Seriously, how does the Family Workbox plan work day to day?

I made a post about our family workbox plan back in May. We tried it for the end of the last school year and then I implemented it more fully during the new school year, which started two weeks ago. After two weeks I made some adjustments and changed the previous post to reflect them.

First of all, I started out with a daily schedule. I wanted to make sure that if we took 20 min. per lesson, we could finish everything within a reasonable amount of time. However, it quickly became apparent that packing up one workbox and pulling out the next takes a few minutes which puts us off schedule. The result is I give each subject a time limit (about 20 min) which should give us ample time to cover the material and a few moments to make the workbox switch.

Secondly, I have had to deal with a consistently bad attitude from my oldest. Here is how it goes, nearly every day: "Aw, man! Math again? This is so stupid." Then we get out the book and start the lesson: "Wow, this is awesome! I love math." And so on through the other subjects of the day. It is like being on a roller coaster. My second son is less dramatic. He is happy to do his school work... until he is not, which is typical for a five year old. I don't push him to do history with us if he has just done math, reading, Bible, and Spanish with a smile. Now that's fun for a parent :-)

Finally, the Simply Charlotte Mason booklet "Planning Your Charlotte Mason Education," encouraged me to make a different plan for each term. We have four terms (nearly year-round school) and I plan to keep our math the same all year but switch most of the other subject materials to keep kids interested. For example, we'll study the Middle Ages for history for three terms then switch to Georgia history for the final quarter of the school year.

Family Workboxes for Young Children: Part 3

(continued from earlier post)

Workbox 2 contains a Bible, scripture memory box, and lyrics to a hymn. In addition, we sometimes add a character building story or a Bible storybook. These items are always in the workbox, so I just take it from the “completed bin” and put it back on the shelf for the next day. 4 days per week, 20 minutes

Next, we hit Workbox 3: Math, our most difficult subject. We love the RightStart math program but it requires me to work for 20 min. with each student. This workbox also includes a file folder game and worksheet for one child while I teach the sibling. After 20 min (set a timer on this or you can go over!) we swap.

Charlotte Mason said, “A change is as good as a break.” I find it helpful to choose a topic other than math for the file folder game and worksheet so that when they come to their math lesson, they are rested and ready to exercise that part of their brain. It takes some effort on my part to make sure these activities are not busy work. I have a good geography workbook for my 2^nd grader and Kumon workbooks for my 1^st grader. 4 days per week 40 minutes

Seventy minutes of school in a row is a lot, even if it is enjoyable. Now we take a break. Workbox 4 can contain ingredients for a snack or just a note telling the snack of the day. Snack, 4 days per week, 15 minutes

The baby works on a sorting activity while big brother does a craft.
In the cage is a frog that hopped into our house this morning.

Follow up the break with Workbox 5: Reading, which contains an easy read book at each child's level along with a picture book I'll read to them. The first child plays StarFall.com while the second child reads his book to me then I read to him (20 minutes). Then we switch-- first child reads with me while the second child plays Starfall.com (another 20 minutes). 4 days per week 40 minutes


The contents of Workbox 6 is determined by a schedule for each week. Monday: Art appreciation, Tuesday: Music appreciation, Thursday: Hymn study, Friday: New Testament Greek. I try to find a living book to go with the topic of the day or maybe just a fun worksheet/coloring page. We follow up with review throughout the week. For Hymn study and Music appreciation, we listen to the selections in the car. The art piece is displayed in the bookshelf and sometimes I’ll ask a child to go look at it for a time and make observations. The Greek alphabet is reviewed in a few minutes per week with flashcards and matching games. 1 day per week,  20 minutes

Workbox 7: Spanish is the last subject we work on as a family. We use La Clase Divertida along with some supplemental books. 4 days per week, 20 minutes

The rest of the subjects are mixed up throughout the week on a schedule. Science and history are optional for my 2 and 5 year old boys but required for my 7 year old.

At this point in the morning, my toddler is feeling neglected even though he is welcome to join our studies. While my older two children are working 
Workbox 8, copy work or special household projects (“How can I help, Mama?”), I play a game or read a story to the little guy. 4 days per week 20 minutes

By now, we have covered a lot of material for the day and hopefully everyone is feeling cheerful and ready to do more! (this leads me to a post on wisdom I have gathered from others on attitudes and children :-)

If the 5 yr. old chooses to hang around for grammar, history and science, wonderful! Otherwise, he is free to go play nicely with this little brother.

From about 11:30-11:50, my 2^nd grader works with me on Workbox 9: Grammar (Monday/Thursday) or Handwriting (Tuesday/ Friday) using Linking Blocks. 4 days per week

Workbox 10: History or Science, depending on the day. Each gets 2 days per week. For follow up on other days, we listen to his history lesson on CD in the car on the way home from soccer practice or learn more about the science lesson during literature time with a living book on the topic. 4 days per week, 20 minutes

Making a Roman standard for Story of the World Volume 2

At this time, they are free to play outside until 4pm when we clean up the house for Papa to come home and prepare for evening outings. Most of their play time is outdoors, but depending on the weather they can play inside as well. Hopefully the toddler will take a nap, but you know how that goes…

Workbox 11: Music practice must be done in the evenings so that my husband can watch the two little guys while I teach my oldest son violin. 

Workbox 12: PE is actually a “workbag” that contains the items needed for PE that day: bathing suit, cleats, etc. It is also done in the evening with sports practice and swimming at the YMCA.

Family Workboxes for Young Children: Part 2

The 2^nd step  in creating a successful learning environment was to read about Sue Patrick’s Workbox System. I went over and over the idea in my head and couldn’t figure out how to make it work with a Charlotte Mason style education and children who cannot yet read well. My solution is a Family Workbox System. We have one set of boxes and work through them together. Sometimes we work on a lesson together and sometimes there are two sets of materials in the box like copywork for one and a math lesson for the other. Regardless, all materials for that time period are included.

Which brings me to the 3^rd step—organization. I bought a shelf for $20 and use it to store books and manipulatives that we are working with this semester. Math books, file folder games, glue, crayons, even current library books. When it is time to prepare for the next day’s lessons, everything should be right there, ready to be placed in a workbox.

We start our school day with morning chore charts. These are in a page protector and paired with a dry erase marker. At first the kids checked off jobs as completed but since the lists are short, they now know what to do and only needed to read over the list to make sure nothing was forgotten. I have two for each child for alternating days of the week. This keeps them from arguing about who gets to fill the cat's water bowl or the dog's water bowl and if they have to put away clothes or dishes.

Today's special kit is a shape pattern puzzle.

Hopefully they have already completed everything but as they look over the list, they have a chance to catch up on work that they missed. Anyone who is already done with morning chores at 8am gets to work on the special kit included in the Workbox 1. I try to mix it up and surprise them—pattern blocks, magnets, holiday craft, a new Kindle App, maps. Something to help them have fun learning. 

Family Workboxes for Young Children: Part 1

My children are young— just turned 7, 5 and 2 years. We do a lot of learning together as a family but several subjects require me to spend one-on-one time with each child because they can’t yet “read to learn”. The effort of scheduling this time and avoiding interruptions during lessons has been overwhelming but I am gradually learning to choreograph our day so that the kids can work together and separately as needed.

We use Charlotte Mason’s method of learning because it considers the whole child—mind, body and spirit. Young children are very physical and their bodies are full of energy. It is nearly impossible to expect young children to sit calmly and quietly for hours on end. Mason’s emphasis on short lessons, intentional arrangement of subjects, and plenty of physical activity, has revolutionized the way I teach my kids at home.

The 1^st step in restructuring our homeschool for success was to come up with a simple chart that shows me what subjects need to be covered each day for family time and individual kids. You can see a picture and some details about it in this earlier post. It helped me move through the day but didn’t help me prepare materials. We were often frustrated when books and supplies were missing at the start of a lesson.

See Part 2 on using workboxes and Part 3 on what goes in the workboxes.

Homeschooling through illness

When mom or one of the kids has a cold, it is a good idea to lighten the school schedule for a few days to give everyone a chance to rest. But when the illness takes days or weeks to diagnose and even longer to treat, it is impossible to stop schooling until we get well.

Last Thursday morning, we were working on a Spanish lesson and I began to feel sick in my stomach. I spent two hours in agony but then felt better. This has happened several times over the past few months and I was sure it wasn't food related so I decided to go to the doctor. I spent half of Friday at the doctors office and was exhausted that afternoon so still no school. Appointments for various scans filled the next week and I was feeling poorly so we didn't try to do any school work. A week and a half has passed with no school and now two more appointments will kick off our new week.

My kids have got to do some school so I am trying out some modifications to teach them with less stress. Here are some of my ideas and I would love some suggestions from you.

1) Workbooks: we occasionally use Explode the Code for reading and Kumon workbooks for math, so the kids are at least familiar with the format.
2) DVDs: Our Spanish lessons are on DVD. We are finishing up one and starting a new level which is hard but if the kids at least watch, they are getting good exposure if not really learning.
3) Experiments: We have several of the little Usbourne science books. I can mark a place in one and someone can read it to the kids and have them do the simple experiment.
4) Audio books: Our history program book is also available as an MP3. I'll burn that to a disc along with the activity page from the Story of the World book.
5) Classes: we attend a homeschool co-op one morning per week and the science museum homeschool science class one afternoon per week. We also have music class for an hour every Friday and visits to the YMCA for PE.

Now I just need to write down the assignments and have them ready to go in a box to take to the house of the kind person who is going to watch my kids on certain days.

Any other ideas to help keep up school work during this time?

Planner Section 5: School

Lesson Planning Diagram

As a homeschool family, this section is one of the most important to keeping my days running smoothly. The first page in the section is a weekly plan. I made a list of the subject we wanted to cover and the time needed to commit to each per lesson (usually 15-25 min.) Then I made a chart with five columns, one for each day of the week. I divided the columns into three rows: morning, afternoon, evening.

Morning activities tend to be done with all of the children, afternoon activities are done when the baby is asleep and evening activities are for the whole family.

Finally, I plugged the subject names from the first list into this chart. It became clear that I was trying to fit too much in, so I limited our morning activities to an hour and a half, the afternoon to two hours and the evening activities to an hour.

In the end, I had to prioritize the list of subjects* I was trying to study with the kids and eventually reduce the number of days we do art and history, the two lowest priorities right now. As the kids get older and more independent we'll make more time for these subjects. At this point I just want them to learn the basics and learn to love exploring my Father's world.

*My list of subjects for 1st grade is Bible, Reading, Math, Spanish, Science/Nature Study, Music, Cursive Handwriting, History.

Homeschool Lesson Planning: Long Term or Short Term?

I have tried a few ways to keep our homeschool lessons on track. I started out on paper, writing down what should be done in each subject on each day for the next month and I tried Homeschool Sked Track, a free online lesson planner and grade tracker that helps you plan the whole year at once and track grades. Neither worked for us at this stage in homeschooling.

Finally I combined the paper method with the organizational style of Sked Track to make my current planning program. We have been using it for seven months now and it has worked beautifully for our family and here is how you can do it.

Start by getting out all of the books you use for school. For us, this includes MFW 1st, MFW K, Right Start Math, Story of the World, etc. I also keep on hand my Planner turned to the weekly outline (Monday we do this this and this subject, etc.)

Then create a document in a word processor and enter these headings:
Week of: January 9-13 (this is at the top of the whole document)
Day: (this goes at the top of each page)
Morning: (these three go on every page)
Afternoon:
Evening:

Now you can plug in the subject names that you do each day, ours is from the weekly outline:
Morning:
-Bible
-Memory Work
-Spanish
-Housework

Afternoon:
-History
-MFW K
-MFW 1st
-Math

Evening:
-Kindermusik
-PE

Save this as a template so you only have to create it once and can copy and paste it as often as needed throughout the semester.

Long term planning is done by My Father's World and Right Start Math because we know we want to complete the entire books within a year. So I do the short term planning to determine which days of the week we will be completing lessons and working towards our goals.