Meditation with Kids – Mind Jar
A while back, I decided to start working in some meditation time to our day. Immediately after making that decision, I forgot about it. Well, that’s not entirely true; we’ve done a couple of meditation times as a group, but not as much as I’d planned on incorporating.
Over the last month or so that I’ve been Pinteresting things, I’ve been seeing the ‘mind jar‘ pop up over and over again. The uses are myriad; everything from an alternative to time out for littles to an actual meditation tool for kids who don’t know how to zone out. I thought that was a great idea, and wanted to make some with the kids as actual meditation tools, and for taking personal time outs when things get stressful.
Since we’ve been workboxing school, I have more awareness of the fun things that have been getting left out because we’re so focused on trying to get the ‘real’ work done. I know I said it in yesterday’s workbox update post, but that is one of the advantages of workboxing – being able to see patterns and gaps in our week. I’m using a worksheet that I originally made when I first read about workboxing. I’ve updated it now ,here’s a blank version of mine if you’re in the market for one. Planning out the week’s plans and having a weeks’ worth of actual assignments as opposed to a general idea of what we’ll be doing is an improvement, I think.
I’ve been able to add in things that we haven’t had time for, which is awesome and ever so much more fun for them; more craft projects, more games, more time to do something one-on-one with Mom. When we first started homeschooling, I bought this book of file folder games. I made up several of them, and we used one or two, but since then, they’ve been sitting on the shelf next to our completed lapbooks. Now that I have to fill a time slot, it’s been easier to throw those in there for a supplemental math or language arts lesson and to make sure it gets done instead of skipping it because we’ve already been working on school for however long.
That’s one area for the kids that I see a benefit in. They’re expecting to have to do ALL of the boxes (however many are assigned for the day). They haven’t questioned any part of how many boxes there are as of yet. If they have 12 boxes, then they’re expecting to do them all. This was one aspect of workboxing that I liked – that they didn’t need to ask me what else they still had to do; they can see it. That aspect will be worth something to keep however we tweak the system in the coming weeks.
Back to the mind jars though…
The recipe I found originally called for glue, water and glitter. Others mentioned glycerine and a similar project that I did with my kids called for baby oil. I didn’t have any of that on hand, but what I did have was a huge bottle of styling gel that I bought eons ago and will never, ever, ever use. It’s water soluble (science lesson sneak-in there – more on that in a minute), so it worked out just fine.
We did end up adding a few drops of food coloring to the jars to make the colors pop a bit more, and it did take a little mixing-magic to get the consistency just right. The idea is to have the jar clear in about 5 minutes. The kids jars take about 5-8 minutes to get calm again (depending on how ‘clear’ you want them).
After messing with theirs so much, I decided that I needed one, too. Unfortunately we were almost out of gel by that point, so I started experimenting with other substances. I had about half a jar of hair serum (to tame frizziness) left from a long time ago so I tried that. The only problem with that was the new product was oil-based. Let’s just say that a lesson on water solubility was enjoyed by all. With glitter. In any case, I found another bottle of water-based gel in the bottom of a drawer and made a pink one with white pixie dust in it for myself. The solution is a bit thicker in my jar and the glitter is a bit lighter; it takes about 10 minutes to clear.
I do have to say that it is totally mesmerizing to watch the glitter sparkle and fall! On a scale of 1-10, I rate this an 8 for make-ability, a 5 for mess-making (with a 3 for mess-making potential – spill one of those containers of glitter and you’ll see what I mean) and a 10 for fun/usability. Add some gorilla glue under the cap to make the jars resistant/less prone to unsupervised additions and this is nearly the perfect craft.
Hope your weekend is fantastic!
Warmly,
~h
NBTS Blog Hop: Day-in-the-Life Week, Part 1: A Not So Great Day
This week in the Not Back to School Blog Hop at Heart of the Matter online, they’re doing ‘day in the life’ posts. I’ve done DITL photo posts in previous blogs, but I’ve never done one here. That reminds me…
{Note to self: Do a photo DITL and post it here!!}
We started a new system today – a modification of Sue Patrick’s workboxes - and it didn’t go as well as I’d hoped.
Actually, it was an utter disaster.
This is what I posted to my support group on Facebook this morning at about 9:45:
Starting workboxes this morning… anyone else doing them? So far, one child is done with one box and on to the second, the other is dragging his precious little feet and I want to strangle him. I’m trying NOT to be pushy-mom though – we have the pool fixed (FINALLY) and the promise of swimming when all the days’ work is done, so I am TRYING to keep my trap shut and let him work at his own pace, but it’s positively killing me not to say ‘HURRY UP!!!’ at this moment, LOL. Gold star for me
We’ve been doing it, kinda without the boxes, but I am tired of it taking ALL FRAKKING DAY. My kids dawdle – a LOT and it’s making me resentful because what SHOULD take 15 minutes is taking 2 hours.
I got the boxes in the hope that having clear cut “start, pause, stop” visual tools would help and so far – not so much. I don’t know if it’s just a sucky Monday or what, but I am about done with this today. We’ll give it a good run before I give up on the system though. It’s always been a challenge to get LBB to do his work, so this may be too much autonomy for him. We’ll see…. if it doesn’t work, then we’ll try something else
<snip>
I loaded up their boxes with instructions and materials, then they work through at their own pace (ideally, that pace is faster than the tortoise-pace that my kids are currently channeling). Some things are ;work with mom’, some are group activities (I am unclear about how those will work though). I am hoping that this will help them be more independent, more responsible (time management) and more motivated since they don;t have to wait on anyone else to get to ‘their own’ work. I also envision more one-on-one – my kids are so close in age that I often assign the same thing, which leaves little room for one-on one unless I’m helping with something (and then the other kid has to wait…) so I am staggering their boxes so that I am helping one while the other works independently – at least that’s the plan.
Ahhh… you know, that’s the thing about plans. They have this awful tendency not to work out the way you’d hoped.
Considering the kind of day we’ve had, I thought about not participating in this week’s blog hop until we’ve had a ‘good’ day. Then I thought about it and decided that many – if not most – of the posts will be about how great the first day of school was. Then I thought about how only showing the ‘good’ side of homeschooling is not really painting an accurate picture and figured I’d chronicle what a ‘bad’ homeschooling day is like. For us, anyway.
I will add some disclaimers:
- this is in no way a ‘typical’ day for us. We’re starting workboxes and this was the first day of a totally new system for my kids – one with a lot more autonomy than they’re used to and we’re all adjusting.
- today is not our first day ‘back’ to school – we school all year round, 4 weeks on, 1 week off. This is week 3 for us in the schedule.
- today was a long day – it was longer because of the choices the kids made, but it would have been longer than normal anyway since this is a home day.
- we had some family drama that cut into our school time, which made for a situation where the kids were ‘allowed’ to make bad choices. Added to the stress of an already busy day, it just made things that much worse.
- We started off at 9AM – well, 9:07AM. A teensy bit late, but that’s all right. I made up the kids workboxes the day before, so they’re all ready to get started. Up first, copywork: 2 paragraphs from a chapter book of your choice. PeaGreen (8y/ 3rd grade) chose Scooby Doo and LBB (9.5y/ 4th grade) chose a Batman book.
- 10AM – still on copywork.
- 11AM – LBB on box 2 (math), Mommy loses her schmidt a little bit because Peagreen is still on copywork.
- 12:PM – Lunch
- 1PM: LBB on box 3 (reading comp. and writing assignment) and then a break, Peagreen still on copywork.
- 2PM: LBB on box 4 (reading independently for 20 minutes (which lasted an hour because of the temper tantrum about how unfair it is to have to read aloud… ), Mommy loses her schmidt dealing with that and also the fact that Peagreen is still workin’ on those same two paragraphs.
- 3PM: Tea Time, then box 5 for LBB (math game), and Peagreen’s back at that same frakking copywork.
- 4PM: Break and do history (box 10) and NVC (box 8) for everyone… about 20 minutes each, then back to their boxes – LBB on box 6 (spelling), PeaGreen FINALLY on to box 2 (math). (Hooray!!)
- 5PM: Loverly Husband arrives home, then leaves to help his granfmother with some honey-do’s around her house. LBB on box 7 (Latin), then box 11 (math drill. PeaGreen on box 3 (reading comp & writing assignment).
- 6PM: LBB on box 11 still, PeaGreen on box 4 (reading 20 minutes) and box 7 (Latin).
- 7PM: Dinner and clean up – prepare for an overnight guest. Kids get super excited and take up the living room rug, shaking out fine-grit dirt all over the ENTIRE living room. Le sigh.
- 8PM: LBB on box 11, PeaGreen on box 11 (Lang. Arts)
- 9PM: box 12 – origami project with Mom
- 10PM: LBB finishes up box 11, PeaGreen finishes box 9 (geography and math drill that he skipped earlier in the evening) while Mom packs boxes for tomorrow (only 7 boxes though, it’s a field trip day).
- 11:22PM – kids are teeth brushed-and-in-bed and I am writing this up with intent to post momentarily.
I don’t know if this is where the boxes will stay long-term… we’re still working on logistics. Right now, they’re under/in front of the chalkboard, which makes it difficult to access.
Until I figure this system out, I hand-wrote on index cards the assignment (copywork/journal/writing in box 1) and then a ‘done’ card. If we keep this system, I’ll eventually make pretty laminated cards and have everything typed up neatly with spiffy graphics. I confess, it’s killing me to use handwritten, non-laminated things. I cringe every time I touch one of them.
The ‘done’ cards have a message on the back – words of encouragement, lets them know that it’s time for a break or time to do chores. I am also still working on getting the timing down – Ideally, each box is 20/30 minutes with breaks every hour (or as needed). ‘Work the system, don’t let the system work you’ – such is my mantra.
When they’re done with the box, the cards go into the pockets. I collect them at the end of the day and fill the boxes with the next day’s materials. I have a worksheet that I am using and have filled out a weeks’ worth of boxes so all I have to do is refer to the sheet. Seeing it all laid out makes it easier to spot holes and patterns (I hope).
Like I said, this is all new for us. I am not terribly happy with today’s experiment, but I don’t think that one day is enough to decide if it’s working or not. We’ll give it the rest of the week and see what we’ve got.
I normally close my posts with something to the effect of ‘hope you enjoyed reading about our day’, but somehow that doesn’t seem appropriate today. I do hope that reading this helps dispell the notion that we homeschooling parents have it all together, or that we have perfect little kids with perfect homeschooling days. Some days are just disastrous, but that’s okay – that’s life.
After all, tomorrow is another day! {/ Scarlett O’Hara impression}
Warmly,
~h
Workboxes, Week 1
I haven’t decided exactly how I feel about them yet. I’m thinking that we’ll give it another week and see how it goes. I am almost sure that the actual ‘box’ part is just adding an extra/unnecessary step; I’ve seen several versions of workboxing mods that use a single box or bin with manilla mailing envelopes to hold the work, and others that use hanging files, covered cereal boxes, and lots of other methods. Since we’re so limited on space, I am wondering if something like that might be better.
I am also going to have to figure out something else to do with the ‘done’ cards or tags… the process we have now feels like a bunch of extra steps that might be eliminated. I saw several people using velcro dots on the fronts of boxes (or on a sheet of paper inside the front of the box) to hold all the tags; I’m thinking that I might want to try that instead. I do like the chore cards though, so I may play around with that and see if I can come up with a better way to manage them. We have a chore chart in the hallway that I made months ago; we may go back to that style for a while.
Overall, I’m not sold on the system for us, but there are some things I like about it, so I’m not ready to scrap it just yet. I thought I’d do a pros and cons list this week and then re-evaluate next week. In the interests of disclosure, I will say that I have not read Sue Patrick’s book (creator of the workbox system), or attended any kind of lecture or class on them. I’ve just been reading about them since last year and checking out all the different mods and tweaks that I’ve seen in blogs and put my system together from what I’ve read. That may very well do Ms. Patrick a huge disservice, so please take my two cents on the matter with a spoonful of salt. {wink} I like the idea of the workboxes system. Ideally, it seems like allowing the kids to be completely responsible for their work makes me happy. I just don’t know how that will work out practically speaking with my kids.
Pros:
August 25, 2011 | Categories: Daily Review, Homeschooling Resources, Homeschooling Tips and Tricks, Lessons Learned, NVC, Product Review | Tags: commentary, homeschooling, homeschooling challenges, lesson planning, NVC, record keeping, schedule, SuperMom Complex, time spent in school, workboxes | 4 Comments »