Workboxes

OK so I said before I would elaborate more on this. This is a big deal in the homeschooling community right now. Sue Patrick came up with this system and sells the book and other supplies on her website. I have not gotten the book yet but I do plan to sometime. I believe there will be a lot of tips and tricks in it. For now we are kind of winging it and seeing how it works for us. We have used it a few weeks now and Meghan seems to love it. She gets excited to go through and see whats coming up. The basic idea is to use plastic shoe boxes to put their activities in. Sue uses 12 boxes but you can use less if that works for you. We are using the 12. They are numbered and the kids go through the boxes in order. They go through all 12 boxes each day, when they are done with the boxes they are done with school for the day. Some people use it only for school type work and others use it for that and fun learning activities. That is how we are using it. By using this system it keeps you more organized, which I love, and also gets you using all those cool supplies you buy and never get a chance to use.

In the original idea you use the shoe boxes but we are using a hanging file folder. For us it is because of space issues. I want to use the shoe boxes but I am not sure I have a place for them right now. The shoe boxes are nice because they can see everything and know what's coming up next. In the hanging file folders Meghan can't see everything so I let her go through and see what's in the folders. Usually things are mixed up a little so that all school work is not together. There are fun activities or games mixed in. I usually try to have maybe math first then have a game or craft, for example.

This week we are finishing our unit study on the book Apples to Oregon. It is about the settlers going out west so there are lots of fun things to learn about. Meghan is making a lapbook to go along with this book. So this goes into her workboxes along with her math which is about money right now, her phonics pages and anything else she needs practice on. For fun things I am adding any the games Memory, and Uno, writing to her penpal, crafts, and cooking with mom activities.

Some things are workbooks or worksheets I print out. Other things are everything she needs to complete a project. For example, I plan to put card making supplies into a workbox every so often... Maybe once a week. So that workbox will have precut and folded cardstock for the card base and then maybe paper scraps, punches, stamps, pens, glitter or anything else I think she would like. She loves to make greeting cards at Christmas and other times so she will love this. That is pretty much how all the boxes are though. You put everything needed for the school work, activity or craft into a box. That is why it helps us mommies out too, because we can plan ahead and have everything in one spot ready to use. I have even added in computer time, outside time and snacks to keep up with that. For those things I print on cardstock what it is for and how much time she has. So it might say "computer time 15 minutes- Starfall (starfall.com)". Once she is done with that one I can save the card to use again.
Like I said she is really enjoying it and I think we will keep it up. After this week we will be taking a couple weeks off to visit with Grandparents and enjoy the holiday. I will be using that time to plan out our next year too. Kaden will be starting some small things as well. He wants to be involved with everything Meghan does so that will be a new thing to try and balance too.
I think we are all excited for the new school year!~ I will try to take pictures of our system soon.