Workbox Wednesday, Christmas edition, Pt. 1

The children were nestled, all snug in their beds,

While Mom ran around, going out of her head. . .

A familiar scene to many homeschooling parents, and workbox users in particular, I'm sure. ☺

Tonight my mission was to get Christmas copywork up and running, and, by tinsel, now I can rest . . . for the moment.

For this round of copywork, I gathered quotations and parts of poems, Christmas carols, and prose to use for DS (12 in January) and DD (8). While I pulled largely from the internet, I did check sources when I could, and included authors and publication dates as available. The font size is larger than the Thanksgiving copywork I posted for some reason--Microsoft Word tells me both documents use the same size and font, but I beg to differ. Anyway, if anyone would like to use these secular Christmas selections, please do so, and let me know if you have any problems downloading them.

Christmas Copywork

Workbox Wednesday, Thanksgiving edition

Thanksgiving has been the workbox theme around here since last week, and here a few samples.

Copywork slips with Thanksgiving quotes can be found in this cornucopia basket, which was my grandmother's.

I chose to give different quotes to each of my older two kids, so I stamped each slip with either a leaf or an apple and made sure they knew whose was whose. The writing paper is from abcteach.

DD (8) has some alone time with her grandmother tomorrow so I'm leaving this hinged puppet project in her last workbox; from History Pockets: Life in Plymouth Colony.

Thanksgiving-themed verbal analogies from Enchanted Learning. DS (11) is getting the Thanksgiving version of a "grammar potpourri" worksheet from that same site in one of tomorrow's boxes.

Word problems having to do with Thanksgiving from abcteach are keeping both kids' math skills sharp while we take a little break from Right Start Math. We'll hop right back into the curricula as soon as December 1st rolls around.

Schlessinger Media DVDs are great--we were lucky enough to get this one (Early Settlers) and one about Plimouth Plantation via interlibrary loan to watch this week. Wish this company would start streaming videos, and soon!

A few of the many Thanksgiving books that have made their way into the boxes in the past week or so.

Squanto's Journey, by Joseph Bruchac

Thank You, Sarah--The Woman Who Saved Thanksgiving, by Laurie Halse Anderson

The First Thanksgiving, by Jean Craighead George

The New Americans (part of The American Story series), by Betsy and Giulio Maestro

I'll post more as time allows.

Workbox Wednesday, Columbus Day edition

They're not all related to Columbus Day, but here are some highlights from last week's workboxes:

Kumon Let's Cut Paper pages

Melissa & Doug World Map Floor Puzzle

Three ships coloring page

Asterix the Gladiator (soon to be followed by others in the series)

The Discovery of the Americas tells more than just the story of Columbus (authors: Betsy and Giulio Maestro)

Draw Write Now, Volume 2

Animals Christopher Columbus Saw by Sandra Markle

Latin worksheet and flash cards

What serves for logic these days: Mind Benders from Critical Thinking Press

Workboxes are still making our days run pretty darn smoothly, though the almost-five-year-old has lost a bit of interest, unless there's play-dough or Playmobil in his boxes. But he did come running when he heard Jim Weiss reading Story of the World this afternoon (Rome finally fell today, YEAH!), and his conversations are still full of words like "illustration" and "adjective," so I think we're okay.

Workbox Wednesday, Pt. 2

More highlights from this week:

The book is A Pocket Dictionary of Greek and Roman Gods and Goddesses, by Richard Woff. The idea was for O (11) to thumb through, pick a couple of favorites, read & write about them and then draw a picture of them as he sees them. Everything but the drawing happened. Sigh. Kid has major issues when it comes to artistic confidence.

Geography flash cards by region and a worksheet to reinforce the information learned.

A consistent favorite: an audiobook of Rosemary Sutcliff's Eagle of the Ninth.

E (8) loved reading about the contrast between light and dark in Looking at Pictures, by Joy Richardson. Revised edition due out October 1st, though already in stock at Amazon. We currently have it checked out of the library, but will be buying our own copy.

Review of telling time to the quarter hour with Time & Money.

Interesting experiment--I'd never asked E to do anything like this. I think she'll like it better the second time, now that she knows what she's aiming to do. It was surprisingly difficult for her to draw a mirror image of the pictures shown.

Workbox Wednesday, Pt. 1

Week three with workboxes is going pretty well, though I am still up way too late at night (or early in the morning). We've tweaked a bit here and there to get some more group time, and I split up the older two on a couple of subjects with which E (8) was getting frustrated working at her older brother's level, which basically means I am sitting down with someone (or several someones) at all points of the day. Good thing I enjoy my job.

Here are some highlights from this week:

corn meal, a small cookie sheet, and a chart of patterns to make

M (4) loved this activity. I did not like the clean-up, though, so I'm thinking it will make a good on-the-deck activity until it gets too cold. Maybe then we'll try something that doesn't resemble beach sand quite so much.

Clip the clothespins to the tongue depressors craft sticks. Each stick has a number and the corresponding number of spots to clip (except nine--that one was an oops as a result of late night workbox-filling).

Someone in the workboxes yahoo group gave me this idea, so I made up a card (it's laminated now--have I mentioned how much I ♥ my laminator?), and showed M. what I meant. The result is below.

More after I've slept a little and had a lot of caffeine.