Workboxes: Making Them Work For Us!

Previously, I wrote about the homeschool organization system of Workboxes.  I still have not purchased Sue Patrick's book (though I know I probably should), but I have seen the system in place on several different blogs.  I have seen how different families adapt the system to suit their needs, so I decided to alter it for my family as well.

I still do not have the system perfected for us, but I can tell you that I am loving it so far!  I certainly do not use workboxes as they were intended to be used though.  For starters, workboxes are mainly used to encourage independent work for the student, but I use them more for me; to keep me on track and organized.  Maybe next year I will use them as intended, but for this year, I think my daughter needs my direction.

Also, I have not implemented the number strip schedule, nor the removing and turning around of labels etc.  I have simplified the system to work for us....for now.

So here is what I have done.

First of all, the original system calls for 12 boxes per child.  We are only using 6 per child and some days do not even fill all 6.  I numbered the boxes using some "room decorations" I found at the dollar store.  My daughter choose stars for herself and my son chose apples.  I do not remove the numbers every day as the system suggests.  Our numbers stay attached to the boxes.

Another difference in our system is that  I do not use a wire cart to hold our boxes.  Our space is very limited at the moment since we are not currently in our own home.  So, our boxes are actually on top of my son's dresser.

For my daughter, each of the boxes gets filled with the worksheets, manipulatives, supplies etc. for each subject that we plan to complete that day.  We use a rotating schedule throughout the week for our work.  Every day we do phonics, handwriting, math and some sort of craft.  Monday we do science, Tuesday we do social studies, Wednesday we do Bible and Thursday we do art or readiness skills.  Friday's we usually do not do any work at home, but go on a some sort of field trip - usually a trip to the library or to our local theme park where we have passes.  Sometimes our "field trip" day changes if there is a special activity at the library or somewhere else that we want to attend on another day.   If that happens we just switch our days around.

For my son, the boxes are filled with hands-on, mainly Montessori type activities.  He has transferring activities using a spoon or tongs, pouring exercises, sandpaper letters, lacing beads, blocks to stack etc.

I hand my son a new box as soon as he gets bored with the last.  My daughter follows a picture schedule to know what comes next in our day.  As I said, her boxes contain all the items she needs to complete the work for our main subjects, however that is not all we do in a day.

I found some great daily scheduling cards on a blog, Homeschool Creations.    On her blog, Jolanthe has a PDF download of these cards as well as a download of her weekly workbox  grid.  There are some great pictures there that show how she uses the system for her family.

I downloaded, printed and laminated the schedule cards and the weekly workbox grids for our use.  However, unlike Jolanthe, I do not attach cards in advance to each workbox grid for every day of the week, I only set up one at a time the night before.   I also do not require my daughter to flip them over when a task is completed - mainly because I do not have the velcro necessary to do that, but I think I may do that soon.

Each morning I hand my daughter the schedule grid for that day.  When a task is completed from the grid she simply removes the card and places it into an empty workbox.  In this way she still is able to see her workload disappearing as the day progresses.   Here is what our grid looks like:

The way we use the grid and the boxes is what makes our system different from the original.  Where as , I believe, most people will use one of their 12 boxes to hold a card that says " it's time for lunch", I simply put that card on our daily grid.  We use cards on the grid to show snack time, lunch time, exercise time, computer play, etc.  Boxes are reserved for tasks that actually involve supplies that need to be held together to complete the work.  I will show some pictures of what goes into our workboxes next time.

We follow the same basic schedule every day (predictability is important for ADHD kids), but the visual of work disappearing has eliminated the "are we done yet" questions!

This is the way we have made workboxes work for us.  I'm sure the system will be tweaked a few more times, but it's going well so far and I plan to continue with some version of workboxes for quite a while!

But that is just one mom's opinion.

Have you altered the workbox system for your family?
What changes did you make?

Let me know your thoughts!