Our Version of the Workboxes

Have you heard about workboxes? Well, let me tell you. This simple idea has become very popular across the country.

This is what our workboxes look like.



The front of each box has two velcro dots; one for the number and one for an extra card, i.e. Work with Mommy, Story Time, Do with Sister, etc.



If there is not a "Mommy Card" on a box, Samara has to figure it out on her own. If she is having a really hard time she can use a "Help" card, but she only has three. This was a very stressful concept for her at first. She felt that if she needed help, I would "take away" one of "her" help cards and that made her feel like she was in trouble. She got the hang of it tough and now understands it is ok to use a help card. Daddy explained to her that her help cards are like money. She can buy some help, but she needs to make sure to spend her help cards wisely since she only has three. This has been a really great tool to teach problem solving and creative thinking. Since she doesn't want to spend one of her cards, she will really try to figure things out, rather than asking mommy for help before she really tries. She doesn't always do it the way I would have expected, but she does a great job. Some days she only spends one card and many days she doesn't use them at all.



The first thing Samara likes to do is peek into each box to see what is in store for the day. She loooooves it that she is allowed to do this. I love that she loves to! :) When she knows something extra fun is coming up, it is very motivating to keep working on something that is more challenging.

Samara starts with her schedule strip, which hangs on the side of the workboxes on a suction bathroom hook that I pulled out of the closet. This tells her where to go first and on throughout the day. There is a number for each box and 4 other activities, i.e. 20 Minutes on Starfall.com, Fold Towels, Reading Time, etc.



When she is on a number on her schedule strip, so goes to that workbox, pulls the whole thing out and takes it to her desk or sits on the floor with it, etc.

When she is finished with a box, she turns her work/activity into the pink canvas box on top of the workboxes and pulls the cards off of the box and places them into the clear box sitting in the top of the pink canvas box. (These boxes were added a couple days after we started, which is why it isn't in most of the pictures). Having her take the cards off of the boxes and place them into the clear box as she goes makes setting the boxes back up a lot faster for me.



Next, she stacks her box to the left.



Finally, she takes the number off of her schedule strip and sticks it to the grid on the side of the boxes, so she can keep track of where she is. Then, on to the next number/activity on the schedule strip.

This is what it looks like when she has completed home school for the day.



I purchased these boxes from Target. They are by ITSO and I love them. The shelves are super easy to move around, so I can put my larger books or items I don't want to bend, anywhere in the sequence without a problem.

This wasn't exactly a cheep option, but each piece (including the shelves) are individually priced, so I was able to purchase a couple items at a time, until I had everything I wanted. (The green box on the floor, was from the girl's bedroom and is now being repurposed for our workbox system).

All of the cards were created by other home school families that use the workbox system. Some came from blogs, but most came from the Workbox Yahoo Group, which I would highly recommend joining. There are a ton of ideas that people post on what they are putting inside their boxes too. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/workboxes/

I printed everything on card stock and then laminated everything at Mardel for $0.25/foot. They have the large double roll machines. The rolls are just over 2 feet wide, so you can easily laminate two sheets of paper for a quarter. I laminate the whole page, then cut out the pieces.

I used velcro dots on all of the cards and boxes. I used a strip of velcro on the side of the workboxes, for an easy place to stick the Help cards. I also used a strip of velcro for the grid on the side of the workboxes that Samara puts her completed cards on. This just makes setting up the boxes each night a little easier. It is handy to be able to pull it off and have everything right in front of me.

I also have a weekly planning page with a grid of 12 boxes downward for Monday through Friday. Filling this out as much as possible before the week starts really helps me fill the boxes each night A LOT faster. I don't necessarily keep the workboxes in the same order as I have written them on the paper though. I rearrange them each night as needed, strategically placing the super fun things in the best place.

Early to bed, Early to Rise.

I was awaken by two little monsters bright, well actually it was still dark, nonetheless, bright and early this morning at the awful hour of 4:00 a.m. Once Liberty and Alaysia where nicely slumbering in their bed once again, I snuggle back into my bed, puff my pillows, tucking one between my knees and one under my head, looking forward to a few more hours of much needed sleep, I lay there.....wide awake. As I look at the clock, my body tells me GO TO SLEEP, but my mind refuses. It wasn't as though my mind was racing or really doing anything. Just awake. After an hour of adempted sleep I begrudgingly pull myself out of bed to avoid the continued frustration of my inability to fall back asleep. I sit on the couch and open my computer to see what e-mails may await me. I find an article compairing the books "The Lord of the Rings" and "Atlas Shrugged" suggested by a dear friend. I enjoyed readining it. After waiding through a few more e-mails I read a chapter in "The Well-Educated Mind: A Guide to the Classical Education You Never Had."

It is difficult to admit, once I moved past the idea that "surely I should be asleep right now," I really began to enjoyed my morning. That is really something to be said, by me, especially at the current hour of 7:00 a.m.!

This revelation comes at an interesting time. As I begin to read the dauntingly thick book called "The Well-Educated Mind," Susan Wise Bauer recomendeds spending your reading time early in the morning. I did not meet this suggestion with open arms or an open mind rather. I have always felt that I am my best at night, that I would rather stay up until 4:00 a.m. and sleep into the day. As that may have been so years ago, before marriage, work, and especially children, it seems that my evenings are now spent in exaustion.

Toby has for a long time suggested I rise up early for various reasons. My father, someone I have always considered "a morning person," so by default could never truely understand "a night person" like myself, always woke me up horribly early (about 7:00 a.m.) while I was with him in the summer time. Oh how I hated that! And of course, don't forget the ever so frequent biblical accounts of God's followers rising early in the morning for prayer and devotion, preparing for the day, etc. (Genesis 28:18, Proverbs 31:15, Mark 1:35). (For many more references: www.bible-topics.com/Early-Rising.html).

Maybe there really is something to "early to bed and early to rise" being the "most effective path to wisdom" as suggested by Benjamin Franklin and referenced in "The Well-Educated Mind." All those aforementioned have indeed gained much more knowledge and wisdom than I can even grasp at this time in my life of 26 years.

Will the pleasure these last few hours of quiet time to myself, reading and writing, out weigh my automatic response to hitting the snooze button "just one more time" in the morning, or my temptation to do "just one more" thing before finally going to bed at night? This is yet to be seen. However, one thing I do know is that I have begun a quest toward betterment.

File Folder Games

I bought two Carson-Dellosa Kindergarten File Folder Game books for $10 from a Homeschool Book Sale (retails for $30 each). They each have over 40 games in them that can be made.

I laminated everything. I pasted a library pocket on the fronts of the folders with the top part folded down. After I laminated the folder, I carefully cut the flap back open and added Velcro, so the pieces wouldn't fall out. I used Velcro dots for placing all the pieces where they go on the folders.

Samara already knows her upper/lower case letters and the order of the alphabet, but I thought these would be good for review. Samara said the first one was really boring, lol. She had a little more fun with the second one. I guess I'll have to put together some more challenging games and save these for Alaysia!

Apple-Licious Alphabet - Matching upper and lower case letters



Bunny Business - Find the missing letter for each bunny

Yard Sale Finds!

I found this desk at a yard sale for $35! Here are pictures of Samara cleaning her new desk. She was so excited that she wanted to clean it up right away.


I found this chair for $0.50!!! The seat was already off and the padding and cover were yucky, so I took that off and threw it away. I bought new foam for the seat and reupholstered it. I found some tan vinyl in the remnants section for 50% off and covered it with that first, so it would repel any spills from soaking into the foam. I covered the vinyl with fabric Samara picked out from the discount fabric section. Total price: $13.50 for a custom chair. :)

Before


After

What's in a Blog: The Purpose and Passion Behind Lori's Little Loves

I have always known I was called to stay home with my children and have known for most of my life that I wanted to home school them as well. It is such a blessing to have a husband who is passionate about both and the Lord has recently made it all possible! Since February, I have been consumed with preparing to officially begin our homeschool this fall. I have joined several yahoo groups, read through many blogs, book marked at least a hundred websites, attended a convention, chosen curriculum, and have started meeting other homeschool mom's in my community.
The benefits to homeschooling are endless. Traditional schooling whether it be private school or government school, shelters children and prevents them from experiencing real life, until sometime after graduation. One of the most wonderful and exciting things about homeschooling are all the opportunities that will be available to our children. They will always and continually be exposed to real life. They will never be restricted to spending their days with one age group, in one room, with one teacher. Instead they will be immersed in real life filled with many cultures and adventures, surrounded by people old and young. Instead of reading about weather patterns, water cycles, and plant growth in a text book, we will go outside and experience it and interact with it.
Every part of our life will be a part of the education process and it is from that philosophy that this blog is birthed. There will be posts and pictures of the exciting new unit we are working on, the cookies we made together, neat things the girls are doing, trips we take, and so on. It is here that I will record the journey of our life.

What's in a Name: The Story Behind Lori's Little Loves

Many years ago, when I was something like 11 or 12, I started making little animals with Sculpey clay. I was pretty good at it. (I think my mom still has the first one I made; if so, I'll post a picture). My mom had a dream that I was a grown woman running my own little shop filled with all my little Sculpey creations. The sign outside my shop read, "Lori's Little Loves." Though, I quickly moved on to something else, "Lori's Little Loves" stuck with me. A few years ago, I used it as my website and ebay name to sell crochet dresses that I made for miniterature dolls.
As I was trying to think of a name for my blog, "Lori's Little Loves" once again came to mind. Though I am not currently making any short of craft, there is something else that I have made (with some help of course) - my three beautiful little girls. They are 5 years old, 20 months old, and 2 months old. Samara, Alaysia, and Liberty are Lori's Little Loves.