What's In Our Kindergarten Work Bin

Something a little different.  I wanted to share what's in the Elementary-aged kids' work bins, and today's post will focus on Kinder Kid's bin.  These materials are what we are working on at the moment, and the contents of the bin change frequently as we add and subtract materials.  We also have days where we don't work out of the bins at all, and learn in some entirely other fashion.  

Since Kinder Kid is receiving services for Sensory Processing Disorder, we have these cool ocean-themed, laminated cards that describe stretches and exercises you can do to give yourself some good sensory input in order to help keep focused.  The whole pretending-to-be-a-sea-creature helps do this in a fun, not forced manner.

Sight words in flashcard style, and a book of short sentences using only sight words, for review.

Standard dominoes.  We got these in someone else's trash pile and rescued them from landfill death.  Kinder kids uses them to practice simple two-digit addition, and they are also a great visual for teaching the doubles facts up through 6. 

Math manipulatives that we picked up for 50 cents at a Mom's sale.  This stuff is so cute, but so expensive at the teacher's shops.  He doesn't often use these for counting or actual math since his mental math skills are ahead of level.  We use them more frequently for Fine Motor activities, like picking them up and sorting them with those blue pincer tweezer things on the left.

Also acquired for change at a Mom's sale.  It's somewhat written for older kids, but covers clear instructions on what to do in situations like a fire, someone touching you in a private area, or a lost pet and more.  Kinder Kid are our 3rd grader both are involved when we discuss this book.

A very simple 5-item picture schedule.  Kinder Kid responds much, much better to visual instruction rather than verbal.  At one point, we used a general picture schedule for most of his day.  It really helped him learn his morning and evening routines, and now that he has them down pat, we no longer use those.  But this small schedule helps him see what is next, and he knows he is working towards a Play Break or being done for the day.  It has saved us from many a tantrum!

Okay, confession.  I love cute little storage items.  These plastic supply cases from Walmart are beyond PERFECT for each kid to store THEIR favorite pencil with it's own special gripper, plus THEIR scissors, gluesticks and one marker and crayon for each color.  This way we have no confusion or argument over supplies. 

A ruler.  Free from our township's Fire Safety night.  Keeping it in the work bin means no one has to run upstairs to the desk drawer and get one when we need one. 

Can't remember where we got this book from, but I know I didn't purchase it.  We generally end of with a bunch of workbook review books for multiple levels each year, and I just go through and pick and choose what we want to use.  We usually use about 1/5 of the material, the rest ends up being redundant and we don't waste our homeschoolers time by beating concepts to death if they already get it. 

Every year they get one of these "Make Your Own" books from Lakeshore Learning.  They can draw and write anything they want, at any point during the year.  It's a neat little keepsake to showcase where their skills were at and what they liked that year. 

When we get to a concept, sometimes on purpose or most times accidentally, if we don't have a resource at hand, I just make one quick.  Kinder kid wanted to sort coins, so I made him this quick sheet to make piles on and to give him a visual.  Now that we started money sorting, we'll pull it out once per week or so and work forward.

His therapists at TheraPlay made this Heavy Work options sheet for him.

A random assortment of worksheets that I either pulled out of existing books or found online for free. 

Free resource from www.teacherspayteachers.com - Skip counting by 10.  Print on cardstock and laminate for mere cents at Lakeshore Learning with a teacher's account. 

A cheap and fun resource.  Their are regular dice and dice that go up to 12, and all sorts of different activities and games to do with them.

We always have a read aloud book in our work bin.

Another hand me down from someone who didn't use a single page.  Score!

Not sure where I got these, but I've had them for several years.  We don't use these often, but when a small child starts to consistently form all of their letters correctly, then we start putting them on lined paper and tweaking the location of those p's and g's and y's and such.

No one knows how this got in his bin, but we found it at the bottom and put it on in the background one day.  It was pleasant and we then went on to research a little about these famous musicians.  Love those homeschool rabbit holes!

Weeks 14 and 15

Maybe it's just better to blog 2 weeks at a time. 

Maybe.

We'll see. 

But posting Weeks 14 and 15 today means we are caught up.  For now. 


Week 14
November 27 to December 1


1) Monday was an after-holiday, now-the-floor-is-clean-again, back-to-normal school day.  We kept Tot busy with markers and stickers and elementary kids jumped on their math and language arts.  Then, since we recently got an awesome deal on a local zoo membership, we went to the zoo!  We'd been members for years and kind of got bored with it (it's pretty small compared to city zoos) and then of course the year that we didn't renew, they completely renovated and added lots of new exhibits!  So, we're back and exploring all the cool new animals and habitats.  

Busy busy

Deep into math

We sent her out to play in the leaf pile

We watched Rock N' Learn Spanish together

One of the new exhibits at the zoo

Tot loves the big eagle's nest slide

2) Tuesday we had a regular day, but not a science day (I know!  Tuesdays are supposed to be science.)  They did math and language arts, Kinder kid read some BOB books, and 3rd grader did some logic games with me.

Our Elf returned Thanksgiving night, and is up to his old tricks

3) Wednesday we did more math and language arts, and logic games, and since it's field trip day officially, we went back to the zoo!

The headphones help cancel out distracting noise.

4) We broke out of out math and language arts groove.  3rd grader did Minecraft homeschool, she build a Safari hut and vehicle and learned about animals that live in desert conditions. She also did some phonics.  Kinder kid did math dominoes and played some board games with me. 

Tot grabbed kinder kid's math manipulatives, and sorted them by type.  She's got a collection of cars in the middle there by her hand.  

Kinder kid chews on a chew necklace for some sensory jaw input while working.   Since he is mostly a Sensory Seeker, these types of things help keep him regulated while doing his school work, and other times of the day.

Apples, nutella, and math dominoes.  

We switched out the IKEA swing in his room to a trapeze bar with rings.  Pulling himself up or hanging from the bar or rings provides him with good shoulder input. 

5) Friday the big kids did some of their routine stuff to wrap up their week and then I assigned them plus the 3rd grader a build in Minecraft - they all made gingerbread houses.  They came up with some pretty neat designs, and the 9th grader's house had trip-wire, time-delayed fireworks in red and green.  To keep kinder kid out of their way, he and I did Snap Circuits while Tot napped.  We spent some of the afternoon on house chores and room clean up, and then went down to an open park within walking distance.  We try to get out there 2 to 3 times per week before the sun goes down.  We usually bring a soccer ball or frisbee, and there's trees to climb and lots of space to just run or "collect Nature" as the kids say.

Yes, I know he is in the same clothes as yesterday.  I promise he didn't get dirty while sleeping.  It happens.  I always make them change by Day 3.

The spinning wheel is his favorite. 

Tot wants to climb, too!

There's a 6th grader up there somewhere. 

Week 15

December 4 to 8

1) December?!?  Wow!  We are on our 66th day of school this Monday.  3rd grader began her day by looking up the Bible verse she learned in Kids Church the day before.  She did a few pages in her multiplication book, Phonics and Word Study, and Spanish.  Kinder kid did a bunch of different math - shapes, domino dice, measuring in inches.  He also read me his BOB books.  It's about to get much colder around here so we went to the playground in the afternoon. 

Tot made art.

Bikes and trikes and scooters, oh my!

2) Everyone had their regularly scheduled program, plus a lot of outside play.  Elementary kids and Tot painted pinecones and added glitter.  6th grader had her Orchestra concert this evening and it was wonderful!  It's always amusing to us, though, that when the group plays the songs we've been hearing her practice for the past 3 months, they play them waaayyy slower than she does at home! 

She is in the black long-sleeved sweater with bare legs, center of the pic. 

3) Big kids had history projects to finalize and turn in.  3rd grader had math, language arts and she's working on her chess game online.  She also did music practice.  Kinder kid and Tot went to a Music Together presentation, which was really fun.  Tot was up dancing with the instructor the whole time.  Kinder kid had some sensory trouble when the sticks were handed out and there were 25 kids and parents all tapping sticks together, and he ended up in my lap for most of the hour program.  He did venture out for the bell blocks though.  He tried to hoard a bunch of them once he discovered that there were different notes available.  All in all, I'd say they both had fun, but I would probably only take Tot if I had to do it over.  

She's so picky I made her a lemon balsalmic salad.... for breakfast!  

Tot is loving the Music Together program! 

Bell blocks.  Too bad the toddlers in the room weren't interested in kinder kid's explanation of how vibration creates sound... 

And on the way out of the library, he found this program - I guess we're going back to the library computers for Anatomy lessons!

4) Our kids get taught how to play chess at age 5, so it's kinder kid's turn.  I never thought about how much this could benefit him.  One of the different things about him, besides his sensory processing issues, is that he loves rules, so he really got into the different moves the pieces could make.  He picked it up pretty fast, although he became very (very) concerned about losing.  Obsessively concerned about losing.  So, I just flat out told him that he's a new chess player, which means he's going to be losing for a long time.  That actually worked pretty well.  One of his phrases from Ms. Frizzle on Magic School Bus is "practice makes perfect" so we tapped into that and told him to just expect to lose until he gets better at the game.  The really good thing is, it's gotten us all back into playing chess together.  

5) Friday we wrapped up our week's work and since there was SNOW in the forecast for the weekend, we decided to finally move our big, fun leaf pile to the street so it could picked up by the township leaf sucker machine.  We used lots of teamwork, filling different sized containers, dumping some into larger containers, and kinder kid made his own heavy work by loading a recycling bin onto a sled and "driving" it down the driveway and along the sidewalk and dumping it himself.  We spent about 3 hours out doing this, and their (obvious) reward was S'mores.  It made total sense, as the sticks we pulled out of the leaves we put in the firepit. 

Busted!  We wondered where all the chocolate was going...

To top it all off, we used up that bowl of pinecones making peanut butter and sunflower seed bird feeders for the birds to have something to eat in the snow. 

Weeks 12 and 13 (almost caught up!)

I'm determined to catch up our homeschool blog!  Tot is napping, and I'm in the process of re-coffeeing myself, great time to post. 

Week 12

November 13 to 18

1) On this week's Monday, I have written in my planner that the elementary aged kids took math tests, but I can't remember what they were!  Every now and then we have the kids take tests, either to help gauge where they are with something or for curiosity.  Our state requires grades 3, 5, and 8 to take a standardized test from a published list, but we do one of these every year for grades 2 and up for our own records.   This wouldn't have been the standardized tests, though, as only the older kids did them this year.  It may have been just an online placement test.  Following that, 3rd grader worked on her times tables, and kinder kid did some sight word building with magnetic letters on the fridge.  Later in the car, we somehow got into a discussion on syllables, which turned into a full scale lesson for the kinder guy.

Pajama Day again?? 

Kinder kid's Train-themed schedule helps keep him on track.

It's a bit blurry, but it has 5 icons:  School Work - Block 1, Play Break, School Work Block 2, Play Break, School.  Each School Block is about 20 minutes, then he is done for the day, with the exception of if we are watching anything connected on youtube, Netflix or Amazon Prime, or if we are doing science experiments.  His sit-down written work is no more than 1 total hour per day.

Tot moves on to a different style of puzzle, but becomes busy trying to peel the paper off the wood.  

So we stamp shapes instead.

Some fine motor with the pincer thingies and some math manipulatives before starting another School Block.

Building Sight Words

Math review.

2) No pics from Tuesday, but big news!!  Kinder guy finished his kindergarten math book!  Like, finished it.  Done.  The same guy who we weren't even sure would be able to sit and work.  We are so proud of you, RJ!  We also had OT at the library and 3rd grader did math, phonics, and Word Study.

3) Again, no pics!  Was my phone broken or something??  We did science today instead of Tuesday, our normal science day.  We are using an Evan-Moor book on Space that I found on our homeschool room bookshelf.  I had to do some prep (probably why we didn't do it Tuesday) and they did some projects from the book.  3rd grader also did violin, Minecraft science on animal habitats, and Prodigy Math.  She has been emailing a friend she met at the playground at the campsite from our trip to Massachusetts back in September.  She emails about once per week.  This friend's family sold their house and bought a camper and is traveling all over North America!  It's exciting to open the email and see where they are each week.  Big kids and I did history together, we are studying Africa.  We touched on some big concepts today, like Albino people and how they are at risk of being hunted by witchdoctors for their body parts, and how some cities and peoples in Africa are so poor they sell their children.  It's difficult to have to introduce your children to these concepts but I'd much rather they learn in their own home than from other sources.  

4) Elementary kids continued making projects with the Evan-Moor Space book and had a lot of fun with all the crafty things we were doing.  We also got outside today in the afternoon. 

                                           

We play outside with our goofy grins.

5) Today I did a lot of helping the big kids with their planners, going over their work for the last 2 months and making plans to stick with or change up their learning resources.  Elementary kids watched Magic School Bus: Going Cellular and we researched some of their learnings further. 

Week 13

November 20 - 24

It's Thanksgiving week!  We are hosting 13 people, 7 of which are just us, so it's not all that big of a meal.  We are all pretty much ready for a break.  This week is going to consist of a lot of prep for the feast, including extra house chores, making some table setting pieces, and of course, cooking!

1)  Since Tot is still locked into a high chair for eating, our current 6-seater table was still temporarily working.  But we'd known since we found out she was joining us that we'd eventually need a bigger table.  We had the opportunity to acquire my grandparent's table and picked it up over the weekend, just in time to host Thanksgiving!  Monday was mostly spent gathering recipes, finalizing our grocery list, and shopping to the list.  Our town's stores easily triple their shoppers on holiday weeks so it was disgusting even though it was still 3 days from Thanksgiving.  Somehow we made it through unscathed. 

Old Table and Hutch

New Table and Hutch

It was so nice I had to decorate it.  And then, I loved that teal color so much that I used it in our tablescaping.  Which, for the record, I only learned was a word when I was looking up which way the knives and spoons went in a table setting.  So don't go thinking I'm a regular tablescaper or anything like that.  But I do love teal.  And orange.  And our table looked lovely! 

 2)  Tuesday we got our new cookbook, The Low-FODMAP Cookbook, which I ordered after using a bunch of recipes on the author's blog.  Low-FODMAP is something you can research for yourself, but it sorta, kinda falls relatively into the whole foods, eating clean, GFCF-y category.  So, essentially, it's a collection of recipes where someone has already done the footwork.  Since I already have most of the substitutions for wheat flour and dairy, we opened it up and dove in.

My little bakers at our new table. 

Cranberry Orange Scones

Chocolate Banana Muffins

The kids take a break and check out the giant book of birds of North America that we also acquired from my grandparent's house. 

3) It's the day before Thanksgiving.  I am not feeling rushed or stressed at all because we made lists and planned ahead and we are right on track.  So we make the table setting stuff and we bake some more.  Mostly because we already ate everything we baked yesterday!

I get some ribbon in that wonderful color that matches my centerpiece and get real fancy.  I take the dryer lint out of several toilet paper tubes (we made fire starters out of them and our dryer lint), I clean them off (by blowing on them) and I cut them into napkin holders.  Glue the ribbon on with hot glue, and Ta-Da!  This is as fancy as it gets at our place, folks.  

But now that I have napkin holders, and the cloth napkins I found deep in our old hutch, now I feel compelled to make placemats that match.  Good thing I am ahead in the planning and have time to add some crafty art time to our homeschool week!  We cut out circles for the plate place, then break out the fancy hole punchers and make some confetti to glue around it.

And then, the plain teal circle looked too boring, so I had the kids trace their hands and make them into turkeys, add their name and age plus 5 things they were thankful for this year.  Yes, in my alternate life, I am really a Preschool Teacher.  I know.  Projects like this simultaneously make me happy, and want to barf in my mouth.

All kids who are not toddlers are still baking.  My counters are seriously jacked up.  

Here we have a chicken in the back left, which will be used for parts and broth, totally unrelated to Thanksgiving, except that we'll be using the broth in some recipes and my neighbor needs some for his recipe.  It was just time for broth.  The other large stockpot is the brine for the turkey.  And the muffin tin is holding some really fantastic Gluten Free dinner rolls.  Seriously, GF bread is not really on my faves list, but these were really, really delish!

Baking upon baking means dishes upon dishes.

 4)  Thanksgiving Day!  We all worked together, off of a written to-do list with name assignments and a time table for the food, reheating, serving, etc.  Everything came together wonderfully!    This day doesn't count as a homeschool day, but the other days they all sure did enough Home Economics to count for a lot!

Our Tablescape

From here, you can't even tell there's re-purposed toilet paper rolls on that table! 

I gathered my goobers for a picture. 

5)  We always take off the day after Thanksgiving, too.  Mostly so we can all nurture our Food Babies from yesterday, come down from the excitement, and get out the Christmas Decorations!  Yay!  We also had kinder kid's Theraplay appt. 

Who is this red fat guy?  

Teamwork!

And there's Weeks 12 and 13!  Since this is being posted in our actual 15th week of homeschool this year, we are So. Close. to being caught up!