Cubbies...the New Workboxes

So, I'm not sure where to begin with this post. It's been a long time since I've reported on what's going on with or into our workboxes. The last time I posted on them specifically, I was describing some adjustments I made to our system. Back in January, I showed you a glimpse of how I'd removed the top two racks of boxes so the binders could lay flat on the rack. Still, they were hard to maintain and difficult to keep neat. Recently, you know that we cleaned and reorganized our school room in preparation for selling our home. Workboxes are not pretty- especially when there is no IKEA around the corner. I removed them from our school room and we put up two sets of cubbies.

So, what about the workboxes?

If you've been following along in our workbox journey, then you know I eventually came to the conclusion that they simply do not work for us as they were intended. What I thought would help me to pull more off the shelf and keep the kids doing a variety of things, really only produced contrived work that wasn't always necessary or really even edifying. For certain, workboxes do not match our relaxed style of homeschooling.

The reality is I don't need my kids to have 12 boxes worth of activity per day nor sometimes even six. We are more in the 3-4 activity range with time afterwards (and sometimes in between) to pursue interests. Actually, this is probably a hallmark of our homeschool- that our kids have time to pursue what they are passionate about. We want them to develop their interests and play them out so they know what they love and what they are good at. Dan and I especially value the time they have just to explore, play, imagine, read, invent, build, and interact with each other. Setting out 12 activities, whether or not they are well intended and purposeful, is contrary to one of the things we value the most in our homeschool.

We still have one cubby per student on the top row. Three whole student cubbies are shown above along with a piece of the fourth. That's where the binders they keep their math journals in are located along with things that don't fit on the school table in front of them- for example, the nature journals. For E13, that is his WinterPromise binder and his Mystery of History text. I put things I want the kids to see or try in there sometimes. J6 picked out some books to read and he keeps them there.

J6 has a game in his cubby too and I can rotate that game out or put any other activity there. During his school day he might be assigned a FIAR activity, a copywork page, and a math assignment- along with reading to me. Keep in mind J6 is a fluent reader and he drives a lot of what he does between and after his assignments for the day. He spells well and has gotten excited about writing his own sentences and forming the spelling. His handwriting has improved since the beginning of the year. He does not need a lot of reading and spelling drills and he loves working independently whenever possible. This is one student whose education, for sure, cannot be contained within a set of 12 boxes!

The rest of what the kids need is in the Desk Apprentice- a completely beastly desk organizer. BUT, with four kids and four side slots and four pencil cups...this is a good deal for us. It takes up way too much room, but then again we haven't had the piles growing on the table since then. It's a trade off. We keep the kids' main binders in the middle so they can put things away without getting up. In the side slots is loose leaf paper/writing paper, their assignment books, and their Life of Fred books. Then they each get the pencil cup to the right which house favorite pencils, a high lighter of choice, and a pair of scissors.

Anything else the kids need while they work is close by and easy to grab whether it's reference books, markers, colored pencils, glue or rulers. I'm very pleased with how easy it is to access everything we need for school and that it all has a place so it can all be returned neatly.

So, there you have it....true confessions. I will still keep my workbox tab there for folks to reference. I just felt it was time to update everyone on where I am with the concept. I'm rather glad I tried them out. It really helped me to solidify my place on the homeschooling spectrum.

How about you all? Where do you fall on the spectrum?

Algebra I Progress

E13 has been working on Algebra I this year. We started with Saxon Algebra I (a free item on a table at co-op one week) late last school year and started up again in August. Although he was a good sport about doing 30 problems every day (writing out the whole problem) with Saxon, we have switched to using Fred primarily at this point. I was inserting Fred Beginning Algebra lessons in among the Saxon lessons a couple times a week just to change things up for E13 and to provide a different avenue for learning and remembering.

E13 does one or two Fred Companion lessons per day depending on the number of problems assigned.

When is the last time you saw our workboxes? Now the top two shelves no longer have boxes. I couldn't take it anymore- they were just not accommodating for notebooks. The binders lay flat on the top and second shelf and there are boxes for now on the bottom two. They hold projects and things- smaller items. What became of those boxes and their lids? Let's just say I was in charge of Operation Christmas Child at my church and children in 3rd world countries are now enjoying them. Win/win. No guilt...it turns out that workboxes are way to "school at home" for this borderline unschooling girl.

A look at the inside of E13's math journal

The Home Companion breaks the Beginning Algebra text into daily lessons. I highly recommend it if you are using Fred! In the last several lessons, he's been learning how to solve two variable equations with elimination and without.

Another favorite resource for him and R11- I sometimes pull out activities from here. Lots of algebraic reasoning in this book.

Last month, they played an interesting number game and we tested out a few theories at the book's suggestion.

It was the game of Euclid which Dan is still trying to figure out why they think it's a game! The kids thought it was fun. I'm pretty sure that is what counts!

Great news for Fred Beginning Algebra fans! Dr. Stan has just come out with a book on a Zillion Practice Problems for Beginning Algebra. I can't wait to get my copy as we continue on our Algebra journey with Fred!

Workbox Labels

So, I thought it might be a good idea to list the labels out for you specifically...just in case you are interested in seeing what non-typical things I came up with! Perhaps some of these will be helpful to you.

• Math- we are Math on the Level users so we do a family math approach. This is the box we keep our things in.
• Geography- we use the Trail Guides to World and US Geography (see resource drop down list) because my kids adore it. What can I say?
• History- we are following Mystery of History and adding in Story of the World and TruthQuest resources. This in addition to our normal unit studies. Mainly, I wanted to blend secular and biblical history while getting in some ancient cultures- something we have not hit much in our unit studies thus far.
• Nature Study- once a week we do a challenge with Barb over at the Handbook of Nature Study blog or we just do our own observations.
• Unit Study- this is classified as non-FIAR unit studies. For example, The Photography Amanda Bennett unit for E12 and the Portraits of American Girlhood for R10 or just our own studies
• Language Arts- writing and grammar which is usually done as an extension of our unit studies or for this month NanoWrimo, etc
• Word Challenge- this could be a dictionary assignment or daily quest on a word or a word game, etc.
• Passion Pursuits- refers to approved activities we do after our other school time is complete. For example, sewing, computer programming, sports practice, snap circuits, etc.
• Programming- Scratch, Alice, and NXT
• NXT- LEGO mindstorms. We have a personal kit (and a team kit we store) along with some books and of course there are websites.
• Timeline- this is a box for our timeline FIAR style. On Fridays we put pages in according to what we've learned that week.
• Math Challenge- puzzles, more difficult problems, math journal assignments, etc and sometimes computer math. We like The Puzzle Site.
• Art- art materials for our assignment will be here. We do this as a family all together.
• Spelling- materials for All About Spelling
• Five in a Row- unit study materials when it's a FIAR book we are rowing. The younger boys are doing mostly FIAR so that is what their unit study box is labeled with specifically.
• Beyond Five in a Row- same with this box. When we are doing a BY book, this label takes the place of the unit study label
• Reading- mainly for Reading Made Easy for J5
• LEGOS- for the younger boys mostly...a time of building during Passion Pursuits
• Silent Reading- we normally don't need this. Our kids read anytime and often, but it's there when I need it
• Games- If I want them to play a game during the afternoon, I will put up this card on a box with a card inside telling which game or how to choose a game.
• Sewing- R10 almost always has a project going so this is a place for storing it while not in use. I give her hand sewing and machine sewing projects and encourage her to try new things. I8 has in interest in sewing as well so we can sometimes insert a project for him. He's all about the sewing machine though...hand sewing- not so much.

 Next up, I think I will further explain a few of these in further detail.

Workbox Adjustments

So, I had this notion the other day...my workboxes need relabeling. I had a lot of reaction to my One Year Later post about workboxes where I basically detailed how our family uses them- at that time we'd been using them for a year. The major outcome there is that we use our workboxes by subject and they do not rotate around. So, for us, the workboxes are a place for us to keep our things tidy and all together. I decided it would be great to remove the numbers and replace them with what we store in the boxes!

I bet some of you will find these numbers and activity cards very familiar! I grabbed freebie shared downloads from Jolanthe and Carisa....and really never used them much because we don't use the schedule cards. Those are great resources though if you do use the cards.

Here we go- notice that the new labels were made on white cardstock and then I added color with a marker before I laminated them. I have a different color for each child.

We have all the regular subjects for the day- math, FIAR (Unit Study), Geography, Language Arts, Nature Study, Spelling, History (for our weekly strand of world history we dabble in...I'm afraid I don't make a great poster child for the classical homeschool movement!) among other things.

R10's sewing box- this would fall into passion pursuits which happen in the afternoons. This is a box full of felt and patterns for some felt food.

I took the liberty of creating some new ideas like the Math Challenge! This is for puzzles and other exercises that will provide a bit of a challenge for the kids in addition to their regular math for the day. Great stuff to add to the math journal. I also have a Word Challenge box that will be for the occasional dictionary exercise.

There were leftovers! Can you imagine? I labeled all 12 boxes for each child easily (with the exception of J5- his were a bit harder at the end) and had ideas leftover. So, I can change them out. If I want E12 to have time with our NXT, then I take off the computer programming label and put up the NXT one. This will help to focus his efforts after formal schooling is finished for the day.

Many of us have modified this system to meet our needs. At this point, ours are no where near the original system, but I am thankful to have a space for our school things to collect. They are available when we need them and it gives my kids some independence on organizing their school items which is important. It also gives me an easy way to provide materials for some passion pursuit and extra practice time. Some down sides to the system- in our basement they require frequent dusting/vacuuming since I can't use the lids! The small width boxes bend up the items in the box or are tough to fit. This is likely not as much of an issue for those of you who rotate things out frequently.

How are you using your Workboxes? Are they still a useful tool for your homeschool?

Workboxes: One Year Later

So, it's been just over a year since the Workbox craze began all over the homeschooling corner of the internet and in our home. I thought it would be a great idea to share how things are going one year later.

Last year, after being introduced to the concept on the FIAR forums, I jumped in with both feet. I was even asked to write an article about them for Heart of the Matter online Magazine. As a side note, I've seen the original picture from that article pop up on other blogs and websites over the last year and it cracks me up- to see our playroom/school room with its paneling splashed across the blogging world. Surprisingly, there is still a low level fervor about them and people are still blogging about "What's in the Workboxes for the Week".

In the article mentioned above I touted the usefulness of the boxes to help the kids have a living checklist and that it's great because everything is laid out ahead of time. I also said we could pull things off the shelf we don't use all the time and kept me in line.

So, what I have I observed about the amazing workbox? Well, several things actually.

• It's hard to keep up with them! Loading up anywhere from 6 to 12 boxes for 4 kids is a lot of prep work to be done daily/nightly.
• You have to be vigilant to keep them clean/have the kids keep them clean. Look below to see "the Messy".
• It's WAY too easy to put busy work in the boxes. I had to really evaluate here. Am I putting this in the box because it is valuable for this time right now? Or am I putting it in the box because this activity fills a box. Or in other words, if I wasn't "filling boxes" is this an activity I would have my kids do?
• We do a lot of our school day together. This fact does not exactly match Sue Patrick's Workbox Philosophy. Workboxes are designed to have kids move throughout their day independently. My kids CAN work independently and do some of their work that way, but we work together on discovery quite a lot. I'll be doing a post on that soon. So, more later on that one.
• The schedule cards are a NIGHTMARE. They do not mesh with my homeschooling philosophy whatsoever. If you are a long time reader, then you can probably imagine this to be true. We do not move through out day in a methodical fashion with each child checking off whatever piece of busy work I put in the box.
  

The Messy- though I give E11 credit for keeping his workbox world together (see left)

The Messier- this shows the woes of little mama maintenance

After the clean up! Every so often we need to spiff up.

R9's boxes- one box is missing. It's her sewing box which I will share with you soon.

The littler boy boxes- I rotate things in and out for J4.

Now you might be thinking that I don't use the workboxes any more. We do use them. They provide a function for us that is very useful and I'm glad we have them. However, we have modified their use for our particular brand of homeschooling. Please note that Sue Patrick is pretty stringent on how the system should be used. She designed the system to meet a need in her homeschool that may or may not be a need in yours. Keep that in mind as you consider workboxes and think about your own.

So then, how DO I use them?

• We store the core subjects we do in one box each- so the older kids have a FIAR box, a math box, geography box, timeline box, writing box, nature study box, a Story of the World box which is used here and there. That covers half the boxes there.
• Each child has a box that pertains to their passion pursuits- drawings, sewing, Magic Treehouse passport badges, buttons for play, paper folding book, their own creative writing, etc.
• I will put an activity in there they haven't done in a while- could be a craft project for the kids, a reminder of a play set to be used that day, book, game, etc.
• I do not use the schedule cards- I have a pattern we use to move through out day and the boxes are set up in that order. So, the kids can walk over there to get materials and bring them to the table for that time. Then when the lesson/activity is complete, they return the materials to the boxes. Herein lies the messy factor. I do not police the putting back of materials and things do get out of control from time to time.

It's been an interesting study for me to reflect on our use of this system. I wanted to use the boxes to make sure I was delivering on all kinds of instruction. I came to realize that the workboxes are school at home. I knew that when I first read about them, but I thought I could use them close to how they were designed and NOT have that effect in our home. I was wrong. Filling the boxes with independent activities for each child- not so much independent from ME but independent from one another, is not congruent with our unit study/work together philosophy. Actually, Sue mentions that in her book. The system, she says, is not really designed for the unit study except for maybe short ones. She's definitely not a unit study person.

The workboxes are not without value at our house, but over the last year I have come to realize how they best fit into our school.

How are things going at your house? Tell us how you manage to fill them every day. Do you have a secret?

10 Days in Africa

If you are a regular reader, then you know we are a gaming family! E11 really loves a good game and since his love language is quality time, he seeks to play often. When I was at the MOPS Int'l Convention in Nashville they, of course, had a huge vendor hall and it was full of stuff you could buy for your kids and for parenting in general. On one of my excursions into the vast rows of booths, I found one full of games. I thought it would be fun to bring home a new game for the kids as sort of a souvenir from my time away.

I decided it was time to try out the 10 Days series of games and chose Africa for our first one. This is just a great map, isn't it?

You have to arrange a trip through Africa that will take 10 Days- there is room for 10 cards on the holders. There are rules about how you get around which make it challenging.

There are several other games in the same series that play similarly but each have their own twist such as different forms of transportation and a different way to play them. I'm looking forward to adding one at the holidays for example. It's a fun way to get familiar with world geography though they do make a US version as well.

Other games in the series:

• 10 Days in Europe
• 10 Days in Asia
• 10 Days in the USA

Workbox Update

I thought I'd post an update on how our boxes are working out so far this year. We started with the craze back in March and we've gone through various phases with summer vacation and our early start this year, but here's how things are going now.

One of the things I was procrastinating on in an unbelievable way is the schedule strip.

Each child has a strip attached to their set of boxes. The cards might tell the kids what to do if it's not in the next box on the cart.

Each child has his/her own color.

J4's boxes are always a ton of fun.

As you can see we are not to the point of filling them all. I am discerning about it because I don't want the kids doing activities just to do them. I'm careful to put our passion pursuits in the second half of the boxes coinciding with our afternoon slot.

I still love them for the mere place to put things I have prepared for the kids to go without losing them before we use them! I used to teach 170 kids a day, but to be fair that was only two preps. I had two sets of lessons (which is actually still a feat since most middle school teachers only teach one grade and I had no lab assistant- it was all me baby!) so only two sets of papers to keep track of. Now I have four kids at home doing various different things even though we do unit studies. I can't remember where anything is that I print. Now I have a place to put it when I print it!

J4 usually has something in his box that has to do with the alphabet. This is an alphabet pairing puzzle. On one side are the upper and lower case letters to match and on the other a picture to match the sound of the letter.

Sometimes I put a magazine issue in the boxes. Top Story is a favorite at our house.

I7 has various reading boxes daily- this one has plastic word tiles.

Also for I7 a site word flash card set from this dolch kit

All in all, I think they have been a success. Now if I can just get this school year underway in a more consistent fashion instead of flying by the seat of my capris! THAT would be something. Actually, math is going grand and I will share that next well maybe after a few reviews that are piling up!

The Daily Quest

When we first brought E10 home from school midway through first grade (back in January, 2005), I used to do a Question of the Day with him. We had a really fun time schooling back then (of course we still do...but we are busier now!) and things were pretty easy going. R9 was in preschool, I-7 was 2 and I was pregnant with J4.

E10 loved the challenge of reading for information and bringing it back to me. We kept the questions in a wooden canister that he painted for the task. A few weeks ago I decided it would be fun to bring it back to our homeschool and purposed to get a new box going. I retooled the name too calling it- The Daily Quest.

Supplies at the ready

Finding just the right images to represent adventure and quest seeking

The three oldest kids had a side to decorate. J4 preferred just to play with the decoupage. He finished his Molly jar from May.

I did the lid- remember...you are never too old to create!

The finished product ready for adventure. The last side of the box has some cardboard letters on it that read QUEST.

So, how does it work? Each day I put a set of questions in the box that the kids have to work on together. Today's quest was about hurricanes. The kids had to work as a team to come up with the answers. What is a hurricane? What are two other names for hurricanes and where are they used? What is the difference between a tropical depression and a tropical storm?

You can be sure I have some guidelines in place to facilitate the team building process. They must:

• Answer the questions together using reference books and websites.
• Try to avoid just Googling the answer. Use websites such as National Geographic for Kids.
• Write down the answer
• Work together without arguing or hogging.
• Everyone must write at least a little.
• Everyone will contribute to the answer at dinner time. Make sure you include everyone.
• Discuss where you can find the answers and give assignments according to age and ability.
• Work as a team.

Ok...so they are a bit redundant. I'm alright with it. At the top of the page I put The Daily Quest with the date and then I have those rules in a box at the top followed by the day's Quest. I made a document just for ease.

The kids are excited. It's all in the marketing friends. All in the marketing.

The Double-Dog Dare...

E10 answers the challenge. You'll never get this one Daddy!


Black to move has to force a draw in four turns.

Weekly Workbox: Another Summer Edition

What's on tap for this week? We have a lot in store for our study of Nim's Island:

• construct a wind vane (to determine wind direction)
• time in our garden journals
• island logs (for Nim's Island live class)
• jeans to skirt project
• Reading Made Easy practice sheets from the new CD
• dot painting letters for the coconut tree- which I think will begin a tie in to Nim's Island
• map Nim's Island- possibly a salt dough map which was a real hit the last time we did it.
• independent study item on oceans/islands for E10
• shark swimathon math and two digit addition practice
• weather station meeting

Some of these will need their own explanations so this should be a fun blogging week. Join Kendra's Workbox Meme and let us know what's up in your school this week!

Workbox Fun: Summer Start

We are starting a full week of school this week- summer style. Some things on tap:

• jeans to skirt sewing project
• Reading Made Easy practice sheets
• Wood cube math
• Family Math activity
• adventure stories
• Felicity Journal
• Felicity Landscape template
• dominoes math
• Dance Mat Typing
• garden time
• plant study
• seed sort/counting
• alphabet tracing

This is an eclectic bunch of fun, but as we get more on our way, you'll see themes take shape.

Sew Simple Magazine

While doing a little fabric shopping the other day, I came upon a magazine I hadn't seen before. Sew Simple. I had been on the look out for a sewing magazine that was appropriate for young seamstresses and I think this is it! It has some cute projects in it and most are not too complicated.

The front page project is the French Market Tote which you can get directions for at their website.

They have a way cute denim apron made from recycled jeans in this issue as well. I see the new one is due out on the newstand soon. I'm anxious to get my hands on it. I think it's a great source for R9.

Fun Filled Weekly Workboxes

Kendra at the Pumpkin Patch has started a weekly meme called Fun Filled Weekly Workboxes and I think I'll join her as often as I can. This is a chance to share with our readers all the fun things we'll be putting in the workboxes for the week.

Sue Patrick must be amazed at how her original idea has taken off in the homeschooling community. I know I am!

So, what will be going on this week at our house? Well we've had three weeks off from school and I think we will school for the next three weeks- half days and see how things go. Then maybe take another three weeks off. I can add these days to our school year and take a nice winter break when we feel like we need some time off. With that in mind, I will be filling the workboxes with some items this week to get us thinking and our brain waves moving.

Here's some of what's on tap?

• Jeans to Skirt project
• guitar time
• tracing the alphabet so we can add to our coconut tree
• Felicity book club time
• silent reading
• An exercise or two from Games for Writing by Peggy Kaye
• Zooreka
• Family Math activities
  

R9 will be working on turning a favorite pair of her jeans into a skirt. We picked out some purple gingham fabric for the triangle patch and a yellow floral pattern for the extra ruffle.

This is a book we got R9 for Christmas. It has some really cute projects in it. I hope she can finish this one in time for the 4-H Fair coming up next month. We can do it, right?

What do We Do with our School Computers?

A question about what older kids do on your computer was posted at the Five in a Row Forums the other day and well I thought I'd share with my readers how we use the school computers at our house. We have an older computer that runs the older games, but it doesn't run some of the even older games I desperately want to run! Dan says he might be able to work that out, but no success yet. We have some fun DK geography games that we can't play yet.

Games:

• Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?
• Oregon Trail
• Liberty Kids
• Arthur (K and 2nd grade)
  
• LEGO Fever
• Adventure Africa
• Jumpstart Toddler
• Reader Rabbit Toddler- both of these toddler games are great at teaching mouse skills. All of our kids learned on these.
• 
  

My kids also do programming using the drag and drop method using: (the last two are upgrades we have not tried yet, but E10 will be moving up to Alice this summer)

• Scratch- free and a great tool to teach programming skills. My kids have made games. See a screen shot of one of E10's games here.
• Alice- teaches programming
• Phrogram- this one is downloadable for a fee

We also use God's World News and other news outlets and sites for kids. My husband and I read the Washington Post and CNN each morning and we will forward things we want the kids to read to our school computer email. the kids have their own email that we don't give out but they use on occasion.

Here are a few:

• Daily critical thinking puzzles
• US Mint website
• Time for Kids
• LEGO
• Hokie Sports
• ESPN
• wiki and google are popular research tools and our filter works like a charm. I am in the room or nearby when I send them to look something up

We have them type in their stories and use Open Office for graphing and other school work as well. Here's an example from a popcorn experiment. Here's another from an experiment the kids made up one today.

I also just started the touch typing program from the BBC called Dance Mat Typing. There is a great debate at our house over the value of learning touch typing. Since I'm in the daily teacher's seat, the kids will learn proper technique. Dan never learned it and I admit that he is fast, but I think the kids will have an easier time learning the keyboard if they just start with home keys. We'll see how it goes. Dan predicts E10 will not learn it. I contend it is one of the best things my mom insisted on when I was young. I hope to get them ample time on this program this summer.

We also use the computer for teleconferencing with their grandparents. My oldest plays chess with his grandfather while "seeing" him at the same time.

I think that's about it. Oh and as for computer time...they have computer days on M, Tu, Th. The other days are playstation days. However, they can choose to do computer instead of playstation on a PS2 day. That is generally free time only. What I assign them doesn't count toward their free screen time.

How do you use your computer in your homeschool?

CurrClick Live Classes

I'm sure most of you have been over to CurrClick from time to time. They sell downloadable curriculum from various publishers- everything from lapbooks to unit studies to Evan Moor ebooks. I really enjoy their weekly freebies which come in handy some weeks.

This year they've started to offer something new called the Live Class. A few months ago they had Water, Water Everywhere as their weekly free offering and I so wish I had paid attention. Not knowing what a Live Class really meant I passed it up and I regret that decision!

After reading up on them and noticing a few others at FIAR trying them out, I signed up for three so far. Right now they are offering some classes for as little as a dollar and many are about $5. I don't know how long the good times will last, but if you are looking for a summer adventure I would definitely consider a Live Class. The nice part is that the class is independent and you don't need to be real time with the instructor. So, you can sit at the computer and work on the class when your time permits.

Right now R9 is part of the Felicity Book Club. She is studying the book Happy Birthday, Felicity! She gets to work on a notebook weekly, participate in the forums (under my name because I wasn't clever enough to make one up!), and watch the class videos. Each week there is a project and some notebooking to do in addition to the reading of course.

E10 really, really wanted to take a math class, but most of them were tutorial helps rather than a challenge. There are a few Algebra classes they he's not quite ready for yet and when I found the Geometry class I knew it was for him. He can hardly wait to get started. It's a geometry review for 5th to 8th grades and think there will be some things to challenge him. He'll get to work out assigned problems for the day and email the solutions to the professor. He'll be able to see the problems worked out video if he needs help. This is going to be a very cool addition to the math journal! I'm looking forward to see how this goes.

It is a tradition in our homeschool to begin each new year with our favorite FIAR title- Night of the Moonjellies. We have such fond memories of our first row of this book just after E10 had broken his arm one summer and our pool visits were cut short. I had just received my trusty FIAR volume 1 manual and I was eager to begin. After 3 years we love it as much as ever but it is harder to discover new things in there. But it is so worthwhile to visit them again each year. This year we will do the live class on Nim's Island as part of our tradition. The kids adored the book and loved the movie. We are excited to join in this class and some really fun ocean work!

Starting in September is Strange Science: Planet Earth and I'm eager to sign up for this one. We have not done much indepth earth science and I think the kids will enjoy it. Some of the coolest earth science stuff is going to be covered. Each class typically needs a minimum enrollment so get on over there and sign up for classes!