Friday, May 22, 2009

Workbox Intro

The Work of Childhood blog is hosting a carnival of homeschoolers who are using the workbox system. She's titled it Thinking Outside the Box. This week we are introducing ourselves and telling a bit about our homeschool. . . If you are thinking about or doing workboxes, this should be a great place for information, ideas, and inspiration!

Here are some questions she posed on her blog.

How many boxes do you fill? Right now, my 5 year old is doing 9 boxes. I hope to move up to 12 before Christmas. My 3 year old will start with 6 boxes in Augusst or September.
Do you expect your children to go in order? Mary Helen (5) goes in order. I think I will probably let Anna (3) do in any order.
Do you use the schedule strips? no, but I am considering it beginning in the fall.
How long does it take you to fill the boxes? I try to plan ahead, which takes about an hour a week, then about 10-15 minutes daily.
Do you fill your work boxes EACH night with all new items? Some of our boxes are themed, so I just pull the next math worksheet out of the book or add a new Bob book to the box. I am trying to have 4-6 that are the same theme, but not really the same exact all the time.
What do your kids do with the empty boxes? They go right back to their spots.
Do you put away the ‘supplies’ each night? or do your kids? I have a box on top of the workbox shelf where she puts completed items. I put them away weekly usually.
Anything else you want to add? I'm excited to get more done and we spend more time together. I am also using lots of the "extras" that I've purchased along the way. I hope I can do this successfully with Anna (3) this fall!

4 comments:

Jenny said...

I really need to look into this concept more. Thanks for posting the link.

I have an award for you at my blog:
http://ourniftynotebook.blogspot.com/2009/05/one-lovely-blog-awards.html

Christy Killoran said...

I love the idea of workboxes. I will be using them with my 3 year old in the fall. My son will be starting public school Kindergarten in the fall but he will have work boxes for weekends and vacations. I'm still working out the details. AND, this was his idea, not mine!

Sheri said...

Thanks for taking part in the meme-
You are fortunate cuz you found these when the girls are little, I just came across them after getting 2 graduated, with another one only a couple years to go, but thankfully-my last child who desperately needed something like this can benefit from this system. Have a great weekend.

momstheword said...

I have no idea what a workbox is but it sounds interesting. I imagine my kids would have loved them!