Workboxes Work For Me

Like anything that is labor intense, it is good to evaluate the cost (time) to benefit ratio. I have mentioned my absolute love affair with "All About Spelling", but I will tell you right now that if I could hand my child a workbook to do the job, I would! Workboxes are much the same way in our family. They take a bit more effort up front, but, for the gain in productivity we have, they are hands down worth it.

From Sue Patrick's Site:

An effective teaching system to reduce your organizational time and
increase your child's self-control, independence and learning.
Specialized for: Autism, ADD ADHD, and
Large Home School Families
This system will complement your existing curriculum!

Note that this system was created to meet some pretty special needs. That does not mean that it cannot work in any situation, but if you are shaking your head and thinking "why in the world would anyone...?", I'll tell you why I did.

The minute I first read about this system was an "aha!" moment for me. I knew that it was the answer I was looking for to meet some needs in our homeschool. I immediately (well, after reading quite a few blog posts) tore through the house collecting bins, baskets, and magazine holders to fill with school work. The next day, our makeshift box system was up and running. The results were immediate.

 

To understand the results, you need to know that I started using workboxes more than 2 years ago when my boys were 11, 8, and 5 years old (younger and crazier!). One of my sons has fairly serious learning difficulties and my other two are... well, boys. I also had one high school student. Our day would start on track, yet one false move from me would send us into a tailspin. The other difficulty was the constant pestering from my boys wondering "when are we done?". No amount of explanation could make my them (particularly my one son) understand that we would be done when we finished doing school for the day. I should note my son's learning difficulties translate into him having trouble understanding the concept of dates and time.

Enter workboxes. Everything that each child needs for every subject/project is placed in his boxes (1 subject per box). No more mom getting distracted or misplacing needed items. And, the biggie, my son could "see" how much we had set out to accomplish in any given day and how much still needed to get done. Just a little thing like being able to see all of the work set out, and then seeing all the boxes stacked (or turned around) when the work is complete took so much pressure off the day.

 

My husband was so impressed with the results (plus my obvious sense of relief) that he went out and purchased the racks and boxes for me to put a permanent system in place. 

 

We have taken this summer off using the workboxes, and it has not be catastrophic, but I can see that we function better when the system is up and running.



 

If you want a better idea of how workboxes work, Sue Patrick's book is a great place to start. Just perusing blogs (which is a good idea too!) would work, but I admit that I enjoyed having the manual in my hands.

A few places that I like that show workboxes in action:
Adventures in Home Education (check the linky for more)
What's in the Box? (inspiration since we began using boxes)