What's in our box Monday?

Well I have not been feeling well for almost two months.  I have been trying my best to keep up, but life has just been kicking my butt repeatedly.  Finally gave up and went to the doctor only to have my thoughts confirmed.  So he put me on meds, which looks to be indefinite...ughh no end in sight for the end:(  The only problem is the meds he prescribed have been causing more exhaustion than I normally have been feeling and they also have been causing headaches.  So I am trying to take the good with the bad...but it has been really hard.  We have also been on a emotional roller coaster with our oldest.  His high and lows can sometimes be counted with minutes.  So on top of everything else, I am keeping a mood/behavior diary for him until our next therapy appointment. 

Anyway...I have been swinging it almost with lessons the last couple weeks.  It was on spreadsheet, and we got things done.  But not always done in our workboxes.  Brayden kept questioning me, he is the one that needs a definite start and stop time.  So I sat down over the last couple days and tried to update everything.  I think I did it. 

The boys first.  Theirs is basically the same, except for filler activities.  They are on basic grade level across the board.

So this is what is in our boxes for Monday:

Handwriting is our first drawer.

 We are struggling with pronouns.  School Express had a wonderful workbook so I printed one for each boy to work on each week.  Our new printer duplexes, so less paper:)!!!

Math is next.

 Then is Duplo Center.  I set this up at the kitchen table or in the living room floor.  I found a book at a therapy website that I downloaded.  I printed the harder cards for Brayden and laminated them.  Caty is also using these cards for patterns.  I keep everything in the box that the Duplos came in.

 We found some great Reading comprehension books at the Scholastic book sale.  So I printed one for tomorrow's boxes.  We will also be working on our newest Weekly Reader this week.  Joey loves the "newspaper".  Brayden gets a little frustrated with them, but I allow him to work on it over a couple days.

 Brayden is working on staying in the lines and using multiple colors on pictures.  When given an open option he will color a whole page the same color.  So I found this easy Color by Number book.  He enjoyed it so much last week, that I am including this in his boxes this week also. 

 We of course have Geography.  Working together.  We will be visiting the Arctic region of our world.  Mainly looking at penguins and the weather this week.

 Free reading.  He always leaves these books in his boxes.  I don't argue about it, as long as he's reading.

Somehow I missed the picture of the science box.   We are finishing the body unit this week.

Joey's got a couple different boxes.  He really likes this book, and I promise to only look at the number of pages that he does and not the content.  I just want to make sure that he is working on the book and not just telling me he is.

 Instead of Duplo, I pulled out a turtle project for Joey.

Lydia's boxes

 Drawer #2 is a lap book from Hands of a Child.  K12 is having us read this story, so I found this project to go along with the stories.  I'll post pics of it when we're done.

 Math.  We are working on multiple Math projects.  Calendars, picture graphs, and counting to 100.  She gets a scoop of "ice cream" added to a big ice cream cone we have hanging up for each set of 10 she can count higher.  For some reason, we are getting stuck on silly 27. 

 Lydia enjoys the same coloring sheets, so I made some copies for her too.

 Handwriting again for Lydia.  This is a pre-drawing book I found at Staples.  It is so much fun.  She enjoys it.  I also have a name sheet I created at ABC Teach to allow her to practice her name.

 This is a great following directions sheet I got from another site.  I can't remember what it was.  The boys will be doing this later in the week.

 Geography of course.  Lydia will also be practicing the Continent Song with the Continent Hop activity from Confessions of a Homeschooler.

 Science is measuring.



Community project and our gardening book.

Another following directions activity with snowmen.  There are several pieces to dress him up.  And a fun song we can sing while doing it.

 I have spent a lot of time in the past couple weeks trying to de-clutter our school area.  In some ways it helped.  Still an ongoing process.  This is a shot of the boys work areas.  I do have a TV/VCR combo in there because the library still has alot of stuff available on VCR. 

Lydia doesn't have a "desk" yet.  We use the school table.  This is my cluttered bookshelves and game/manipulatives station.  Bet you can't tell we are finishing our human body unit this week.

This is our little herb garden that we have been trying to take care of.  It's growing slow but sure.  We keep a space heater near them for warmth and try to keep them in the sunlight.  The dill isn't fairing well.  But the parsley, basil and one cilantro seems ok right now.