Workbox Wednesday

I thought I would do a little homeschooling update for all those who are interested! We've had kind of a slow start back since Christmas break, but we are getting there. I've been doing some research and putting together some ideas that I hope to implement soon. It is so time consuming finding lessons and activities to go along with our curriculum. I just feel like the kids need more than just what is in the lessons. I am thinking of starting some unit studies as well as more arts and crafts. And of course I am always looking for workbox ideas! Which leads me to today's post- my new series- Workbox Wednesday! I am hoping to post a homeschooling update every Wednesday, highlighting what we are doing with workboxes! I always love seeing what other people put in theirs so I thought I'd start showing more of ours! So here we go....

These boxes are actually for tomorrow but anyway...Here are Zach's boxes:

Box #1 is free play with magnets. Both kids love to play with these and like seeing what they can attract with the magnet wands.
Box #2 is his phonics test. Exciting. :P
Box #3- phonics worksheet. The lessons are all review so we don't do alot of phonics lessons. We basically just do the worksheet and lots of reading.
Box #4- He reads the book and writes down 4 facts about insects. We are learning about insects in the Abeka curriculum but I want to go a little more in depth than they do. We will probably do a unit study on ants in the near future. Still researching.... (:
Box #5 has some flashcards with unit measurements and also Roman numerals which he is learning in math right now.

Box #6 is his handwriting page. Zach is really enjoying writing in cursive and was excited this week to start writing capital letters. I think he is doing great. I also posted a pic of his paper from the other day. He did this with no help on how to connect the letters together.
Box #7 is his reading book. We are waaaayy behind on the assigned reading for Abeka but he does so much other "fun" reading that I think it is okay. He is still a good reader and in fact I have to tell him to slow down! He is a speed reader!
Box #8 is his language box. Most days he has a worksheet but for some reason, we did both today and tomorrow's paper today. So I am going to have him do this activity where you sort the "books" on the right "shelf" according to the punctuation the sentence needs.

Box #9 is the fun box, yay! Leapster with "math mission" game. He's never played this one before (got it at a garage sale) so I think he'll be excited! Oh, by the way, that black thing in the baggie is the power cord/adapter. (:
Box #10 is his math worksheet. In math, he is learning things like subtraction with borrowing to the hundred's place, Roman numerals, counting by 3's, and writing money in cents and in dollar form.
Okay, here's Katelyn's boxes:

Box#1- All About Today calendar- this is a fun calendar to review the days of the week, months, seasons, weather and more. It's all velcro and soft. We try to do this every few days and update the calendar. I want to set up my poster calendar but haven't found time to do so yet. I just like this one since it incorporates so many things but I like to see the full calendar with each day on it too. I'm sure she'd love to do both!
Box #2 is her phonics worksheet. She is still doing the K5 curriculum but we've backed off a bit and we are going to just review what she's already learned until I know she is ready to move on. In the curriculum, she should be starting to read 3-4 letter words but she is just now get proficient with blends (ma, me, mi, mo, mu) so we are just going to continue working on those. I am also thinking of switching the technique to word families. I tried it with her the other day and it was like a light bulb went off. She seems to get it better when you are rhyming words like you do in word families (-og words: log, frog, hog). I showed her the blend, -og, and then just kept switching the first letter and she read it without even sounding it out. She was reading tons of words and you could see how proud she was of herself. I think I will try it out and hopefully it won't confuse her after being taught the other way. For Zach, the beginning blend way just made sense to him but every kid is different and you just have to do what works for each one!
Box #3 is counting bears. I will probably let her free play with these for a bit (she likes to sort the colors into the correct cups) and then do some addition. She is having a bit of trouble with adding on one and also adding zero. I know it will click with her, I think she just needs more of a visual way to think about it.
Box #4 is her math worksheet. I am sure she will fly through this one, she is great at recognizing numbers and time. She can also count by 10s to 100 so I know the dimes will be a cinch. It's funny because when Zach was doing K5, his strength was phonics but he struggled with math in a few areas, and Katelyn is the opposite. She picks up the math concepts fairly easily but needs more time in phonics/reading. They sure keep me on my toes since I can't always do "what works for one..."!
Box #5 is "reading". I am going to have her read a few pages of blends and then I will read a few books to her (her choice). I really want to start having a read aloud time with both kids as part of our school day. We read together at other times but not consistently. I think it is important even for fluent readers to still be read to. Zach loves me to listen to his reading and sometimes I will read it back to him or we will take turns reading paragraphs. It's fun!
Box #6 is her fun box! Leapster with Letter Factory game. This is new to her too so I hope she likes it! We all love the Letter Factory DVDs so I'm sure she will like the game too!
Whew! So that is it. All in a day's work! (: