Workplans (instead of workboxes)

If you click on the page link above and take a peek at our schoolroom, you'll likely see photos of some drawer/boxes that I originally planned to use like "workboxes".  To be honest, this system did not last long.  I have kept the boxes because it's nice for each boy to have his own shelf with a dedicated place to keep the materials for various subjects.  However, I have never ended up filling the boxes with work to be completed individually by the boys.  Instead, what I have done up until very recently is write out a list of work to be done for the day on an index card.  Each boy has their own card and they can check off each item once it's completed.  This system has worked very well, especially for my oldest son.  He has become much more responsible about getting his work done and can move from one activity to the next without interrupting me when I'm working with my younger son.  One downside to the cards (especially for my oldest son) is that because they are small, they tend to get lost during the day.  Perhaps that seems surprising since we are only using them right in our own home!!  Still, they often get placed under things or taken into another room and "forgotten".

When I decided to move to a more Montessori-based approach to our homeschool, I made some changes to our system.  Now, instead of writing up a list for each day, I type up a workplan that shows what work needs to be done in each subject for the whole week.  I require that they do at least one "work" in reading, language, and math each day.  Otherwise, they can work at their own pace and do the subjects in any order they want.  If they want to work ahead, that's okay.  In fact, I told them that if they finish everything by Thursday, they can have Friday off!!  We'll see how that works.  I'm hoping they will make it their goal to get almost everything done during Mon-Thur each week so we can be more relaxed on Fridays.  Maybe we'll plan field trips then, or maybe I'll let them look through my back issues of Family Fun magazine to choose a fun activity to do on Fridays.

To prevent our workplans from getting lost, I clip each boy's plan onto a clipboard.  My oldest son's board is shown below.

How I plan for my first grader's reading block

I wanted to write a post to explain how I've been planning reading for my first grader in case it might help some of you out there.  As a former special education teacher who worked with struggling readers, I have pretty firm beliefs about what components should be included daily for beginning readers to build a solid foundation of reading and writing skills.  Therefore, our reading/language arts (R/LA) block each day has the same general components or activities which include:  writing, guided reading, re-reading, working with words, and independent reading.  During our R/LA block I work directly with my little guy for the most part.  We can usually complete everything in about 45 minutes give or take, and I don't usually time it, so that's an estimate.  During the time I work with my first grader, my fourth grader is doing his own 30 minutes of independent reading from a self-selected text as well as reading the next chapter of our focus literature text.

We usually start with writing, but not for any particular reason.   I am using my son's interest in Legos to encourage his writing.  To start the school year I had him create a scene with his Legos.  Then I had him act out the scene.  I took "action" photos as he moved the pieces and narrated the story.  Then I printed all the photos out on printer paper, one per page, and he wrote his own book using his ideas and his own Lego creation as a basis for the story.  He wrote one page per day until this book was finished.  Below you can see the first page of the book.  He never complained once about writing!!  He finished his fire truck story and is now working on writing a page each day in a Lego Mini-Figure book I made for him.  He writes two sentences in this book each day.  I'll try to remember to post photos of that book sometime soon.

Guided reading is a "teacher" term that simply means reading with some adult support.  I use printed books from Reading A-Z as the basis for my first grader's guided reading texts right now because most readers that are commercially available for young readers are either a.) too phonetic or b.) too hard.  Reading A-Z offers a range of printable books with lesson plans (which I don't use, but they're very well-done) for the most beginning readers (one or two words per page) through about the fifth grade reading level.  For my example in this post, I'm showing the book Scaredy Crow, which I chose as our focus text last week. Once I selected that core text, we pulled skills from it throughout the week which I'll show in a minute.  The first day, my son and I looked through the book at the pictures and talked about the story.  I pointed out a few words I knew he wouldn't know and also told him and pointed out the names of the main characters.  We also talked about some features of the text such as quotation marks around the words the characters spoke.  Then I had him do his "first reading" of the book.  The next day and one other day during the week he re-read it to me.  More about that below.  In the photo you can see the book along with a cut and paste worksheet I found with -ow words.  Since the book made reference to "scarecrows" and "crows", we used -ow words for some of our word work this week.  

 Re-reading previously read texts is very important for emerging readers and may be something you haven't thought to have your students do.  Here's why it's so important.  The first time a child reads a new text, they are focusing so much on pulling the words off the page that their fluency (how smoothly they read) does not have a chance to develop.  Additionally, they are working so hard to solve unknown words that their comprehension may be somewhat affected as well.  So.......be sure to have them go back and re-read at least short bits of text they've previously read.  I always have my little guy re-read a new book at least one time.  Poems are also a great type of text to re-read several times because their rhythmic nature can really facilitate reading fluency.   This week I found two poems about crows and scarecrows online.  I printed them out and read them to my first grader on Day 2 of our week.  I had him select the one he wanted to learn, then we read it together a few times.  He continued to practice this poem throughout the week and read it to his grandmas on the weekend.  And boy did his fluency improve!!!  I had him illustrate the poem and we'll put it into a poetry binder along with other poems we use and learn in this way.

Our "word work" time each day always consists of working with both sight words and decodable words in some way.  I wrote some about our sight words and word wall in this post.  Each day we review the sight words on his "word ring" and practice spelling them in some way (i.e. writing on marker board, writing with gel pens on black paper, spelling with magnet letters, stamping with letter stamps).  Additionally, we do more word work either with a lesson from All About Spelling (3 times per week) and/or with a skill I've pulled from our focus text.  This week as I said above, we worked on words with -ow (long o sound) since it tied into our story and poem for the week.  One day I spelled the word scarecrow with our magnet letter tiles (on a burner cover........these are great, cheap magnet boards!) and had him rearrange the letters to make new words, then he wrote those words in his spelling notebook.

One final extension we did this week was making a "scarecrow" book.  I found a simple graphic in Microsoft Word and printed three pages with the text "My scarecrow can scare away _________" and my first grader filled in an animal name and drew it next to the scarecrow.  The last page said, "But he doesn't scare me!!"   You can see one of his pages below.

So that's how I plan a well-rounded, interest-driven reading program for my little guy.  I'm really happy so far with how it's going.

OOPS!  I almost forgot!  I also have him read for about 15-20 minutes to himself each day.  He can choose any of the books we've done with guided reading, but he usually chooses from a box of Scholastic Lego Readers that we have.  One funny thing........he loves to go into his little "reading cave" to do this.  He uses a laundry basket with blankets draped over the top and sits inside to do his reading.  Luckily, I can hear him reading inside the cave so I know he's not just chilling out in there!!  The photo below shows his little reading cave.  In this photo he's sitting on a chair in our schoolroom, but now he usually sets it all up on the end of the couch.  His little stuffed kitties go inside the cave with him and he lines it with pillows, then puts his box of books in the laundry basket part.  He sure couldn't read this way in public school!!  It's great to be a homeschooler!!!

How we're using "workboxes"

When I was initially thinking about homeschooling I came across several blog posts about Sue Patrick's Workbox system.  I really fell in love with the idea of having school work organized this way; however, as I saw others' ideas and thought about how to do it without purchasing a lot of extra containers, I decided to utilize some plastic drawers I already had.

As described on my schoolroom page, each of my guys has a shelf with their drawers and materials.  I use adhesive velcro dots to place a label on each drawer and these may change from day to day since they only have 6 drawers each.  Also, I've decided to only do science twice a week and history twice a week, so those drawers flip flop each day.

As I write this we are only two days in and so far the boys aren't using these drawers very independently in terms of "working through" them.  However, at this stage I am wanting to sit with each of them, especially as they do their core subjects, so I can assess where they're at and then determine what might be most appropriate for them to begin to do on their own.

For now, I'm using some pieces of cardstock that I laminated to write their "assignments" on, and I place these in the corresponding drawer.  These can easily be wiped off each day and reused.

In the above photo you can see one set of my oldest son's drawers.  In the photo below, you can see his "assignment card" along with the necessary materials (in this case, his Reading A-Z book and science notebook).

I guess you could say that for now we are mostly using our "workboxes" to organize their work instead of as a system to increase their independence.  And for now I'm fine with that.  I really like having a designated spot to put all the materials they need for each day.  It seems a lot easier to break that all down by subject instead of having it all glopped together somewhere in our schoolroom.  The drawers are not wide enough for all my teaching manuals, but for the ones that fit, it's nice to be able to stick the manual in the drawer along with a paper-clipped assignment card.  So far, it hasn't been taking me a whole lot of time each night to get the drawers ready for the next day. 

Planning our year

 I decided to write a post about how I'm organizing my planning for our first year of homeschool.  I'm sure as time goes on, I'll tweak this a bunch, but this is what I'm using to start.

I've made a binder that holds several forms and planning sheets.  It will be my "bible" for everything important in one place.  In it I have an attendance sheet for each boy.  I found these at Homeschool Launch.  Next is a section with monthly calendar sheets.  This is where I can write extracurricular activities such as piano lessons, soccer, etc.  Following the calendar sheets are weekly planning lists.  I have a separate lesson plan book that my cousin gave me for free that I am using to write our day to day plans.  These planning sheets will serve as a to-do list for things I need to copy, prepare, and gather for each homeschool week.  I tend to write to-do lists on little scraps of paper, anything I can find, and leave them all over the place.  So I know I will benefit from having these sheets in the binder where I can always find them!!  The monthly calendar sheets and weekly planning lists are both from Mama-Jenn. 

Next, I have a Books I've Read sheet for each boy, also found at Homeschool Launch.  (Note:  You'll have to scroll down quite a bit; it's under the "Organization" heading.) This will be a nice place to keep track of what they read independently throughout the year.

Then I have a section with sight words lists for my first grader.  I have both the kindergarten and first grade lists from our local school district.  Next up are some spreadsheets I made to keep track of the Right Start math lessons for each boy.  When we complete a lesson, I'll check it off and add the date we finished with any additional notes.

At the end of the binder I have a list of "independent choices" for each of my sons.  I think this will be useful for me to refer to either when planning for the week or to pull out during the week as needed to remind me what I can give one to do while I help the other one.  I am planning to write a separate post listing some of the choices on this list.  Many of the ideas are ones I've found on Pinterest this summer.

In the front pocket of the binder I have a menu-planning list to help keep me on-track with planning healthy meals each week.  I'll probably share about that in a future post too.

I'd love to hear from the rest of you about how you organize everything.  Leave me a comment if you have a great planning resource.