A new school year beckons, and about The Workbox System!

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Every year since I've begun homeschooling, I have found that spring has brought, along with the showers and blossoms, a community-wide feeling of "are we done yet???"  March comes, and I'm DONE, only we're not *actually* done!  It must have something to do with the end of dreary, cold days and the coming of sprouts and tempting beaches!  I tire of paperwork and waking the kids up every morning, telling everyone what to do all day long, etc. etc.  And I'm pretty positive my kids feel the same way (at least, that's what they tell me!)  The refrigerator is calling out for a good cleaning, as are all the closets, and the bookshelves runneth over with creased, mostly-used workbooks, broken pencils and crayons, and rumpled papers which haven't found a home.

And then comes May.  Something very interesting happens to homeschool moms in May, too, and there must be a diagnostic term for it somewhere.  All of a sudden, in the very midst of our intense desire to throw every book we've been looking at all year AWAY, we realize that in a few months, a new school year will begin!  A new year, full of promise and empty of mistakes and struggles!  A chance to change math curriculum, to try a new foreign language, to finally introduce art!  And we experience something similar, I believe, to what happens to a mom who's recently delivered a baby . . . a sort of teacher's amnesia.    Thank the Lord we do, because without it, we'd all only have one child, and every one of them would be returned to the local schoolbuilding in September.

So, as the new year beckons to me from across the glowing promise of summer break, I'm basking in the light of possibilities.  I printed out blank monthly calendars for the year last night, and they positively made me giddy, for heaven's sake.  I've got a few changes in store for the year.  For one thing, we're going to run a sometimes modified-six weeks on, one week off school year.  We'll take a summer break for about 7 weeks starting June 1st (the kids have camp on the week I wanted to start, so that was our first adjustment!) and then begin the new school year July 13th.  Somewhere in there, our new baby is expected to arrive, and then after 5 weeks we will hit my family's official "week of birthdays," where we have 3 all at once (and we will also need to go pick up Zachary from his summer trip to New Guinea!) so that's our first week-long break.  When it's time to start again it'll also be the first week of Classical Conversations for the year (aaahhh!  Providence!) so we'll go ahead and run right through to October, when we'll take another week off (and probably run north to see some pretty foliage!) and then we start again and go 'til the week of Thanksgiving. By that time, because we will have started early, we'll be done with the first half of the year--always my dream, and one we seldom manage to accomplish!  We'll break for ALL of Thanksgiving-New Years (no school at all in December--5 weeks, this year!) which is my very favorite thing to do. 

In January we start again with Classical Conversations and will run right along with their (new this year!) schedule of 6 weeks on/1 week off; we break for a week in February just in time for our anniversary.  The next 6 weeks takes us to the week of Easter for our next week-break, and the last 6 weeks leaves us all done with school by the 3rd week in May, which should put us right in line with our umbrella school's schedule for promotion/graduation.  I'm so excited about the way all the dates "just happened" to land--I think it will work really well for us.

One change I'm really looking forward to is something I first heard of from my dear friends at CC.  It's called The Workbook System by Sue Patrick, and is basically an organizational process for managing your children's schedules, papers, books, etc. all at the same time.  The idea is that you purchase/find a set of shelves and 12 bins for each child (she suggests a simple shoe rack and plastic shoeboxes, but many people have modified this idea in a zillion ways) and then fill them up the night (or morning) before each school day with whatever it is you want the student to accomplish. Each box can contain one of a myriad of things: a slip of paper that says "clean your room," a math workbook, a puzzle or craft to work on, a snack to eat, history book to read, or an instruction to "work with mom."  The ideas, of course, are endless.  The child can see what it is they need to do, as each box is numbered (encouraging them to work left to right and top to bottom--a "hidden" benefit of the system which is actually priceless for young ones) and you can see if they're done, too--the child simply removes and stacks both boxes and work as they complete each task.  Great idea, don't you think?  You can see Sue's website with an e-book to download explaining all about the why's and how's of the system (very important, in my view--I don't think you'd be as likely to stick with it without understanding all those why's) at http://www.workboxsystem.com/  and even order system sets from her if you don't want to make them yourself--laminated cards with numbers for the boxes, schedule strips, little pictures that say "Work with Mom" or "I need help" (only three, so they have to really consider how much they need your help when they use them!!!)  There are discussion forums with different tips and tricks and all sorts of things there, but I'll tell you honestly that this originating site is not quite as engaging or informational as others I've been introduced to--there just aren't enough pictures and real-life experience notes there.  So let me give you some good places to read more about what other moms are doing . . .

http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/LittleMen/669091/  Lots of great pictures at this one so you can get an idea of what it's all about

http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/walkingbytheway/674074/  Great ideas for using toys in the boxes as educational tools . . . on the right is a list of "wonderful workboxes" with links to various posts she's written about it!

http://blogshewrote.blogspot.com/search/label/Ideas%20for%20the%20workboxes?max-results=20

Again, lots of pictures and ideas for things to fill up the boxes!

http://www.ideas4theworkbox.blogspot.com/

There you have it; my organizational plan for next year.  I'm anxious to purchase my shelves and boxes (and figure out where exactly to put them, LOL!) and will be on the hunt at the fpea convention this weekend for lots of things to put in them . . . one of the great things I'm hearing about this system is that it helps you use all the books/toys/games you've purchased in the past and never actually USED, which would definitely apply to me!  My friends already using the system are swearing they're getting twice as much done in half the time--accountability for mom is another built-in benefit of the system.  Check it out! 

11:09 AM - May. 20, 2009 - post comment