Our New System - Week 2

"N" recently started kindergaten at a local homeschool coop.  She goes twice a week, with me teaching her class (k-2) one of the days.  The day that I teach, "A" goes to the preschool class.  On the days she stays home, we still have work to do, so I came up with this workbox-ish system that has been working well for us (for all of 2 weeks).  "N" and "A" both have their drawers with activities.  Before "N" can do her drawers, she needs to write in her journal and do a math lesson with me, and then do her math workbook (the co-op uses Saxon, and she's in the math 1 book).

"N"s drawers are on the left.  This week she has: 

• Tens and Ones
• I made up some numbers onto squares of paper and gave her a tens and ones chart, along with 4 rods of tens and 10 ones.  She chooses a number, then illustrates it with her manipulatives.
• stamping words
• she's not doing spelling per se, but I have old spelling lists from when I taught first grade that I gave her so that she can choose words to stamp.  She mostly just does the family's names, which is great!
• chalk
• We have a chalkboard that we made out of a cake pan and chalkboard paint.  "N" loves all things art, so this is just a drawer for her to have fun with.

"A"s drawers are on the right.  This week he's doing 

• Find My Name
• Last week in the preschool they were working on recognizing their names, so I wanted to tie it with his home "school".  I printed 5 of his name and one each of the rest of the family's names and he puts them into 2 columns.  He needs a LOT of help with this activity.
• circle stickers onto dots
• This is good for practicing fine motor skills.  "A" loves stickers!
• magnets
• I put some magnets on a cake pan and he plays with them.  So far he's lined them up by color, put them around the edge of the cake pan, and figured out that all magnets don't hook to each other!

When they get done with their drawers, they get to use the sensory bin.  This week (and last) they have wheat, with a variety of scoops, funnels and containers.  The red tablecloth underneath the bin is for containing some of the spilled wheat.  It's worked really well.  And both kids enjoy using the brooms to sweep up what doesn't land on the tablecloth.  A child-size broom is on my list to buy...

 Here "A" is doing his circle stickers onto dots activity.  I figured he would do on page a day and move on.  Not so!  The first day he did all four pages!

This is the sheet "A" used for his stickers.