• Apr. 28, 2009 - Worbox System - A Week Later
Well I've been using the Workbox System for over a week now and I'm very, very happy with the results. I still think the biggest benefit to me so far has been how it has kept me accountable. Now when the kids ask can I go out, play the Wii, etc. I can easily say are your boxes finished. (And because of the box system I can also very quickly see visually the answer.) Before I might get the yes I'm done or I finished my list when they in fact had not but since I didn't have time to go through their list I'd let them go and find out later they had left something undone. Now even if I haven't checked it all I can easily see its not done.
I had to be out of town part of Thursday - Sunday. I set up the boxes a bit different with the work to complete while I was gone. If they had an assignment both days I put two numbers on them. For example the math workbook box had a #2 and #7 on it. They each knew how much they needed for each day. Joshua figured out if it was all done he could have more time off so he actually finished both days worth in one day. Hannah didn't get all of hers done because she got sick but I could still see what needed to be reschedule due to illness and she is back on track today.
I started out with the idea of just using the system with my two youngest who will be staying home again in the fall. I figured we could give the system a try and then decide how I wanted to use them next year. My 14 yo will be attending a military school through our local school system in the fall so I didn't want to invest in a new system. But I've found that the ideas and principals of this system so helpful to me as the teacher that I decided I wanted to expand its use to my 14 yo as well.
Since I didn't want to spend too much I decided to use a crate with hanging folders for him since these were materials I already had. I just printed off another number set and purchased some more velcro. Today is our first day and I found that he had not completed everything last week that he was supposed to so he has some folders with more than one assignment in them. What I told him was to go through the folders in order, doing one days worth in each folder and then after he has completed one full days worth he can go back and work on the additional assignments each day until he catches up. I wanted him to get an idea of how long it is really taking him to complete a full days work and to get the feel of working through the folders in order, one assignment at a time until done. Sometimes his biggest problem is finding his book to complete the assignment or "forgetting" to do his book reading. Now it is all in one place and easy to find. He is to bring the crate out at the end of the day for grading and pick it up again each morning stocked and ready to go. I think that learning to think in this more organized way will help him in the fall. He can come home and crate his homework so he can clearly see what he needs to accomplish before doing other things.
Someone had commented that they wanted to know more about what I was talking about so here are a couple of links. The first link is to Sue Patrick's Workbox System site. Sue Patrick Workbox System the second link is to the Five in a Row Discusion that I read that got me started on exploring this system in the first place. FIAR Workbox Discussion And if you google Workbox System it will bring up all kinds of homeschooling blogs on the subject as well. |
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