Workbox Wednesday

Kendra over at Pumpkin Patch always has fun posts about what's in their workboxes. So I thought I'd join her in Weekly Workbox post. Here's a few fun things that have been in our workboxes lately
In Roo's (age 4) Boxes
I found some alphabet stamps on the dollar isle at Target- and bought an ink pad. He stamped the letters and told me what letters he was stamping.

His finished project
Also- a pie tin with a bit of cornmeal in the bottom, and he practices drawing different letters in the tin. Yesterday I was babysitting my nephews and my niece- they got to join us for school niece A and nephew J are helping Roo make "Pizzas" with fraction pie pieces.


Here's their pizzas. I challenged them to make pizzas with different colors in them.
Roo's Book for the week is The Quiet Way Home It's a sweet fun story- one of our favorites!- The art lesson talked about Primary Colors- so they painted with the primary colors, and even mixed and made a few more colors.
Roo and his cousin J had fun fishing for alphabet letters- this is always a hit for school.Doodle's boxes


Doodle had a Marcy Cook Tile page in his drawer. These are lots of fun! Great way to do math without having to use a pencil. :D
Yesterday Doodle and his cousin J worked on an alphabet folder game. (ok- so this was WAY easy for both of them, they had fun racing to put the letters in the correct order)This was the funest workbox item yesterday- there was a map and a few facts about rivers- that we talked about- then they were told to go to the sandbox and make a river. The Workboxes are a real hit. I love that right after breakfast- Both Doodle and Roo know to head strait to the computer room and grab drawers #1.

Learning notes for the week-

I LOVE how Miranda over at The Outer Edge of Normal posts learning notes about what her kids are doing for "school" (loosely said) So in an attempt to show myself that yes they are indeed learning something and I'm not just Throwing Marshmallows Here's a post about our week-

Roo- for school this week we read If Jesus Came to My HouseIt is a sweet rhyming story about a boy who imagines what he would do if Jesus came to his house. It talks SO perfectly about the Golden Rule- and about how when we are serving others we are serving God. So we hit on quite a bit in the way of scripture stories.

In the Story- the boy says he would build a palace- so here's Roo building his palace and throne with blocks.

The story mentions that he imagines Jesus would be "about the age that I am, and about the height of me" So Roo used links to measure how tall he is, and made chains to show how old he is, and how old everyone in the family is. Here's how old Doodle is."Mom- you can't be this old- cuz it's as big as I am"

In the story- the boy talks about how sometimes at night he's scared of the shadows. So Roo and I did an experiment with shadows- You have to look close- there are 5 outlines of shadows on the sidewalk. Roo went outside about every hour- and stood in the same spot- and we outlined where his shadow fell.

He had a FUN time with his experiment- and he'd set the timer to know when to go back out. He was thrilled to show his experiment to Dad.

Since the story has pictures drawn in black with just a bit of red for accents- Roo painted a picture with Red and black paint.

Here's Doodle's Week- He really really really wanted to learn about Turtles. Ok- whatever- But there's no FIAR stories about Turtles- so I was scrambing (I can put together units- but I really prefer to stick to what's been done) But we learned about Turtles, and he is making an animal notebook. Here's the first pages in it- All the lapbook compontents are from Homeschool Share The next pages are his copywork sentences- I just LOVE Startwrite for handwriting- I pick a sentence from the books we are reading- type it in to the startwrite program and select the font- I use HWT (Handwriting without tears font) it's simple, no frills, and what we used when first learning how to write all the letters. Then I print the page, and it's ready for Doodle- he copies the sentence (we're working on using capital letters and periods where they belong- throwing in a little grammar as well). The funnest part is when we are reading the story- he LOVES to listen for his sentence.

Overall I think the Turtles week went well. Next week Doodle wants to learn about Alligators and Crocodiles- again- no FIAR title- so I'm winging it again. And the week after that Giraffes....I feel a zoo trip coming on!

Giveaway winners- and Roo's ABC Bunny Week

Roo drew the winners this morning- The winner of The Red Carpet is CarrieJoy and the winner of Caps for Sale is Diana. Congrats to the two winners!

We had a great week with ABC Bunny this week. Someday I've got to learn how the song in the back of the book goes- cuz it would be fun to SING it- but it'd take a while for me to figure it out on the piano. We did a lot with the alphabet this week- puzzles, cards, matching games, fridge phonics, fishing for letters, Cariboo (FUN simple preschool game!) and hopping like a bunny to pick up the correct letter or sound-

Since ABC Bunny is of course- about a Bunny- We went on a "field trip" to Doodle's room in the basement- so he could teach us about Bunnies- Roo thought it was great to go on a field trip to the basement- lol- and Doodle was thinking he was just the coolest ever- to get to be the one to teach Roo about Rabbits.

We also talked about Rhyming words- and played a Rhyming file folder game. Though I'm not sure that he quite "gets" what words rhyme yet. Guess we'll continue on with that another day.

Roo's fun with Katy No-Pocket

Katy No Pocket is one of our favorite stories (I know....I know....I say that about every book we do for school!) On Monday we read the story and talked about the different animals in the story. We used these cards from Homeschool Share (A wonderful resource) We started by identifying all the animals (opposum was a new one for Roo) then sorted the animals by mammals and non-mammal, then sorted them by where they live.

On Tuesday we read other books about animal mothers- and talked about moms and how much they love their babies. Wednesday we colored a picture of a Kangaroo, and talked about being grateful for the blessings we have and telling people who help us thank you.

Today was a fun day- we acted out part of the story- Here's Roo as the Man with all the pockets. We put toy tools in the pockets, then he took off the apron and dumped out the tools. Then Roo put his "Itty Cat" in the pocket (since he doesn't have a baby Kangaroo) and hopped around. Then we played the Tool Matching game (again from Homeschool Share) "Roo and I LOVE doing school time together!

A Lesson I learned from Caps for Sale

This has been a very busy week with our county fair, and the kids both have animals they have entered in the fair- Bug has a Pig, and Doodle a rabbit. It's been crazy busy trying to get it all done. I've had a particularly hard week with my 6 year old, and had sent him to his room for something- I can't recall what he did.

While he was down there, I sat down to read Caps for Sale our Before FIAR title for the week to my Roo. If you've never read the story- it's a simple one- in the story a Pedler is selling some caps, and no one wants to buy any- so he sits down to rest under a tree. When he wakes up, he checks to see if his hats are still there, but it turns out some monkeys were in the tree, and stole his hats. He trys to get the hats back by yelling, stomping and pointing his finger at them. The monkeys just yell, stop and point their fingers back at him. Finally in desperation he takes off his cap and throws it on the ground. The monkeys in return toss their hats to the ground.

As I got to the part where the pedler waves a finger at the monkeys- wanting the monkeys to do something- it hit me. I'm like that pedler. I wave my finger, shake my fists, stamp my feet, get angry and yell all too often. Expecting my little monkeys to do what I say. When they are really just watching and copying what I DO. Even MY little monkeys are like those monkeys in the tree, they do what I do. Monkey see, monkey do as the saying goes. So starting NOW! I'm trying harder to be a better example to them, if I want them to clean up- they need to see me cleaning. If I want them to read and study, they need to see me reading and studying. If I want them to pray, they need to see me praying. Wow....what simple lessons can be learned from a children's book. I guess that's why it's called a classic- because you can still learn lessons from it no matter how old you are.

I am an Artist- Roo's school

Roo and I have had such a fun time for School this week. Our B4 title is the book I am an Artist by Pat Lowery Collins. It is such a sweet book about recognizing the art and the beauty all around us, and of course, we've talked alot about the creation of the world, and this beautifuly world we have to live in. Monday I handed the book to Bug, and told him to "do school with Roo" So he read the book, and took him for a "nature walk" outside. Roo came back and told about the morning dove they saw- but they couldn't pet it. (which leads me to think we will read the story Play With Me for school next week.)

Then yesterday I read the book, and we talked about the sand dollar and the sea shells in the book. Living so far from the beach, I'm not sure that Roo has even been to the beach, so we had a good little discussion about the beach and sea creatures. Then Bug took him on another nature walk, and he collected things that he could find that were in the book. He came back with a bag of Flowers (Lellow of course), feathers, rocks, seeds, and even a caterpillar. (Which we decided was a Tomato Hornworm) and Bug's disappointed I don't want to watch it make a cocoon and release it....yah- like I want that in my garden!)

Today- Roo and I went and collected leaves from around the yard, and looked and the different shapes and sizes. Then we made leaf rubbings of them.

We are loving learning about nature and the Art that surrounds us with this story as the older boys are learning about the Olympics.