Day two of school……much better than day one! Day two was just as busy, but I felt WAY more prepared and the day “flowed” better. There were no tears, not from the students or the teacher.…..so that’s a yay!
My sister Rebekah introduced me to a fantastic blog! I have found a TON of ideas for schooling my littles and my biggers. The school workbox system came partially from my sister and partially from Homeschool Creations. I say that because I NEVER would have ventured out except seeing it at work with Rebekah’s school day…….totally changed my thoughts on our school year and got me excited about the possibilities.
So a couple of weeks ago I went to Walmart to get my kids colored coordinated! And I have really liked the outcome. Even Ben knows that his color is orange…..if it’s orange it belongs to him……no names on stuff or fights……not that fights ever happen around the House of Smooches! hehe
I bought four plastic shower caddies…..Natalie’s is gray because they did not have the hot pink color. I love that bright colors are “in”……the colors make our school room so cheerful! The shower caddy is the perfect art supply holder……along with perfectly matching plastic cups to hold the paints, markers and pencils. And having all the supplies in one container is fantastic…..and the cups bring organization……LOVE that! This idea was totally and completely my sister Rebekah’s! I did nothing but recreate her idea!! I take zero credit!!
Then I bought colorful storage boxes for my three biggest kids and a plastic three drawer cabinet for Ben. I thought the cabinet would work better for him……and I’m glad I went that route. The boxes came three in a pack and while I really could use 4 or 5 for Carlos, three works out fine….and my shelf space is very limited anyway.
My helpers putting together the boxes
On the shelf and ready for school
Then I cut, and cut and cut and laminated, and laminated and laminated the Work box subject cards from the Homeschool Creations blog…..let me tell you….between the chore chart (that’s another blog!) and this project I cut out over 200 little cards!! Actually I cut them out twice because I had to trim off the laminate!! Whew that was a job! But totally worth it in the end!!
Next I made the daily work pages in the binders…..all color coordinated of course! Carlos’ page from today looked like this:
The idea is that the kids look in their binder………… then find the work box with the matching card (all the cards are attached with Velcro), open the box and do the work that’s inside the box. The binder schedule is WONDERFUL for Carlos…..he loves to know what’s coming next and now he does! Plus it’s great for me because I can schedule out the night before what subjects are done in what order and it makes life much less hectic.
So, for instances today…..I knew that Carlos could do English all by himself….it was just a review work sheet…..so I schedule phonics for Natalie and Jeremiah (they need more one-on-one time with this subject). And during the time I read-aloud to Carlos I scheduled Jeremiah, Natalie and Ben an educational video (best idea I’ve had yet….just need to find a few more of those!) to reinforce their phonics.
Anyway, it’s more prep work the night before, but makes the school day SOOOOO much better! And it also helps me to not focus so much on the “boring” must do subjects, but gives time for some fun stuff too.
And you can’t have a school without manipulatives! And I’m so excited about some of the great additions I was able to get this year……and some that my sister-in-law sent me!! Love me some manipulatives!
House of Smooches 