Workboxes and Charlotte Mason

So, the first question I got from one of my friends when I said I had turned over to Charlotte Mason work for school was “So you don’t do workboxes anymore?”  And it took me a minute to answer… cuz for the first few weeks we were on this new kick, I didn’t use the workboxes.  As she asked that I was wondering if I could make them work with the new adjusted curriculum and I just wasn’t sure.

Over the next few days I read and researched on how I could keep my beloved workboxes while embracing a new way of learning… I mean really, I used workboxes often when we were doing Waldorf education (and those really DON’T match up for many many ways) so how hard could it be?

The biggest challenge I faced was time when all the kids could be with me to for nature study, in depth unit study, and read aloud time.  I set those up as my first boxes every day and it kind of fell together from there.  Logan’s boxes will be put in future posts like the rest of his curriculum this year, but I want to give you some idea of what I put in Cyan’s other 9 boxes.  (She is 10 years old.)

Math - of course, her lessons from her math curriculum go in this box, but when those start to slow her down I have been adding an extra box of math that has drills, times tables, flashcards, or other things that help her continue to improve and gain speed in her retention of math facts.

Nature drawings - very often I have her pick an item in her nature study to look up on her own.  This is a second item from the one that we study together.  She will find the technical name, draw a picture from a cutting or photo, and perhaps make up a little story about what it was doing that morning or somesuch.  This all goes into the same nature notebook as we work on together… her’s is just longer than Logan’s or mine and will (I believe) me more treasured because she has her own personal take on these bits of nature.

In this box last week I put in Sun Print paper.  The first day the sun was out in force and we were able to do some cool sun prints outside.  The second day it was really cloudy and so we did them under my grow lamps in the laundry room!  It was really fun and all of the sun prints went into our nature notebooks.

Handcrafts - working on her knitting, paper craft, painting, wet on wet water color, etc is often dropped into one of her boxes.  Her free time is often full with creating forts and other normal kid things outside. 

Cooking - We are very food-focused around here.  Cooking skills are wonderful to have and so I will drop a recipe in her boxes from time to time.  This is also the place where I put her recipes from other cultures if we are reading/learning about some place new.  It adds a whole other way to remember the lesson: Taste!

Memory Verse - In this box I use anything from a verse from the bible to a quip from a Robert Frost poem and sometimes even a Shel Silverstein limerick. She has to read, write, and say aloud to me her verse in this box.

Lapbooks - Although not really CM oriented, Cyan’s lapbooks or lap notebooks are a good way to have a visual review of facts.  I will put already completed lapbooks for her to review the facts inside, or sometimes incomplete lapbooks with materials to work on further from our unit studies.  These, of course, are more than what Logan does with us in the mornings. 

Games - These are super fun and I try to make it so we all play together by putting them in the last box, but sometimes she and I just have a little game date. 

Explode the Code - These are great extra work for grammar.  CM relies heavily on narration in the early grades but for 5th grade work, I am also interested in some of the technical aspects of Cyan’s work.  I want her to know where a comma goes and what type of punctuation to use if she wants to make a stronger sentence.  These types of things are often reviewed in ETC. 

Art Journal - Cyan LOVES to draw, this box is like a bonus for her.  I get a lot of sketch books at the start of the year and I will put them into her boxes when she has been doing really well, or getting all her work done early etc.  She sees this as a reward and looks forward to it when it’s in her boxes.

Music - Yet another way to remember a lesson.  I will drop a music device (CD, iPod, or even my phone with a Pandora playlist) to listen to while she is working on her lesson. 

Videos - This is usually just a post it with a pre-set up computer window that I have selected to go along with the lesson.  It can be a Brain Pop, You Tube video, or video from the Discovery Channel on Netflix… but it always has something to do with the unit study we are working on (currently Praying Mantis.)

Spelling and Charlotte Mason

Spelling has always been an uphill battle in this family.  First with me, who didn’t learn to spell until college, and then with Alex and Cyan, neither of whom spell well even today.  The English language just doesn’t make sense!  So that means that instead of using logic (which we are all very logical people) we have had to just rote memorize a lot of words and even I find that MUCH harder than knowing the rules and using logic. 

This last week I decided to use the Charlotte Mason form of spelling lesson.  I took words that Cyan misspelled from her own work and placed them up on a chalk board at the front of our classroom for the day.  No correction was made to her just then, so she didn’t even know why those particular words were up there.  Then, at the end of the week, I told her that we were going to learn to spell these words.  I chatted with her lightly about where she missed them and how to break down some of these words into parts so that they were easier to remember.  Then in spelling bee format, I had her recite the words while they were still at the front of the room.   “direction.  d-i-r-e-c-t-i-o-n, direction.”  This way she could look over to get confirmation of the word she was working on any time she needed it.  She never had to guess or try to figure out the words using logic (which some do not have…  Whoever decided that ‘tion’ is ‘shun’ was just plain crazy!)

This was on Friday.  She missed one word when we finally got down to ‘testing’ at the end of the day and I had her look at it and write it a few times.  Then on Tuesday I tested her again.  She got all of the 6 words correct. 

Charlotte Mason also says that using Prepared Dictation is a wonderful way to learn spelling.  For example, using a poem or a phrase from a book you have read and choosing a few of the words from that passage to study for spelling.  For us, it works better for my children to have made their own list of spelling words via things they have done like dictation, nature study observations, letters they have written, or lessons they have worked.  So I create a comprehensive list from their own studies.  Both ways work and will give the child that next level of involvement with the words they are learning… and having one more level of learning is what it is all about!

The gentle art of Nature Study

Sometimes a serious reevaluation of things are necessary.  People go through ‘Spring cleaning’ phases where they declutter down to the things they love and get rid of those things that are not useful anymore.  Well I am doing that with homeschooling, time, and priorities right now.  In the last few weeks I have been reading a few homeschooling resources that feature Charlotte Mason Education.  Since literature and poetry are a focus of mine anyway, these ideas were very easy to incorporate into my schooling days.

Charlotte Mason’s thoughts are close in focus to Waldorf Education, but without the pedagogy that is rigorous in it’s ideals of child development.  In fact, I would go so far as to say that it is a better fit for my family because it allows younger children to move faster if they can.  There is no ‘year to year’ set of learning… just the fact that learning keeps moving forward.

Nature Study is one of her main focuses… as it is mine.  The concept of a nature notebook is not at all strange to me or my children.  However, Ms Mason believes that adding to it each and every school day is very important.  Also that one should always have direct contact with nature; including a nature walk or some other form of actual contact such as raising bugs in the classroom or perhaps a pet. 

I adjusted to make Nature Study more of a focus than a hobby during our school days and made it the second box for my children each morning.  That way, for box 1 I can read a book out loud (currently Bambi by Felix Salten) and then move on to Nature Study and then in box 3 is individual animal study (currently raising Praying Mantis).  After that they split off into their own subjects for the next 7 boxes (yes, we now only have 10… I’ll get to that in a later post).

Here are a few snippets from our Nature Study mornings from the past three weeks:

Cyan draws a flowering current twig in a jar of water.

My pea sprout picture (I had so many I didn’t feel at all bad about pulling one up to measure the roots…. which are the same height at this point as the ‘shoot’.  The kids and I thought that was really cool!!)

A pair of mallard ducks that landed in our front yard on the first day of our Nature Study project.  I felt like Mother Nature had put her stamp of approval on the change in our school days!

Logan looking intently at the first open Flowering Current flower. 

“Isn’t it pretty mom?  It looks like a star!”

The next few posts will be dedicated to the changes I have made and how they are working.  Stay tuned!

Ss is for Star Wars Day - um… Week.

I have been waiting for this one for a long time.  Unfortunately, on the day I had it scheduled, Ss was for SICK!  Blech!  We have been sick for over two weeks now.  We keep passing colds back and forth. 

So, today was very slow.  And it may include the Trilogy  by the end of the day.  And we will do have a Star Wars Week instead of Day.  And action shots will have to wait until I have a voice… or a baby without a nasty cold… or both.

Here are some materials I used to get this unit study together:

This adorable Star Wars Preschool Pack from Homeschool Creations

Star Wars Printable Tags

This hysterical set of Star Wars alphabet cards

This party used homemade playdough with glitter as “Galaxy Playdough”… brilliant!

Enjoy!  More ideas and follow through will come in the next few days.

Qq is for Quilt

Box #1 was a few pages from LOTW

Box #2 was a book called The Quilting Bee by Gail Gibbons

It was SO fun to read!!  There were tons of facts in easy to understand bites:

Box #3 is a worksheet I made that had a bed frame picture from the top down that he covered with mosaic squares he glued on.

Box #4 Patterning from LOTW.

Box #5 cutting activity from LOTW

Box #6 was a game called First Words.  He is at the point where he can read most 3 letter words without help and many other words with help. 

Box #7 was a set of huge foam dice and a the game “Roll to the Top”.

Box #8 was Dot to Dot count to 10 book

Box #9 was a pattern block sheet I printed (should have done it on card stock) that is a quilt square.  He loved this. 

Box #10 was completely off theme… but the boys got Ninja Bread Men for Christmas in their stockings and we had yet to make them.  Although we usually make our own cookie dough from organic ingredients, this time we used a gifted dough from a friend and made some yummy treats!

It was an awesome day with the letter Qq!

Pp is for Police

Box #1 was the book What’s Inside a Police Car along with a few handwriting activities and the Pp letter tub from Lakeshore Learning.  I used the printables from Homeschooling Creations for this unit.

Box #2 was two patterning activities.

Box #3 was the count to 10 dot-to-dot book.

Box #4 was a hair comparison venn diagram.

  We got Cyan and our little neighbor girl who has VERY curly dark hair to donate to the cause.  The hair was just different enough that Logan had no issue completing the venn diagram.   

Box #4 was a writing activity again.  We are working through the whole alphabet on handwriting so you will see these in here a lot.

Box #6 Pp is for Pencil pattern sheet.  Still a favorite!

Box #7 Another version of beginning sounds bingo!

Box #8 was a make your own stoplight kit that came along with police prinables from Homeschooling Creations.  Logan cut these circles out all by himself.  I was really impressed!

Box #9 was another book on Police Officers which Don (who was sick today) read to Logan and pointed out all the things that were similar to his job.

Box #10 was a Crime Scene that I created using the book Lu & Clancy’s Crime Scene by Louise Dickson.

We used pieces of Styrofoam to make tooth impressions of each family member and then had someone take a bite out of a cookie.  Then Logan had to ‘investigate’ (his $5 word for the day) to figure out who ate the cookie.  He LOVED it! 

Also in this box was a tiny book for his Pp is for Police lapbook that has numbers of finger prints.  We each donated our fingertips to help him collect how many he needed. 

May be the best school day ever!