I have been wanting to share our kindergarten workbox system for a while now. As a homeschooling mom, I want to have everything easily accessible and available. Interests and ideas will come and go and I want to be ready to grab a teachable moment when I can, so having everything organized is a huge blessings. It’s important to decide what works for each individual family. I love all of our kindergarten curriculum choices and I also love organization, so this is working for us, for now, while we’re still in a small space.
How workboxes are supposed to work
I don’t use our workboxes the way the “workbox” is originally intended. If you’d like to read more about it, you can check out the creator of them here or Erica at Confessions of a Homeschooler here. The basic idea is that each box contains one subject AND one assignment for that said subject. The child will take out each box and then mark off on an available calendar the work that they have accomplished for the day. This allows the child to work independently, and also helps them to see their whole day — how much work they have completed and how much work is left still to do in the day.
How workboxes work for us
Each of my children have a workbox. I put their name up top and labeled each of their bins. Each of our workboxes has that subjects’ books and notebooks. I have six boxes in an (always awesome) Trofast shelf from Ikea. (My preschooler, May, also has one, with four boxes, and I’ll share her contents soon.)
My son’s structured homeschooling time is not yet self-directed, like the above description of the “correct” way to do workboxes would suggest. For us, it is really nice to have each subject separated. And for us, we don’t do the same routine each day. I have a general idea of what I want to do, and it’s fine for me, and my personality, and my son’s needs, to do something different each day. When we are home, I generally stick to this loose schedule.
Our general daily schedule includes:
- American History reading together before May wakes up with some cheese and fruit
- Big breakfast with a Bible story
- Handwriting practice
- My Father’s World letter and science work
- Montessori word building
- Math work with Spielgaben or Montessori manipulatives on mats
- Play time
- Lunch with another Bible story
- Quiet time and reading independently and with mom
- Lots of play and later in the afternoon, we read with our phonics readers, if he is receptive
- Read aloud before bedtime (we just finished Little House in the Big Woods and now we are reading Charlotte’s Web — here is a great read-aloud list for 4-5 year olds)
All of the above is done throughout the house, in the kitchen or living room, in John’s room, or outside on a blanket. I always try to begin a day with handwriting work, which is John’s biggest challenge right now. We work slowly through his materials. (You can see everything we use for his kindergarten curriculum here.)
Our goal is to do the above 3-4 times a week. Other days we are having play group with friends, on field trips to museums or zoos, visiting grandmas, or in the fall, going to our Bible study/preschool type play group one morning a week. We continued the above schedule, loosely, throughout the summer, since we want to practice year-long schooling. We had a big break in August, as I was away from the family for the whole month.
What’s in our workboxes?
Below are pictures and a quick list of what is in our Kindergarten workboxes. A full description and explanation of the WHY for everything little thing is in our kindergarten curriculum plans so make sure to check that one out!! (affiliate links below)
Bible & Read Alouds:
The Golden Children’s Bible: (Here is my post about the Bible materials we love and I have an upcoming post about 12 different children’s Bibles coming soon)
Language & Grammar:
Our poetry books: (Here are our free poetry cards and I have plans to share more about our beloved poetry books soon)
My Father’s World, Phonics & Science:
My Father World: Creation from A to Z Kindergarten Curriculum
Christian Liberty Nature Reader
Handwriting:
My First School Book (formerly Get Set for School)
Mathematics Work
Montessori Math: This is a huge collection of research that I compiled and organized from various interenet sources. I can’t share it here because a lot of it was copy/paste, but I have become so intrigued and excited to be working with Montessori principles and materials with mathematics learning and I look forward to sharing what we do here on the blog.
Skip Count & Addition Facts Songbook and Cd
American History:
American History Notebook and books
**Here is our complete explanation of our Kindergarten curriculum choices! :)
How do you organize your homeschool and subjects?
We are over the moon about our organized bins. Since we don’t stick to a strict schedule, I love to be able to pull out whatever subject suits our fancy, or our interest, at the time. We are currently in a little corner in our kitchen. We have the kids’ workbox shelves, plus some other bins and books, and our art cart. I’ll share the whole area in another post ;)
We are hoping to be moving to a bigger home in the coming year — we’ve been here for eight years with only one bathroom :) Hoping to move on up and have our own room to call “school” lol :) Especially with my newfound respect and love and adoration for all things Montessori Mathematics!!
Please let me know what you do to organize your homeschooling and link up in the comments!
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