Activity boxes: my secret weapon in teaching multiple ages

I promised in my school room tour post that I would give you more details on our activity boxes set up, because they work so well for us. I am sorry it has taken me so long to get to it, but as you would have noticed I don’t get round to posting every day, just not enough hours in the day! It is not for lack of things to post about, I have about 10-15 partially written posts just sitting and waiting to be finished and published!

So, what are activity boxes? They are my secret weapon in keeping two active boys, in very different stages of development happy while working one-on-one with only one of them. They are basically a set of boxes or plastic drawers in which I place a variety of activities, all educational in some way. The boys are only allowed to use the items in the drawers when they are finished with their work and waiting for me to finish off with their brother. The items in the boxes are kept only for this use, and I rotate the items every 1-2 weeks, depending on how popular an activity is.

Right now we have a set of six plastic stacked drawers which I bought from Walmart, but I am hoping to change them to a more open bin or trays on shelves set up when I next visit IKEA.

Here are some examples of the items I have placed in the drawers recently:

~Haba peg board~

~tactile numbers (like our sandpaper letters)~

~clothing peg number cards (downloaded from Confessions of a Homeschooler)~

~Spanish color match up game~

~magnetic counting book~

~large peg pattern board~

~color match up game (downloaded from Confessions of a Homeschooler)~

~lacing cards~

~pattern blocks and boards~

~magnetic shapes book~

~rubbing plates~

~puzzles (this one is an infantino puzzle, but we use a lot of different ones)~

For more ideas refer to my Montessori inspired workboxes post, we use all the activities in that post in our activity boxes too.

Alongside the activity boxes, my boys are encouraged to look through the items in our feature study area of the classroom – read the books, or use whatever manipulatives are there – to become more familiar with the topic we are learning about, be it geography, science, or history (for more on our feature study area see our classroom tour post).

From time to time I will share more ideas for activity boxes.

This has been added to: Show and Tell and Preschool Corner & 5K too.

A tour of our school room

Since this is the first time we have had a dedicated school room, I wanted to share it with you. When I first started homeschooling my intent was to never have a school room, because in the many books and blogs I read, school rooms were often equated with “compartmentalizing” learning in one’s home.

However, as time went on I realized where we study really makes no difference to our mindset, because learning has become a very natural part of our daily rhythm whether we are at home, in the car, the grocery store, or at afternoon activities. I also realized that if I want to give my boys an organized, inspiring, and engaging work space that they can really make their own, we needed to have a dedicated room, otherwise the daily set up for me took time away from learning and our main living space was always piled with books, papers, and projects.

In Hawaii I split our office space with a school space, now in our new home we have a full room to ourselves. It has been great fun putting it together and now it is one of our favorite rooms in the house, because it is colorful, flooded with sunlight, and we have such a great time learning together.

We also use the dining area for art projects, the kitchen for science experiments, the play room for imaginative play, the reading room for story time…you see where I am going, having a school room has not prevented learning from happening elsewhere, it has simply allowed us to be more organized and use a lot of visual learning aids on the walls. So now, on with the tour…

Our Animals of the World map (bought at Costco), continental map for our geography studies, elements of drawing chart for Drawing with Children, writing chart for letters and numbers, Damian’s alphabet and number charts, our Chicka, Chicka, Boom, Boom palm tree with our two main alphabet books at the bottom of it.

Next to this area is a book case that holds supplies, reference books, work folders, and manipulatives. We also have a two door built in cupboard that has shelves for more storage.

Our school song, as decorated by my two boys. This is next to our circle time area, since we sing our school song every morning.

Calendar and weather portion of our circle time area, beneath this, which I forgot to take a photo of, is a rug and big floor cushions for us to sit on while we say prayers, do our virtue learning, sing our school song, and go through the calendar/weather activities. I am in the process of re-working our virtue learning poster which is usually in this area of our classroom, I will share it when it is completed.

Our white board, which we use for all kinds of things. I keep it at ground level so it is easy for the boys to work on too.

Our electronic globe which is still a favorite.

Our feature study area – whether it is a science, history, or geography unit we are working on – we keep all the books, posters, and manipulatives in this area, so that while we are studying the subject, the boys can easily come and do further investigation or re-use the manipulatives.

Our activity and work boxes – I did away with workboxes for Damian, since he and I work together through all of his work now, and converted them into activity boxes (I will do a full post on these soon, because they have proven to be very popular with the boys and helpful to me in teaching two students doing very different levels of work). The workboxes are Rylan’s and he works through them in the mornings after our circle time, while I am focused on working one-on-one with Damian.

My area labels as seen above were all done on my computer, laminated and I glued on the wood deco animals (or a castle, which you can see on our “reading nook” sign below), which I purchased from Michaels for 25c each.

“Education is the indispensible foundation of all human excellence”. A banner I made across the school room wall from a quotation from the Writings of Baha’u’llah. A reminder of why we work so hard to learn! I will change this quotation banner a few times during the course of the year, re-using the same letters.

Our Baha’i Holy Places and Houses of Worship wall which we are adding to as we study the continents in geography.

The Golden Rule poster – a quotation or verse from all the major world religions referring to the golden rule of treating others the way we would wish to be treated.

Our reading nook – this is just a small reading corner in our school room, we also have a reading/library room downstairs next to the play room.

And that is a peek into our school space!

This has been added to Preschool Corner & 5K too.

What our days look like: our schedule/routine

I have received several emails asking me about various aspect of our schedule – how and when we do learning, what I do with Damian while trying to teach Rylan, how I fit in housework and cooking, etc. All of these questions have come from non-homeschooling families who are currently investigating the idea of homeschooling, so my reply is with that in mind. I thought I would try to incorporate all of these answers into one post (thank you to those of you who have been patient with me in replying, I have had a rough couple of weeks). Now to answer the question:

Let me start by saying that our schedule is constantly being revised as the kid’s activities change throughout the year. I like to keep to a basic routine, but I also love the flexibility that homeschooling allows. If one of the boys are really interested in a particular activity or subject, then we shift our schedule to fit it in. We are also planning to school all year round this year, so no stopping for the summer. The reason for this is that Rylan LOVES school, to stop in his mind would not be fun, but almost a punishment, which defeats the purpose of a holiday! We do stop school work when family visits, which is a couple of months over the course of a year, and when we travel ourselves (but that is learning in itself, right?). So, given this year round learning and the fact that the nature of homeschooling allows you to do away with homework altogether, and one-on-one learning with your child means they can cover more work faster; you can definitely work in time for a lot of extracurricular activities and also plain ol’ downtime for playing, imagining, being outdoors, and doing art work.

So, with this in mind, here is a more detailed look at our week. Right now Rylan is taking swimming lessons twice a week, gymnastics once a week, and piano lessons once a week. Both he and Damian attend a Music Together class once a week as well. We have a weekly play group we attend and go on a lot of planned field trips with a great mom/kids group that we are members of. All of these activities are a minimum of a 25 minute drive from our home, some as much as an hour and a half away, so that means we have a lot of time in the car. The kids also have weekly play dates with their friends in each other’s homes or at the park or beach and we go to the library once a week, plus we have to do the grocery shopping and errand running which all homes require to keep functioning. So right now maybe you are thinking when do you do the school work? :) Normally we have three mornings a week at home, on these mornings, after breakfast and washing up, we go to our school area and start our day with our circle time, which involves prayers together, studying our virtue of the week and doing the related activity, and then calendar time. After all this is finished, we move onto workboxes, which you can read more about here. We usually finish the workboxes (that is all of Damian’s and the first half of Rylan’s) around 10 to 10:30 a.m., at that point the kids go off and play together and I try to get some housework done. Sometimes they help me, like with laundry and vacuuming which they love! Depending on the day I may also put something in the crockpot for dinner during this time. We usually read a few books before we eat lunch around 11:30 a.m. At 12 p.m. I put Damian down for a nap and Rylan has about 30 minutes of quiet time (usually quiet play or reading in his room). I use this time to do work on my computer. Just a note here - with the exception of one morning a week, even when we are out for the morning, I generally make sure we are home by 11:30 for lunch, so Damian gets his nap and Rylan gets focused school time while he naps.
Right now I have it easy because Damian is napping two and half to three hours every day (long may it last, pretty pleeeease!!); so after quiet time, Rylan and I go back to our school area where we work through his remaining boxes together. If we finish his workboxes before Damian wakes up, then we do more work together (I usually let Rylan decide what he wants to do).

When Damian wakes up, its out the door to afternoon activities. We spend almost every afternoon out of the house doing activities, having play dates, going to the beach, the park, the library, grocery shopping, and running errands. If we are home (including when friends are over) we often incorporate some kind of art or craft into that time.

When we return home it is time to make dinner, while making dinner I direct a general tidy up the house which the kids carry out (since this involves putting away their toys and books that are scattered throughout our home!). Sometimes I just call out “clean up time” and they do it, other times they need a little more motivation, then we sing a clean-up song together (there are a few of them out there), I give them challenges to see how fast they can put a certain set of toys away, we put things away by color, by type, by counting, and so on. A note here - the reason this works for me is that my kitchen/living room/dining room is all open plan and the boy’s room is the first room off of this area; so I can easily keep an eye on the whole process while preparing dinner. Usually by the time dinner is done the house is pretty much straightened up and if there are still a few minutes before my hubby gets home, we go and read together until dinner (or if Ramtin gets home before I finish dinner he reads and plays with the boys). The rest of the evening follows like this: eat together as a family, bath time for the boys, family prayer time, and reading books before bed time for the boys.

And that is a basic look at our days!

Damian and workboxes

A reader recently emailed to ask me how I get Damian (age 29 months) to work through workboxes every day. I thought I would answer this question in a post, so here goes:

The simple truth is I don’t!! Damian is actually too young for workboxes and formal learning (in my opinion), BUT that being said he does want to be just like his big brother who definitely does benefit from the use of workboxes. So, I got him a set and fill them for him, but I am very relaxed with how he moves through them, he doesn’t have to do them all, he doesn’t have to do them in order either, and if he just wants to play, then that is okay too! Most days he does like to work through them, although he may not do them all, if this is the case, whatever is left over stays in for the next day (but it is moved to the top). His boxes, as you can see here and here largely consist of educational toys, games, and puzzles, because at his age learning should definitely be all about playing and having fun!

When Rylan was little we did not have workboxes, but I did do two organizational things to enhance learning through play. One was to create “stations”. This would involve me placing a few key items I wanted him to work with in a noticeable and very easily accessible place. For example, a peg puzzle on one coffee table, an ABC matching game on another, and a color sorting game on his child-sized table and chair set.
The second thing that I did was to organize the toys and books on his shelves in the bedroom and living room in a Montessori-type style. The shelves were kept simple, with each activity or item being readily accessible, visible, and organized. Rylan knew where each item belonged on the shelves, so that when finished with an activity he could return it to its spot. I would rotate toys every week or two, with favorites staying out for longer, or all the time if really loved.

Montessori inspired workboxes

I love Montessori activities, and frequently include them in the boy's learning time. Here are a few examples of how I have added them into our workbox routine.

Whenever I have filled a workbox with a Montessori inspired activity, I put our learning tray on top of the workboxes, so it is easy for us to take the items out of the drawer and put them straight onto the tray (Montessori activities are generally done on a tray or similar surface to contain the activity and create a defined work space for each child). I follow the normal process of a Montessori activity, first I demonstrate the activity by completing it myself (i.e. modelling) and then allow my boys (whoever is doing it, sometimes both of them) to repeat the task, usually several times, as long as they are enjoying it and still interested.Beginner pouring for Damian - pouring beads. Normally I would use dried beans, but I didn't have any on hand at the time, so he tried these and they worked pretty well.

Followed by rice pouring.

Transferring activity - transfer rice from one bowl to the other using only the spoon. This is excellent for the development of fine motor coordination.

Pegging activity. First peg around the block, then around the paper.

Threading beads.

Transfer activity using tongs.

And lastly, sandpaper letters.
There are so many more you could add to workboxes, this is just a few that we have done recently.

You can find this and more workbox ideas at: What's in the box Wednesday and Wednesday Workbox Day.

Workboxes: what's in the box Monday?

This is what the boys found in their workboxes today (another review, with more details on how we work through the boxes can be found here).

In Rylan's: lacing cards
Pattern blocks.

Lacing beads, which he had to lace in a clear pattern.

While Damian was napping: we covered several pages in his maths workbook.

He did two pages in his draw and write journal.

We played "Go Fish" with his Rocket Phonics cards. We had so much fun playing this game together, that we kept playing until Damian woke up, and skipped the last drawer (which means it will be the first one for tomorrow). I am going to do a post some time in the future on Rocket Phonics (this is the reading curriculum I ended up choosing and we are just getting started on it).

On to Damian's boxes: a number/picture puzzle. You will notice the wording is in Hebrew. :) I bought these in Israel when Rylan was little. I was thinking I should probably stick English labels over it so as not to cause confusion, but it puts a smile on my face every time we use these because it brings back lots of happy memories!

Lacing beads - 1 to 5.

Stacking barrels: first I had him nest them, then stack them from biggest to smallest, then smallest to biggest. Then we went through colours, then counted them.

Damian loves these little books. Each page has a single word and picture. We went through each of them and basically he "reads" them to me.

Texture puzzle.

Find this and more workbox ideas at: Wednesday Workbox Day and What's in the box Wednesday.

Workboxes: what's in the box Monday?

I am not going to do these posts every Monday, just once in awhile, to share with you what we are doing during school time. In general our mornings go something like this - after breakfast and washing up, we go downstairs, say prayers and study our virtue of the week (a.k.a. circle time), have calendar time, and then we move to the workboxes. Rylan usually works on his own through the first three boxes, during which time I work through all six of Damian's with him. After that is completed we go on to do other things (depends on the day). Later, when Damian is napping, Rylan and I go back downstairs to complete the remaining three boxes together. I save items that require my assistance or observation for during this time (although sometimes like with the boxes pictured below, he can pretty much move through them without me. I needed to do some work myself today, so I arranged things I knew he could do with little input from me).

So, here we go - these are Rylan's boxes: 100 chart, haven't used it in a while, so pulled it out and had him circle all even numbers on the chart and then count them out loud to me.
An awesome puzzle picked up from Costco this weekend. He put it together to spell 20 words.
The children's Dawn-Breakers (stories on the early history of the Bahá’í Faith). We read one chapter of this every week day. I am using Charlotte Mason style narration with this book - meaning I read a complete chapter to him, then he narrates the chapter back to me.

Domino math, again hadn't used it since I posted about it and Rylan really enjoys it.

Reading race: I printed out these words (in this case I focused on words that end "in a silent e" which makes "the vowel say it's name"). I placed half the cards on one chair and the other half on another chair a couple meters away, he had to run back and forth (get some exercise too!) reading the word cards. For fun I timed him to see how fast he could do it. Rylan loves challenges like this.

Lastly, writing practice. Photocopied out of his Handwriting Without Tears workbook. He had to write the words and build "Mat Man" using the foam letter pieces I made.

Now to Damian's boxes. Damian is really into puzzles right now, hence all the puzzle work...this is an animal puzzle that I cut out of one of Rylan's old Click magazines.

A farm tractor number/shape puzzle (also bought from Costco this weekend - they had a special pack of 3 puzzles for $10!).

Peg sound puzzle by Melissa and Doug.

Letter practice - I usually give him about 3-4 letters at a time. This time we used Leap Frog Fridge Phonics.

Sand paper letters, again just a few.

And that is what we did this morning (plus play with friends at the park).