Wednesday, August 26, 2009

School has begun - for Real

My oldest headed off to his first day of High School on Tuesday - it was a milestone for sure! he was so excited and could hardly sleep the night before. He is my social butterly who THRIVES on being around people! It is going to be an interesting year around our house. Danny and I are just excited to go to the High School football games - is that wrong? Because Alex is not so excited about us being there!

Mommy and the other 3 Boys had a full day of school also on Tuesday. Tuesdays are a hard day for me because my husband is off and he kindof gives a different atmosphere to our day(nothing bad but different) so it was not as s mooth as I would have liked it to be but it was a good day.

I have been gung-ho about workboxes all summer and very excited about putting them into play but when I was scheduling our day I really struggled with how to use them in our day. I could not figure out how they were going to be helpful for me when we do EVERYTHING together and the boys still need my help for LA and Math. It seemed like I was making more work for myself and the boys. Even though a lot of it would be fun stuff - they still need ME to do most everything so I can't figure out how to fill 12 boxes and split myself 3 ways to be able to help them all. It just seems easier to write the games into my planner and our schedule and we can all do them together. So - even though I have put a lot of energy and time into the workboxes - we are not gonna use them at this point in time!
So far the boys are okay with keeping Thomas happy while I work one on one with the other one! But plans always change around here!!

6 comments:

  1. Wow, not only do you have my name I think you have my life lol! My second oldest son started high school this week as well (and his name is Alex...getting goose bumps yet?) He too is very social and we know will enjoy his time there. I still have my 8yo and 4yo boys homeschooling with me. My oldest son is in college. And when you mentioned how things are "different" when your dh is around I so know what you mean! It's great that he is there, but the routine is just not the same. I hope you have a great week! :)

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  2. I discovered as well that my plans for the workboxes wasn't going to work. lol We are using them and they are working out well but not how I intended. I thought I would have all these fun things in them, but like you said it's easier just to plan everything into the schedule. You know though it is working perfectly for my oldest. He is working independently on everything except English and math!! We use the hanging file folders so I put a week's worth of work in each file for each subject and he just works through it. He loves putting the numbers on the grid to keep up with where he is and he knows what is next. WONDERFUL for him!! lol Kaleb's workbox is more like a holding place and filing place for his daily work. Mostly it is for *me* to keep up with where he is throughout the day.
    So I guess I tweaked our already tweaked workbox system!! lol

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  3. I can understand what you mean about the workboxes. My daughter is doing kindergarten this year, so I still help her with most things.

    I am liking the workbox system, because it's a place for me to lay out the next day's work. For preschool, I kind of just did random things and didn't plan much. My daughter is also excited to see what's in her boxes every morning.

    I do think it would be difficult to fill boxes for more than 1 child, though.

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  4. Hi Julie! We are on week 2 of workboxes and we had to tweak it to work for us. We only use 6-8 boxes a day. Caeden would be still doing school at bedtime if I gave him all 12! It has helped him to work more quickly (which really isn't that quick) and it gives him a guage of how his day is going to go. It keeps me accountable as well...if I see the boxes aren't done I am not so apt to push it off until tomorrow. :) It sounds like things are going well for you! Have a fun weekend!

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  5. That's what I love about homeschooling....we can tweak until we find what works for us. Plus, no 2 houses are a like!! You are so organized and wise about your plans :)

    Can you believe....I moved all my bookcases. I put them all upstairs! My house is in chaos and I need to work on my homeschool plan ;)

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  6. I feel the same way about workboxes. It looks like such a good idea- but we work so well with me just handing out work as we go.

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