Keeping It Simple

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 t...

Well, we have been using The Boxes since March-- 7 months or so. In more than 15 years of homeschooling, I have seen quite a few fads come and go. I was a bit skeptical that "the boxes" would be just another one of those-- however, for us, the boxes have turned out to be a practical, uncomplicated method of organizing and implementing our homeschool assignments. I would consider them a success! :) The boxes are just that- boxes. Although many people use drawers, files, magazine holders and other things that they have on hand, the boxes, as explained in Sue Patrick's book, are just plastic shoe boxes. (about $1 each at our local Target) The idea is to have a bank of boxes (up to 12 of them) for each child. The child's work is then sorted in to the boxes- each box holding an assignment or project to work on . It is like a giant, hands on check list. How it works for us: I use a planner form to decide what we will have in our boxes. I have tried more detailed day by day...

This week's meme, hosted by the Work of Childhood , is an interview with our students to get their opionions on "the boxes". It is fun to read what the kids are saying about the whole thing. So far, the kids seem to giving it thumbs up too. We'll see what my kids have to say! 1. What is your favorite thing about the workboxes? It is more visualized of what you have done. It shows you how much you have left and how much you need to do. (Paul 11) You're organized and you know what to do. And they're in order, so you do your school in order. And, it is a lot more easy and it goes quicker. (Mark 8) Because they are fun-- the math is fun. (James 6) 2. What is your LEAST favorite thing about them? It's school. (Paul 11) You get tired. (Mark 8) 3. Do you think the workboxes are helping you become a better student? Yes. (Paul 11) Ya. (Mark 8) No. I don't. (James 6) (James has always considered himself a good student :-)) 4. If you c...

This is the first time I am participating in something like this, so I am a bit unsure of "blog etiquette", but here goes :-) -- this survey is put together for those who are interested in seeing how others are using their workbox system. You can also participate by visiting the " Work of Childhood " blog. Sounds like fun! I was suppose to put somewhere the ages of the children that I am filling the boxes for! Until I figure out where/how I was suppose to do that, they are 11 (just turned), 8, and 6 (also just had a bday). How many boxes do you fill? 34 Do you expect your children to go in order? Ultimately that is my goal. For now, we adjust as we go through the day-- boxes often are skipped and then returned to later. As soon as I read about the workbox idea, I implemented a make shift version-- we have been slowly working toward using the system as outlined in the book . Even at in its least structured form, our day has been immensely improved by using the workb...

In the box for James (K) is this idea from Ruth Beechick's book A Home Start in Reading . I have had this book for years (like over 15 yrs!) and never realized what a treasure trove of learning ideas it holds. Tomorrow we are going try this activity-- take three dice, one has all vowels with "a" on it twice, the other two each have the same 6 consonants on them. The student rolls the dice to see what words he can make-- a set time can be chosen and the student can roll the dice to make as many words as possible in that amount of time. A few notes on this activity-- things I discovered after a trial run. 1. Make the vowel dice a different color than the consonant dice. 2. You may want to make all the dice capitals. We ran in to much confusion when our dice had lower case letters-- even with lines under the letters so that James could tell which way the letter went, there was still confusion. Now that we have tweaked things, this is one of our favorite word activities.

I thought I'd include one box from each age group that I have going right now... nothing fancy. For 5yo son-- math book and all supplies. We use number stamps to answer the problems. Just now, James in getting enough control to hold his pencil well and is able to not reverse his numbers. The stamps are fun and make doing math much easier with no writing struggles to deal with. * Math games-- Mark's (2nd grade) favorite! This is from Peggy Kaye's Games for Math . Each player (mom and son) begin with the number 500. Two dice are rolled each turn to make the largest number possible to subtract from 500. The first player to reach 0 wins. I am amazed how this has cemented his subtration skills!! * In the Paul's (11yo) box! Art supplies with a card that instructs him to watch a drawing video on the computer. *

I credit the workboxes for helping us to make use of our "stuff". For us, that stuff takes the form of irresistible bargain finds (who can pass up a good deal?!) that I am always sure the kids will love; yet these "bargains" sit idle on the shelf. Or, they come in the form treasured items that had belonged to my now adult children, but, yet again, they sit on the shelf waiting to be made use of! So, here two examples of things resurrected by the boxes!! THINK-IT-THROUGH: Think it Through Tiles! I don't know if these still exist as such, but I recently saw a similar item in a catalog (ours are from Discovery Toys). Originally, these belonged to my now grown daughters when they were little. They are now making an appearance in my 5 year old's box and he loves them!! I post-it note the sections that he is not doing-- the page is a bit overwhelming and it is easy to lose your place, so this prevents that confusion from happening. TRANSFORMERS: And, this h...