What’s in the WorkBox: Kindergarten edition

I really enjoy seeing samples of what others are using in their workbox system. It was blog posts by other homeschool moms showing how they used their workbox system in their school day that inspired me to want to give it a try. I also am hooked on seeing what curriculum and creative ideas others use with their kids.

So, here is my first “What’s in the box Wednesday” post. Except the day I took the photos was Thursday and I am posting it on a Saturday. Oh well, it still will provide a glimpse of our school days this past week.

The Usborne Book of Living Long Ago: I love this history book and its illustrations. Even I feel like I am learning as I read it out loud to Adrianna. This week, we read about “Chinese Ways” from 500 years ago.

What's in the Box Wednesday: Kindergarten Workbox Example

The Usborne Children’s Encyclopedia: Like the book above, this is another amazing book from Usborne. It contains science and history. This week we read about Ming China around 500ish years ago. This book also has a website with many linked resources to supplement and enhance whatever subject you are studying. Adrianna and I used google to search for images of the Great Wall of China.

What's in the Box Wednesday: Kindergarten Workbox Example

I Can Read It! Book 1: This particular subject (reading) tends to be one of our most difficult to complete each day in terms of motivation on Adrianna’s part, so I always try to put it towards the beginning of our day, basically so we can get it over with. I also try to sandwich it between two books that I read out loud to her so that the subjects before and after are easier for her.

She is doing well with her reading and can read or sound out consonant-vowel-consonant words pretty easily when she wants to.

What's in the Box Wednesday: Kindergarten Workbox Example

The Light at Tern Rock: A fiction read-aloud book that we read through this week. She wasn’t as into it as some of the other read-alouds we’ve done in the past with the Sonlight curriculum.

What's in the Box Wednesday: Kindergarten Workbox Example

Explode the Code 1: Our writing curriculum which basically is a workbook of activities to get her thinking, reading and writing vowel-consonant-vowel words. She usually does very well with these.

What's in the Box Wednesday: Kindergarten Workbox Example

What's in the Box Wednesday: Kindergarten Workbox Example

For math, one thing we are currently working on is learning how to tell time on both regular and digital clocks. So far we have worked on the full and half hours. These worksheets I found for free online and are not part of our normal curriculum. We also practice identifying the time using a whiteboard, on which I write a digital clock time, and by moving the big and little hands on some clock faces that came with our Saxon Math curriculum as a manipulative.

What's in the Box Wednesday: Kindergarten Workbox Example

Weather: For science right now we are learning more about the weather. This week we discussed how animals adapt and survive different weather by their fur coats changing color or by migrating.

What's in the Box Wednesday: Kindergarten Workbox Example

National Geographic Kids Magazine and Great Migrations Map from the National Geographic Magazine: We recently subscribed to National Geographic and also National Geographic Kids. I was so excited to see the first kids magazine that we received talked about animal migrations since that lined up with what we talked about in our Science class. And even better was the fact that one of our recent National Geographic magazines included a map of animal migrations as well. Love it! So these made it into a workbox to expand upon animal migrations this week.

What's in the Box Wednesday: Kindergarten Workbox Example

Arts/Crafts: I try to include some fun projects or even small dollar store toy incentives in our workboxes from time to time. Adrianna loves to paint, so these new paints and brushes were a big hit.

What's in the Box Wednesday: Kindergarten Workbox Example

With our new paint, we painted Adrianna’s hand and made a turkey out of it. I found the idea on Itsy Bitsy Learning. My little girly-girl decided to add a crown, a bib, and jewels at the ends of the turkeys feathers.

For more workbox ideas, you can visit Confessions of a Homeschooler every Wednesday.

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6 Responses

  1. Hilary says:

    Wow! I have never seen those drawers before. They are very neat and perfect for workboxes!!! I have been using milk crates and clear plastic folders for our workboxes and it seems to work well for us.

  2. Ceci says:

    My daughter loves the Usborne books in our Sonlight materials. These history books look more interesting than the Children’s History of the World (we weren’t too impressed with that book) So we have been using her historical readers and talked about them instead.

    • Aren’t the Usborne books awesome?! I am so glad I was introduced to them by using Sonlight. I think I enjoy reading them as much as my daughter does.

  3. Annette Nelson says:

    I don’t homeschool but I love learning new ideas for organization and teaching. I might have to look up more homeschooling sites to get other ideas for my future classroom. thanks and please keep sharing.

  4. Nicole says:

    Thanks for sharing! We are about to start core A as well! Can you please please tell me where you found your workboxes?

    THANKS!

    • Hi Nicole,

      We loved Sonlight so much last year that we will be doing it again this year too. This time, we will be tackling 1st grade. 🙂

      We got our workboxes at the Container Store. They are the elfa brand. We liked that they were pretty solid and that you could mix and match from three different sizes of drawers (some are deeper than others) and that they are a nice, wire mesh. They are more expensive than other workboxes I’ve seen, but I figured I could use them in a closet or for other storage later should we decide not to use the workboxes anymore. 🙂

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