I've struggle all this school year with feeling like Pumpkin was getting shortchanged in our schooling focus.  There were days that I didn't even have time to read her stories and it wasn't because I was "doing too much".  It just seemed like I was getting caught up in too much "drama".    I needed some structure to help me get refocused when life-with-little-ones seemed to throw us off track.  We take lots of breaks during the day for character training, potty-training, baby care, doctor visits, crisis squelching, etc.  It seemed like we were getting Pickles through his school day but Pumpkin was getting lost and Pickles was forming poor school habits (asking momma for help ALL the time, not being able to work for a few minutes by  himself, etc).

Our struggles seemed insurmountable to me at times.  I had actually kind of resolved myself to the fact that it was just going to be this way for EVER while we have small children.  I, however, am a deep believer in living in the now and not wishing for the "next phase" of family life.  I also try to teach my children to be useful and helpful members of our family "in-the-current-family-phase".  So, if we have a young sibling then we all learn how to adjust our lives for that little one.  We live life together rather than putting up ever imaginable thing that could cause a problem or adjust the schedule so that the baby is always asleep while the older children do things.  But that can make life a bit like my one and only experience of driving a stick-shift car....stop-start-stop-start-jerk-go-etc. 

I was earnestly praying for God to direct me to a new inspiration or idea to creatively solve the issues in our homeschool.  He did by leading me to workboxes!

I first heard about workboxes when a friend suggested I check it out to help Pickles who struggles with some mild Sensory Processing issues.  At the time I filed the info away and moved on with our school schedule.  A couple of months later, as I shared our struggles with her again, she mentioned the concept again and this time I spent some time researching it.  I don't often buy things for school on an impluse but I did order the entire shabang from Sue Patrick's website.  I bought the book and the start-up kit.  I knew, intuitively, that this is what we needed.  It was the best money I've ever spent for our schooling. 

I honestly feel like I have my sanity back.  No, my laundry still doesn't get put away on time and I still struggle to get to cleaning the house but our school days are much smoother and 100X more productive.  We are also finishing 80% of our school in the morning and still having time for a play break before lunch.  Oh and my Pickles is learning to do things on his own, the quality of his work is improving, and he doesn't complain about doing school (school in general...we struggle with "my hand is going to fall off" ). 

One of the most enjoyable blessings has been doing fun preschool things with Pumpkin.  We've been writing in cornmeal, singing songs, reading stories from Core A (Sonlight), painting, learning to draw with basic shapes, working on letter and number recognition.  It has been a great joy to snuggle with her and see her heart responding to the time together.  Another great benefit is how she is learning to work independently from the start.  She has six boxes a day and at least half are ones she does on her own.  (Momma claps her hands and says "yea").

Here are some photos and basic info on how we are using the system....

This is the shelf that Pickles uses.  He typically has 8-10 boxes a day.  We move through the first 2/3 in the morning and do our history reading, read-aloud, and projects in the afternoon.

These are Pumpkin's workboxes.  She has 6 boxes a day and finishes all of them in the morning.

Examples of Preschool boxes....HWOT work, number recognition game, Critical Thinking worksheets

A Tapestry of Grace box....Pickles has to label the map for this week.  He is LG so we use clear address labels to mark our maps.

This is an example of our "mobile" workboxes.  We have a school room but on this day momma had several "kitchen" chores to do.  So, I loaded the boxes with things that would be easy to implement and had them work at the kitchen island.  Worked like a charm!  Then we stacked up the finished work and set it by the stairs.

Pumpkin showing you how COOL you can look as you do workboxes!

I hope you enjoyed seeing how we are being blessed by an effective organizational idea for homeschooling.  If you want to learn more please visit Sue Patrick's website.  Thank you Sue.  We LOVE workboxes!