We are lucky to be part of a homeschool Charter School here in California, Connecting Waters Charter School, where we are given an allowance for curriculum and educational supplies. I realized that it was getting close to the end of the school year and we still had a lot of money in our account. I decided that one thing I wanted to spend money on was more hands on educational activities and games. We use the Workboxes system and I like to have fun things for the kids to put into the boxes. I shared some of the things I was doing a couple of years ago in my post (F)unschooling: Boxing up some learning fun! It mixes things up a bit when there are a variety of activities presented. I also believe that there is a lot of learning that happens when playing games. I know that I learned a lot of world geography as a kid by the hours spend playing Risk with my brother and sisters.

A lot of the activities I put in the boxes are pretty simple and inexpensive. When I saw this craft kit on clearance I knew it was the perfect thing to put into one of Scootch's boxes:

Now I had the chance to not worry so much about prices, I could shop on the school's dime. Here are some of the things I ordered:

Equate: The Equation Thinking Game

Scrabble with math! I think I will love it and my husband will hate it. Hopefully the kids and I will have fun playing it.

ShapeOmetry

This solitaire game is a lot harder than it looks! A fun combination of geometry, spacial awareness and logic.

Professor Noggin's History and Geography Card Games

These are card games but the can also be used alone like flash cards and self quizzes.

Professor Noggin's Science Card Games

Roll 'N Multiply Game

It is very common for a child with a high IQ to have a hard time memorizing basic facts, like multiplication facts. My little guy who is a wiz at algebra, way before his years, still needs practice with his multiplication facts. He took one look at this game and told me it looked stupid. He then proceeded to open the box, and play a game against himself, completely engrossed and got annoyed when anyone would interrupt him.

PathWords

This looked like a fun game to put into a workbox. It is all in a very neat little hard case, making it easy to store, put in a workbox, or take on a trip. These kind of solitaire games are perfect for workboxes!

10-Minute Bananagrams!

We have a set of Banangrams, but I start to run out of ideas of things to do with that little set of letter tiles. We have gone through most of Banangrams for Kids!, and this book will give me some new challenges for me to give the kids in their workboxes.

10 Days in Europe

We already have 10 Days in the USA, so now we are going to try 10 Days in Europe. You have to travel from one place to another on a map, and you really learn the locations of all of the states or countries.

The kids are having lots of fun with the gyroscopes we got!

My younger son just started playing guitar with his dad so I got him a guitar along with an instructional book and DVD.

We love the modeling beeswax but it is a bit pricey. This was the perfect chance to stock up on some.

I'm not sure what I'm going to use the Wikki Stix for, but I'm sure I'll come up with something!

Some magnetic tangrams to round things out.

I'm already starting to plan for things I will buy in Fall 2014 when my little one starts Kindergarten. I'm definitely going to be ordering some of the things listed here.

Our first boxes arrived to day so I'm going to have lots of fun filling workboxes tonight!