Waiting Station #3

UNO Cards

I had a pile of old cards from a UNO game. I just put them out on the table and the girls turned them over and tried to match them either by colours or numbers or both. All of the girls enjoyed this.

Waiting Station #2

Silly Rhymes Game

This has been sitting in the cupboard for ages. It is too complicated to play according to the game rules and so far has been a bit advanced for the girls but now with Duckie reading too I thought they might enjoy it. Duckie had one go at it but it did not appeal - still too advanced.

Zebra loved it. I should have known that the silly rhymes would appeal to her sense of humour. Her Rhymes were certainly silly but she did have fun doing it.

Waiting Station #1

Junior Scrabble -

This was a good one as the girls could just copy the words on the board or add their own words.

Note to self: Keep Monkey away from it - she moved all the girls words which really frustrated them when they came back to it, although she did have fun matching the letter tiles to the letters on the board so maybe just try to redirect her attention to leaving the letters in their places and add more.

Waiting Station

In her book Sue talks about having a "wait" centre. We decided to call it a Waiting Station. I printed up a sign and stuck it on coloured cardboard and laminated it. Then folded it in half - this is our waiting station. Straight after the table in the dining room is cleared from breakfast the sign goes on the table with the days activity and it is becoming a sign that it is time for school. The activity is just something simple that the kids can do while they are waiting for group time or waiting on mum for a 'work with mum' box

For more waiting station ideas see

Waiting Station #1 Junior Scrabble

Waiting Station #2 Silly Rhymes Game

Waiting Station #3 Uno cards

Waiting Station #4 Big Felt World Map

If you would like to download my sign here is a link to download it from HS Launch. I printed two copies and stuck one each side of an A4 sheet of coloured paper and then laminated it and folded it in half.

First day Back

We survived the first day - I had too much planned in Zebra and Duckie's boxes (there are 16 boxes on the schedule strip and I had all of them full plus had extra to add in!) and not enough in the box for Bunny. We had an extra child today - I am babysitting another child for a couple of weeks 4 days a week so we will see how this goes. It was good that Monkey had someone to play with this helped her to settle a bit.

The good bits

• We acchieved more today than we have in a long time.
• The kids were eager to get through it and completed most of it.
• There was lots of learning happening in the "fun" bits.
• No complaints of are we done yet, I'm bored.

The bits to improve

• Needed to plan less for the older girls.
• Bit all over the place and needing mum at the wrong times. Need to plan maybe blocks of time to work with each child.
• Took too long - i like to be all finished before lunch and today there was still work to be completed after lunch. Not sure if this is unrealistic seeing as there are now 4 children schooling and they all need a lot of mum time.

So what was in the boxes.

What's in the box for Zebra (9)

#s- calender

#1 Review Maths Facts 8+ from here at Home Grown Hearts

#2 Maths-U-See watch DVD and complete 1 worksheet

#s - French Weather

#s - Memory Verse

Waiting Station until Group Time

#3 - Thrass handwriting

#4 - Copy work

#s - Memory verse

#5 - Map of China and Chinese flag to go in Lapbook from our Read-a-loud book/Theme

#6 - Reader

#7 - Outside break I used the cards from here and put in the skipping one.

#s - Memory Verse

#s - Cami Maths Program. (15-20 min on the computer)

Plus She also joined in Duckies activities (after lunch) for learning about the rainbow.

What's in the box for Duckie (7)

#s - calender

#1 - review of writing out the numbers 0-20

#s - French Weather

#s - Memory Verse

#2 - Reader

#3 - Copy work - sentence from reader

Waiting Station until Group Time

#4 - Maths-U-See

#5 - Thrass Handwriting

#s - Memory Verse

#6 - Map of China and Chinese Flag

#s - Outside Break -

#s - Memory Verse

#7 - Unit study Rainbows - read book with mum and do ROYGBIV minibook

#s - Cami Maths.

What's in the box for Bunny (5)

I couldn't find a lot of her stuff - has not got unpacked yet from the move so didn't plan out a full schedule for her today, infact I only had 2 things on her schedule.

#s - calender

#1 ride on bike card she spent a lot longer than the 10min allocated but today that did not matter. After group time she had some lapbook bits to work on for her FIAR book - The story about Ping.

What's in the box for the littlies

Monkey (3) and Visitor (4) did cutting with scissors and then stuck all the bit onto a piece of contact which they then stuck onto a large piece of paper. Lots of outside time, teaset play, coloured in a map and flag for China and a picture for lapbook on Ping.