rhema (verse) he has given me years ago is

(Isa 28:9-10)  Whom shall he teach knowledge? and whom shall he make to understand doctrine? them that are weaned from the milk, and drawn from the breasts.
 For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little:   Daily teaching your children line upon line faithfully the reward is they will learn!!!! I have found that the workboxes have helped me keep focused and a wonderful tool in aiding both the teacher & student in accomplishing this daily.

   As I continue my journey of homeschooling I am learning from the Lord that depending on Him, organization & faithfulness to Him daily teaching my children  is a command, high calling and privilege. Duet.6:4-9 I praise the Lord for a Godly husband that supports me and works hard to provide all the tools & needs I may have in homeschooling our children.
   With summer here it is a time of prayer, researching ,evaluating, & looking for ways to better my homeschool. I am looking forward to learning from the Lord. I am thankful He has lead me to workboxes.

Mat 11:29  Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.   I love my Shepherd!!!

Nehemiah finished CLE kindergarten

Nehemiah finished Christian Light Education Kindergarten this week and began CLE and Rod & Staff 1rst grade. To celebrate our homeschool version of kinder graduation day I made a quick hat out of construction paper. It sure made his day as he wore the hat all night :)  I just love CLE materials. He also did Rod & Staff Bible & workbooks. I love Rod & Staff too!

CLE   http://www.clp.org/store/by_grade/1

Workboxes

These are my workboxes. They have made a huge difference in my school year so I wanted to share! You can make them to fit any curriculum even the Wisdom Booklets. Each drawer is a workbox. Each student has a workbox for each subject. I do not have workboxes for music, art, or Bible but you can.

  So what goes in the workboxes? Everything and anything your student needs to work on that subject. It can be: Math manipulative's, workbooks, subject books, flashcards, writing paper, pencils, pictures, tools, asighnment sheets, books to do their research for Wb projects, Light Units, etc...

  The workboxes have helped my kids complete their needed work and make it easier for me to check & keep track with the benefit of giving assignments. For the Wisdom Booklets for example you can write their project assignment in their science work box along with some resource books or Men's Manual Book etc. that they need to get the weeks project assignment books completed. If your child does subject books you can place their school book with worksheets, or if studying a unit study a book they are working on with a notebooking sheet. My children know they must complete all their workboxes however they are assigned daily. This helps the child go through and complete their assignments and for me I can easily check their work.

Right now they each have 5 workboxes.

 

I place the workboxes next to my school table so I can check them and access them when I sit down working with my children.

Here you can see an example of inside a workbox. Nehemiah is learning to read using Christian Light Education so my teachers book, his workbook, phonics flashcards, & a few books for me to read him are in his phonics workbox.

I also have a teacher's workbox for each student. This has all my answer keys so I can check their work easily when I go trough their workboxes.

Here is a picture of all my teacher's workboxes.

On top I place supplies I use often.

My two highschool students I used these hanging file folders but I will replace them with the workboxes this year . I wanted to share this idea just in case this workfiles might work better for someone else.

 We are at the end of the school year so its time to evaluate & organize for next year. I praise the Lord for MFW Workbox group who shared the workbox ideas!

Here is a link to a blog that has different types of workboxes.

click here to see different types of workboxes

Flash Card holder

I purchased flash cards that did not come with a box. So I cut up a cereal box then with spray adhesive I glued on school scrapbooking paper. I love fancy paper!

Rod and Staff 4th grade Science

Here are some of the things we learned in school this week using Rod & Staff 4rth grade Science book. We studied animals with backbones so he made a dinosaur skeleton using a mold. We are now studying birds so we are all looking at a bird feather under a microscope. It was cool to see the barbs :) Daddy is reading Nehemiah a Bible story from his Bible Pictures to Color by Rod & Staff which he loves.

Christian Light Education (Publications)

We have made another change.We are continuing the Language Art using Rod & Staff but are doing the rest of the subjects using Christian Light Education! I wish I would heard about this curriculum years ago :O) We still are devoted to the Wisdom Booklets & sit together as a family at night with Daddy leading the WB.

  Homeschoolers can school everywhere. My oldest now in 11th grade on the couch doing his CLE history while getting groomed by our cat. He is enjoying the CLE so much he researched more on his own!!

 My son Joe in 10th grade this year doing Rod & Staff English in his bed . I love the Bible is used in all learning. He is marking notes in his Bible.

 Angelo now in 4rth grade doing his CLE Science. He was to choose a fruit we normally don't eat & research the country in which the fruit was made. So he choose mangos & Indonesia. We also prayed & learned some of the prayer challenges using Windows of the World.We were amazed at how large the seed is of the mango fruit.

 We made a notebook page classifying the fruits cutting out from a grocery ad.

 Homeschoolers can even learn on a horses back. Angelina in dressage camp all this week. She did a report on her favorite horse Gypsy Vanners. Here she is with her pony Sonador.

Rod and Staff English grade 2

 We are doing Rod and Staff Language Arts English & Spelling. We love it! Job is just learning to read so we are doing his lessons orally. Just because he can't read & write that does not mean his mind can not learn and advance until those skills catch up.
 I love how Rod & Staff is Christ centered every lesson is related to the Bible in some way. I purchased notebooking blank sheets from Currclick and use them for the Rod & Staff lessons. I only had Job copy two of the sentence. I use highlighter sticky notes to highlight what i want him to copy to avoid writing in the textbook that I plan to use again. What a money saver for large families :O) An advance student can copy all the answers on their page.
  This lesson was on Noah's ark. I happened to have Noah's Ark stickers in my sticker drawer so that is what we used but normally they just draw a picture in the empty drawing box. His English notebook will be a nice Bible notebook too when all done at the end of the year. he is so happy to be doing school this year :O)