his 5th grade workboxes: learning to love reading

You might be a homeschool mommy if…

you get a printer for your birthday and you LOVE it!

I’ve been itching to make new workbox labels for aaaaaages and now that I have my beautiful new printer (sigh) I did!

Since Tobes is a bird lover I went with a birdy theme.  He doesn’t appreciate the vintage black and white appeal…but I do. 

I have their labels hanging in the school/therapy room on little pocket charts I snagged in Target’s dollar section last year.

The tags start on the To Do section and as completed move down to the Done section.

Both of the big kiddos are still using and loving their workbox totes.  I found them at Walmart for just five buckaroos.

Bible

Is currently morning devos as a family.  However, we recently bought him his very own Bible and he’ll be doing more independent Bible Study soon.

He’s also in a Bible Club at my parents’ church.  There he works on Scripture memory and character building.

Math

He’s about 25 lessons into Saxon 6/5.  It’s mostly review for now so it’s been easy peasy.

Reading

Next year I plan to incorporate some kind of reading comprehension curriculum.  I was snooping through some options at Barnes & Noble recently but haven’t chosen anything yet. 

It’s been such a joy watching his love for reading blossom this year.  In the past it was like pulling teeth to get him to enjoy books.  And I tried all the tricks in the bag.

But something has clicked this year and now he can often be found with his nose in a book!

His current addiction is John Grisham’s Theodore Boone series.

I’ll probably be using this list of the 50 best books for boys and young men from the Art of Manliness blog to help guide my selections for next year.

English

We’re using ACE this year.  I’ll probably stick with it next year too.  Grammar is just not his thing and that’s okay.  Cause it’s mine.  So we get to spend some quality bonding time over prepositional phrases and sentence diagraming. 

Spelling

ACE too.

Civics (includes history & geography)

ACE but next year we’ll be switching to Mystery of History.

Writing/Computer

Jump In for his writing curriculum this year.  And I’m having him complete his tasks in Word to give him computer practice.

Not all learning happens in a file tote though…

PE

It’s baseball season!

Piano

Lessons with Grams.  He’s waaaay past my musical ability!  In fact, now that Grams has an iPod touch we almost had to FaceTime her when he was stumped one day!

Science

Apologia’s Exploring Astronomy

and

Christian Kid’s Explore Chemistry (for review purposes)

Character Building/Community Service

Our church is small…but we do have a boys group.  They’ll be representing Ransomed Church at a Dodge Ball tourney this month to help raise funding for a Children’s Museum!

He also volunteers for Special Olympics.

And his newest fave hobby which I’m waffling between calling Economics or Analysis or Management?  Because when you home educate it’s aaaaaall learning, right?!    We’re letting him commission his very own fantasy baseball league!  It’s going to be a daddy/son league and includes some local friends plus some siblings of other little ones who share a diagnosis with Trevy!  I’m really excited for Tobes.  What a great way to have fun and connect with other boys and maybe just maybe learn something useful along the way! 

And that’s a peek at some of the things we’re doing around here…

…danielle