What's in the Box - Preschool Workboxes

We've been learning about Thanksgiving this week. I'll post more about our Thanksgiving unit later this week, but here is a look into Lexy's workboxes for the week. I didn't get many action pictures. She wasn't in the mood for her picture to be taken.

Writing/Language Arts

I printed this sheet off from childcare land. Lexy is going to use it to write what she is thankful for.
Fine Motor/Language Arts

Lexy and Josiah each made there own set of turkey stick puppets after hearing the poem, "5 Little Turkeys." The printables also came from childcare land. After making and numbering their puppets, they used them to make their own puppet shows for me.

Math


We are still working on counting/number recognition to 100 with Lexy. She counts well up to 50 and then sometimes gets lost. She can count by 10s to 100 pretty well, so I think she could count to 100 if she really wanted to. However, I really like the "Uncle Wiggily Game" for counting to 100. It's a fun for her to practice the numbers without it seeming like a drill.


Memory

I printed off this concentration game last year. It has pictures of Thanksgiving symbols: cornucopia, turkey, mayflower, pumpkin pie, squash, pilgrims. We had fun playing concentration and talking about what the different symbols represent.
Handwriting


A friend let me borrow this handwriting books. Most of our nomral handwriting practice is done in her Explode the Code books or just everyday use. This book has been an "extra" that has been lots of fun for her. She practices writing the letters on the dry erase board. It also has puzzles to put together for each letter and letter tiles to make words that start with each letter.



Cooking


Josiah got in on the action for Lexy's cooking project. We made cut-out sugar cookies shaped like turkeys. Then the frosted them brown. It was a messy project!






Bible


Our Bible story this week is from Matthew 19, "Jesus loves the Children." Lexy's workbox contains cardboard figures of children. We will decorate them with fabric, markers, googly eyes, yarn, etc. to turn them into children. Then, we'll string them together to for a "Jesus Loves the Children" banner.



Reading


Lexy practiced her CVC and two letter words on these turkey cards also printed from childcare land. I would say a word, and she would make the word out of wooden letters.



Phonics
I put this castle game from "Happy Phonics" in to review vowel sounds. This is one of Lexy's favorite Happy Phonics games.
To find out more about our Workbox System read this post.

See what others have in there workboxes at Confessions of a Homeschooler! Check back in a few days to see the fun we've been having learning about Thanksgiving!

What's in the Box?

I've decided to join up with "What's in the Box?" Wednesday at Confessions of a Homeschooler. The boxes listed here are actually from last week, but I'm just getting around to writing the post. To read more about our workbox system check out this post.



Preschool Workboxes



1. Leaf Addition Match - Lexy matched the leaves with simple addition problems with the leaves with their answers. 2. Our theme for the week was leaves. This box contained the book "Leaves! Leaves! Leaves!" We read the book. We also picked fresh leaves off of three trees. Then we observed the changes each day and learned why the leaves change colors. She colored the leaves and described the changes she saw each day.

3. Rhyming Card Game - She found picture cards that rhymed.

4. Story Notebook - We got out her story notebook. She used this to create her own story. Sometimes she cuts out pictures to use, and sometimes she draws her own pictures. She makes up a story to go with the picture, and I write it down.

5. "At" family game - Our phonics game of the week was an "at" family word game. She used the letters to create "at" words and match them with the pictures. She was reading CVC words for the first time! That smile shows how proud she was of herself!

6. Patterns - Lexy used small die cut leaves to create a pattern on the construction paper. We turned this into a leaf hat and glued a large die cut leaf on the front.

7. Fine Motor Skills - Lite Bright

8. Bible - Our Bible curriculum that we're using has puzzle sheets that go along with it. Lexy always enjoys doing worksheets.

9. Music- Her music box contained her books from her music class. She did her home assignments.

Tot School Playboxes

Here's a picture of Josiah's playboxes for the week. I didn't get individual pictures of them all.

1. Felt - Creating faces

2. Blocks - matching colors and shapes

3. Finger Puppets

4. Mr. Potato Heads

5. Building - Lincoln Logs

6. Fine Motor Skills - Lacing Beads

7. Counting - Number puzzles

8. Imaginary Play - Dinosaurs

9. Sensory - Clay

As you can tell, we are really enjoying our new workbox system!

Josiah's First Week Of Tot School

Josiah was very excited about starting his first week of tot school. I've decided to start with focusing on colors. He is able to sort and identify colors; however, he uses the name of the Sesame Street character to identify the color rather than the actual color name. So, we're working on those color names. This week our focus was on apples and the color red.

Fall Sensory Tub: Josiah enjoyed using his new magnifying glass with the Fall sensory tub. It includes walnuts, acorns, pinecones, hickory nuts, and fake leaves.

Tot School Play Boxes

To read more about how we do workboxes, read this post. This week, Josiah's playboxes included:

1. Building - Magneatos
2. Puzzle - Number Train
3. Building - Road track and cars
4. Imaginative Play - Dinosaurs
5. Fine Motor - Lacing Cards
6. Other - Drill Set

Some pictures of him "play learning."

The Color Red

One of his favorite activities right now is to draw. A plain piece of paper and a few writing utensils and he's happy!

He sorted big and little die-cut crayons.

We went on a red scavenger hunt around the neighborhood. They enjoyed riding in the red wagon and using the red pointer to point at red things.

Other red activities included:

1. Playing with colored beanbags. Games such as: find the red ones, throw them into a basket, put the red beanbag on your head/etc.

2. A red collage - sorry I failed to get a picture of it

3. Making and eating red jello

4. Reading books about red - The Color Red, The Big Red Tub, The Little Red Hen, etc.


A Trip to the Apple Orchard

My little buddy was morn concerned about eating his apple cider slushie with his hands than with picking apples. He had fun using the apples he picked to paint!

To see what other moms and tots are up to check out 1+1+1=1!

Our Preschool and Tot School Workbox System

So, I'm finally back from my long blog hiatus. Although I do not have blogs to prove it, we remained busy this summer. We had lots of fun swimming, playing outside, going to parks, and doing all the normal summer things. Some learning happened here and there, too... random science projects, lots of reading, and playing.

Even with all the fun we had, I was very ready to get back into a normal routine. Our first week of school was great! I'll write more about that this weekend (as we still have more to do tomorrow). But, I wanted to take some time to share how we've switched things up this year. We jumped on board with the workbox bandwagon, and it fits us well.

Workboxes for us are done quite differently and on a scaled down version for a preschooler and tot schooler.

Preschooler Workboxes

I have set up 9 workboxes that are done on a weekly rather than daily basis. Each day, during Josiah's nap time, Lexy begins with doing a few pages out of her phonics books (Explode the Code). After finishing her phonics book, she chooses 2-3 workboxes to do each day. After completing the workbox, she takes the label off and places a check mark on it. I used velcro sticky dots to make these.

Here's what she had in her boxes this week:

1. Math: Apple Numbers. Reviewing recognition of the numbers 1-20.

2. Patterns: I die-cut a bunch of little apples in different colors. I made patterns, and Lexy would continue them. Then, she would create patterns for me to finish.

3. Letter Writing: Making S's out of playdough


4. Phonics: Muffin Match from Happy Phonics. This was a review of matching capital and lower case letters. We added a pretend aspect to it by throwing in some chef things. She pretended that she was the baker and needed to get the muffins ready for an Alphabet party.

5. Music: Her piano book was in a box with her assignment to do from music class.


6. Game: To go along with the apple theme of the week, she had to place a certain number of apples (red pom poms) on each tree.

7. Science: Apples. This box included a real apple along with "My Apple" and apple tree sequencing cards. As we read the book, she used her real apple to perform the experiments in the book. Then she placed the sequencing cards in order.


8. Language Arts: Story Bag. This idea came from Chasing Cheerios (not sure where). I placed wooded pieces in the bag. We took turns making up stories with the pieces.
9. Fine Motor Skills: Apple punches. The box included cut out apples, a hole punches, and pipe cleaner worms. She punched holes in the apples and placed worms in them.

TOT SCHOOL PLAY BOXES:

Josiah participates in a lot of activities that we do in the morning time for our theme of the week. Right now, we are also focusing on a color each week with him. I am trying to plan a few fun activities to do with him each morning. However, I've also set up some boxes for him. He doesn't have a certain time each day to do them. They are just there for him to play with as he wants. Basically, these are just a motivation for me to switch out toys so that he can play with different things.

My goal is to have a different building toy, fine motor toy, puzzle, and imaginary play toy each week. Here's what were in his boxes this week:

1. Building: Magneatos

2. Fine Motor: Lacing cards

3. Imaginary: Dinosaurs

4. Puzzle: Number Train

5: Other: Drill Set

6. Building: Road and Cars

7. Other: Calculator

Be sure to check back to see some fun pictures of our first week of school. To see what other preschoolers are up to, check out the preschool corner at Homeschool Creations!