Hi everyone! I hope you’re enjoying my What’s in the Workbox Wednesday series. Today we’re taking a peek into the Teeny Tot’s kindergarten workboxes. Right now it takes her about 2 hours to complete her work each day. Some days take a little bit longer because she sits in with us for Science and history. And no, I don’t make her do any written work or tests for those, she just listens in and does crafts with us whenever possible.
Drawer #1: Supplies, Daily Schedule, & Bible
1) Like everyone else, her top drawer houses our expandable drawer organizer and it holds all of the pencils, glue, erasers, scissors, and things she uses on a daily basis. It hangs on the drawer sides, so it can slide back and forth out of the way which is a nice feature. It also expands/contracts to fit most drawer sizes.
2) This drawer also holds our Picture Smart Bible student notebook, which is going great so far. This curriculum is great for elementary aged students. but we do this as a group including my kindergartener. For the kindergartener she is just coloring in the teacher pages, but the others have the traceable pages in their spiral notebook. You can read more about how we use this program here.
3) It also has her weekly assignment printout. I get a lot of questions on this, and it’s just a report from www.homeschooltracker.com that I print and spiral bind for them. Granted a few things change over the year, so you might prefer to print this out on a weekly basis, but for the most part it works to help us keep track of our daily workload.
Drawer #2: Math
This drawer houses all of our math stuff. Teeny Tot is using Math U See Primer this year, so she has the student workbook, and DVD. I pull out her worksheet each day and lay it on top of the workbooks so she knows what to do.
As you’ll notice we don’t have her blocks in this drawer this year. Math-U-See was kind enough to send us a wooden block case which makes it really nice to do math!
We’ve also been making great use of their downloadable math manipulatives app as well! The Teeny Tot loves figuring out her math using the iPad, and it’s great for an alternative, or if you’re doing math on the go as well.
Drawer #3: Daily Learning Notebook & Handwriting
1) In her next drawer she has her elementary daily learning notebook. I actually did a combination of the preschool notebook, and the elementary notebook so she can still have practice tracing her calendar numbers. But you can use it however it works best for you.
2) Abeka Writing with Phonics K5 workbook. Since we’re using the Abeka phonics program I just went ahead and used the Abeka handwriting workbook as well. We do manuscript until about 3rd grade, but they also offer this in cursive.
Drawer #4: Daily Learning Notebook & Handwriting
1) In her next drawer she has the Abeka Think and Learn K5 workbook. This is basically a fun little addition with some logical thinking games in it.
2) And she is also working through the Abeka Letters and Sounds K5 workbook. This is helping review her letters and sounds with fun worksheets. I am also adding in some of my harder K4 activities from last year that she wasn’t quite ready for in this drawer. And yes, I do have the teacher’s manual for the Kindergarten lessons that we use to teach her phonics before moving on to the Letters & Sounds workbook each day.
Drawer #5: Reading and Crafts
This last drawer kind of changes from day to day. Some days she has an art project pulled out from this OLD Abeka Art Projects K booklet that I’ve had in my basement. I also keep her reading books here, and I also put in Kindergarten Dot-to-dot worksheets, 1-20 number writing, and any other fun things that I want her to work on each day.
Here are some other things that the Teeny Tot is doing this year, but that aren’t stored in her workboxes:
- Art: World’s Greatest Artists 2 and See the Light Art DVDs
- P.E.: Family Time Fitness
- Science: Abeka Science 5 & one of my scientist units if we can fit it in! (Yes, she does sit in with our science class, I just don’t give her tests or any written work!)
- Craft time: The Teeny Tot specifically requests to do a craft almost every day, so I’ve been adding in random crafts as I come up with them. Some days I let her paint, play with play-doh, cutting and pasting projects, etc.
And that’s what the Teeny Tot is up to this year! Have some fun things to share about what your kindergartener is doing? Make sure to leave a comment below!
I love reading your work box post especially when it’s about your 5/6 year old as I have the same age, thank you for sharing. However I was a bit confused about who you where speaking about in this post, tinker bell or tiny tot as you mentioned them both.
I am talking about Teeny Tot. I had a typo, but I fixed it. Thanks for letting me know! 🙂
Is the Math U See app free? I thought it was $15.00…Great addition anyway!! Love your posts 🙂
Yes I apologize, I thought it was free, but it looks like it’s not, sorry!
Love these posts! Thanks so much for the Kindergarten Daily Notebook. I was excited to see that the Math U See app was free, but when I clicked on it, it came up as $14.99
I am currently using your preschool curriculum (which I love!) with my 4 year old twins, and am thinking of using the abeka phonics next year with them. I’m thinking we’ll be doing well to know all of our upper and lowercase letters by the end of this year. Just wondering if we should start with the K4 abeka program next year.
Hi Mindie,
As long as your kiddos have a good sense of their letter recognition and sounds for each I would probably start with either My K4 Kindergarten next year, or the Abeka K5 kindergarten. You do NOT want to do Abeka K4 because it’s like prek and more like learning letters and sounds all over again.
How do you get your MUS worksheets out? I love the program but we are struggling with writing in the workbook. I tried pulling a page out but it just shredded. Any tips would be wonderful!
Hi Tabitha,
I haven’t had any problems with it, they have a perforated mark about 1/4″ from the binding that you can tear them out with.
My Primer pages are not perforated 🙁 I was hoping you had a trick. Oh well. Thanks!
I have Primer and the pages are perforated, call the company it may be a mistake.
You can take the book to an office supply store like Staples or Kinkos and the can cut the binding off and even hole punch the book if you want. Not sure how much it costs, but I have done that a few times. You may not need this, but they can also put a spiral binding on books if that feature helps.
Hi Erica thank you for this great post! I have a 4yr old son (actually he’ll be 5 this weekend!) and we have been working on the Horizons Kindergarten curriculum. He knows all of his upper and lower case letters, and can read approx 50 sight words so far. We have fun homeschooling, but when we get to the Horizons books it’s like pulling teeth sometimes. Do you suggest changing curriculum? He just seems to learn so much more when we do more interactive things rather than a workbook, and I read somewhere that Horizons is somewhat difficult compared to other curriculum. If you have any suggestions I would really appreciate it.
Hi Martha. I’ve been using Horizons for 2 years with my 2nd grader. Horizons uses the spiral method. Sometimes it seems random how a new topic is introduced often without any teaching on it. I can see how this would be particularly difficult for younger students. The ability to reason in the brain doesn’t fully develop till children are around 8 years old. I have 7 children and we’ve used lots of math curriculum. My 7 year old using Horizons is not getting it unless I create a hands on learning experience to go with the workbook. With multiple children to teach this is going to get old, so I’ve decided switch to Math u See because it’s already designed that way. At 4 years old I wouldn’t worry about having him sit down and filling out workbook pages everyday. Do the lessons verbally, or with manipulative, or on a white board, or have him tell you the answer and you write it down. Hope that helps.
Thank you Deanna! I really appreciate your response! It is so helpful to hear from others who have done this before ; )
Thanks Deanna,
I haven’t used Horizons so your input is helpful! Martha, you might also take a look on http://www.homeschoolreviews.com to see what other parents say about it as well.
Thank you so much Erica! I really appreciate you taking the time to respond!! 🙂
What a great post!!!! So helpful to me as I plan!!!
Hi Erica,
Thanks for the great post. I love getting your emails! I have a question about MUS. Your blog inspired me to give it a try with my 2nd grader when I discovered he is a very tactile learner. My understanding is I’m supposed to watch the video lesson ahead of time then teach him the lesson myself. With 4 children and a baby in my homeschool, a Tabletclass pre algebra lesson and Sight and Sound Reading lesson I already watch ahead of time, I don’t know how to fit it all in? How do you do MUS lessons with teeny tot and your older kiddos? Are you pre-watching all your kids lessons then teaching them individually? Help!
Hi Deanna,
Yes, we watch the DVD on Mondays then do a worksheet together that day. Depending on the lesson I’ll watch it with them, but if it’s something I can handle then I don’t watch it.
Then they do the worksheets independently the rest of the week and take a test on Friday. Of course I help them during the week if they’re having troubles with a skill.
This is wonderful. Thank you for sharing. I was wondering if this is what consists of her curriculum. I am homeschooling a 5, almost 6 year old and want to be sure I am getting in everything he needs.
What do you use for reading or teaching her reading and spelling?
Hi Nina,
We use Abeka phonics/reading. You can see her full curriculum load here:
http://www.confessionsofahomeschooler.com/blog/2014/07/our-curriculum-choices-2014-2015.html