Planning for the new School year

I love to plan.... lol- I always have lots of big plans... I've been busy planning for our new school year- We'll be starting next week- (we pretty much go year round- with a month long break in July and other breaks as we want them)

The most exciting of our new plans are Workboxes. (HERE's a great post explaining workboxes) Both Doodle and Roo will be using workboxes- Bug is pretty independent- and doesn't think he needs workboxes- he's probably right. Here's Doodle's Workboxes (I found some plastic drawers on sale- and think they will work great!) He has 9 drawers. Here's what will go in theme- 1- One drawer will always be his math their way stuff- if I want a shorter day- I can split his math stuff into more than one drawer :D- (More on that Here-) I found some great printables for our Math folders- and we'll be using lots of ideas from This great site. That's where I got the idea for our wonderful counting charts- each day we'll count the days we've had school- and add a sticker to a card- when a card has 10 stickers- we'll move it to the 10's column. I think it will be great. I found these sports stickers for Doodle- and some cute airplane ones for Roo.

2- One drawer will have Copywork- I use Startwrite and make our own copywork sheets- usually a sentance from our FIAR story.

3- 3 days a week the one of the drawers will have our new Grammar Program- Growing with Grammar I am excited to use this- It seems exactly like what I was looking for.

4- One box with Have his Explode the Code book- a phonics workbook- Doodle is an awesome reader- and the workbooks are kinda simple for him- but I think it will help him to be a better speller having a better base in Phonics.

Drawers 4-8 will have fun things that I want him to work on- telling time, a reading game, a puzzle for fun, a board game, art projects, nature journals.

Our last drawer will always be our unit study- our FIAR story and any activities that we are going to do with it. We'll be focusing on volume 3 this year with a few vol 1 and 2 titles and some Homeschool Share titles that we didn't get to yet. I just LOVE FIAR. It makes our whole school day. FIAR is unit studies based on great picture books. Each day we study a different aspect of the story- Social Studies, Languange arts, Art, applied Math, Science, cooking, character traits, and so much more.


Here's Roo's drawers- he only has 6 drawers. 1- He will usually have 1 that is handwriting of some sort- I have Handwriting without Tears Preschool book, sometimes he'll do a workbook page, sometimes draw letters on a chalkboard, or in a tray with cornmeal

2- One drawer will be his Math Their Way folders- he'll basically do the same things as Doodle only simplified- money -only using pennies, simplier patterns etc.

3- One drawer will be some sort of alphabet/phonics- fishing for ABC's, folder games, alphabet soup, alphabet puzzle

4-5 will be various things I want him to work on- whether for fun or for learning- playdough, pattern blocks,

6- will be his B4 FIAR story or we are also using Picture Book Activities, and some Homeschool Share titles

Bug will be continuing on in his 50 states units- He'll be using Growing with Grammar 6 Trait Writing, Continuing with Sequential Spelling He has his math lessons with Ben's aunt Pam each week, and will continue with the assignments she gives him. Bug will also be working on Webelos scout activity pins using these worksheets to help him. His state studies cover history and science, with some reports each week, and some pictures he draws each week.

Some other new things we will be adding this year- Quote of the day- using This website. Each day we'll have a quote to memorize- learn a little bit out the person who said it- and put them in our timeline notebooks.

We'll continue our Art Classes by Dad, and Math class with Pam. Field trips with our wonderful field trip group, and if I'm up for it, our Great Americans Book Club.