Creating Magical Task Boxes: Infusing Fun into Everyday Learning for Kids

Ever wondered how to keep your little learners engaged and excited about education? This episode is your treasure map to crafting the perfect task boxes, tailor-made to offer your child a delightful blend of fun and learning. I'm going to walk you through the ins and outs of creating these magical boxes, choosing the right materials, and deciding the optimal times to introduce them into your child's daily routine. Whether you're looking to spice up after-school activities or enrich your homeschooling arsenal, I assure you that your kids will be both entertained and educated with these hands-on tools.

Dive into a world where fine motor skills, math, and reading come alive through simple, yet ingeniously designed task boxes. I'll share the secret ingredients for a fine motor skills task box that will have your child kneading their way to stronger muscles, and we'll explore literacy aids that transform mundane matching exercises into a thrilling quest for knowledge. Plus, with a nod to resources like Teacher Pay Teacher, you'll have access to an endless supply of customizable materials. So tune in, get your laminator ready, and let's turn learning into an adventure that your kids will look forward to every day!

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hi everyone. I'm going to talk a little bit about task box. We're going to talk about the need, the why, the when and the what. I'm going to start out with the why. Why do you want a task box? Why do you need them? This can be for after school. It can be also during home school. One of the reasons is they're easy to do, they're easy to make and they set around the goal that you want for your child, and the kids like doing them. And that's the why.

Speaker 1: 0:29

What do you need to be able to put together a task box? Well, you're going to need boxes. You can have small boxes, like the ones that you would put pictures in, and they come in multiple colors. You have a median size box type thing Could be like a small bend and you can have large ones, like a shoe box or a little bit better, and you can buy these at different places or you can make your own. But if you've got shoe boxes, make your own boxes. You can find them at the dollar store or Walmart's or wherever you shop. There's usually something that you can find. So that's the need. And the other thing that you'll need is VileCrow and you'll need to laminate and you can get a small laminator at one of the stores, and they're not much in laminating paper you can order. They're very handy to have. I have one and it's been a lifesaver. So those are some of the things that you're going to need to make these text boxes, and now you know the why.

Speaker 1: 1:32

So when do you use them and how do you use them? Well, if you're homeschooling, I would do three to five a day, and if you're your teacher, I would still do three or five a day for each student. Now, at the beginning it's going to be a lot of work, but once you get into the ribba, mother, and you are able to use them, the kids will like them and it makes it your life so much easier. So once you get it doing them and you get a bunch of a bunch of sets of them, you'll be able to do these pretty easy, and then you can change it as you go. So what are we going to work on? So I would put three different types of categories that I would be looking at Bind, motor control would be one of them, math and then reading would be the other two. You can do other things too. You can do science if you want to, and even social studies for that matter. So, but those are the three main things that I would focus on.

Speaker 1: 2:32

So, task box for fine motor. What are you going to put in it? You can put simply like Play-Doh or slime, where they're moving their hands, or those cubes where they put them together and put patterns in there for them to make patterns of different stuff. That way they're using their hands and their upper body muscles, which they need to do and to build that strength there, because that happens with a lot of our kids they don't have that upper body strength and we need to build on that. So fine motor control can do that. Another thing is like little cotton balls where they put them in a bottle, or there's like a ton of them on the web that you can find in different places.

Speaker 1: 3:13

Just put in task box and your search engine, you're going to come up with a lot of stuff I use personally, I use teacher, pay teacher, and they have a mountainous stuff. Give you this stuff to be able to just to laminate, copy, laminate and bell, coral it and put it in the box for reading. I would do laminate and have pictures for like beginning sounds like, let's say you got a paper and it's got P and and T, then have pictures of things that starts with P and and T and then have them match it. They take the pictures and what it sounds like or what sounds like and so on and so on. And then the other one you could do is you have colored words and then the colors and they have to match the colors with the words and they just put them the bell, coral, they just match it and that's it. Or opposite, make pictures of things that are the opposite, and like hot, something's hot or something's cold, and then CVC words. Also, you can do where they have the picture, like let's say it's a picture of a net, and then they have to find the word net to put on there and just have them do that and do that.

Speaker 1: 4:24

Now, some of the times they can work independently and sometimes you'll maybe need to sit with them and, especially at first, just teach them to. Okay, today you're going to do this task box or this one, but they should have three to five of them a day and work on the goals that you're looking for, and that is just. It doesn't take long and the kids like doing it and you know you maybe have it like a 20 minute thing for three minutes and they've hit three goals that you're looking for. So that's one thing that I really like about task boxes the things that they can work on, and then you want to change them up and once you've got the big picture of them, let's say, okay, you're going to work five days a week and you're going to say three task box, so that's 15. So you want 15 to 20 boxes and then change them up a little bit, find some other activities that you're working on and if you want to do something like for science or anything, and put a little kids in there for them to do a little experiments mixing colors, to make colors is something that you could do social studies, if they're really young, the difference between city and farm or what city they live in, maps, those kind of things. If they're older kids, then you want to put older type things. So but I don't really go by their age, it's their level I'm talking about. You could have an older kid, but maybe only at a second grade level, and so these are some ways that they can learn to read and sound out things.

Speaker 1: 5:53

Another thing is. A lot of times kids will know their sounds but they're not decoding. So you want to put things in there for them to be able to decode, so they know the sounds. But then let's say they come across a word they don't know and they'll just say the letter. So what sound does that letter make? And that's where you want to work with them when you're doing these task box. What letter does this make? Um, there's a lot of activities out there and I'm sure that you can find different ones that would fit the your child's needs. So, um, that's what I I would do, and I say I lost my train of thought there for a minute. So, anyway, back to what we were talking about. Um, another thing is, if the kids like water, you can. There's a few or letters you can buy and, uh, they're in a bubble, and then have them, like, show them a picture of a word, say the word, pronounce the word. You know, if it's cat, cat, pronounce the word. And then have them get the letters and say the letters, as they're doing. Not just get the letters and put them in the water, but you got to sound out the cat and then have them sound that out. That would be another thing that you could do with them too.

Speaker 1: 7:13

And when you're homeschooling if you're homeschooling or homework, it doesn't matter which one don't think about okay, he's got to work from this time to this time just think of the tasks that they need to get done for the day, something they need to do, and then you can do what they kind of calling on school, where you know during the day they're doing different activities. That is part of their learning. They can learn through their environment. They can learn if you're going for a drive to name the streets and name the different places that they see. There's a lot of activities that you can do at home. Cooking is a wonderful thing to do with kids, and they can learn measurements and fractions with cooking, making some cupcakes or something, and decorate them in different ways.

Speaker 1: 8:02

So anyway, back to my text box. Those are some ideas for some text box. Like I said, there is a mountain of information in there. It is a little bit of work at the beginning that you have to do to get the text box the way that you want them, but it is a lot easier just to pull out three or four boxes and say this is what we're working on today and it will help them, encourage them and motivate them. Okay, what's in the box today? What are we gonna do today? And they may have to do repeat those things until they have acquired the skill that you're looking for, but I know you can do it Now, today. I'm not gonna do a story behind this one, but I because this was the kind of a quick one that I wanted to do with task boxes, and if you have any questions, please email me at Gdebra D-E-B-R-A-055gmailcom. Hope you're having a blessed day. Talk to you later soon.