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I am in need of a more organized approach to our school day! Does anyone use a workbox system and what are the pros and cons? This is our third year with HOD and love it!

I know there are several threads on this board about workboxes. If you search this forum for "workboxes," you might find some great info...and lots of pictures!

We organize our HOD books so each child has 2 totes. One tote is just for the books needed for "right now", and the other tote is for the books that we will need later in the year. We set the "right now" tote out each morning at the table each of the boys our working at. Riley had his Bigger Hearts tote at the kitchen table, and Wyatt had his RTR tote at the dining room table. They each had their own set of mobile supplies too. We used the Pampered Chef Tool Turnabouts for this. Each child receives a folder at the beginning of the year that has the schedule in it. They can then see the order of the boxes they are to do, about how long each box should take, and when I will be working with each of them. We use a timer at the start, just to help dc learn about how long things should be taking them. It reduces dawdling and promotes attention to task. This helps everyone stay on task and learn a good routine. We are more into a routine than a schedule the more the year goes on. Doing it the same way consistently helps time literally fall off the day. Here is our last year's schedule, just to give you an example...


Sometimes an elaborate setup takes much time, and it isn't really necessary. However, you will know what will work best for you! I hope some of these ideas can help!

In Christ,
Julie

I just have littles, but I am working my way into a workbox system, as I have seen a friend of mine's here who uses one and was very inspired by it. She has a whole wall of workboxes (flat drawers), she copies pages and puts them (or notebooks, or textbooks, or pages torn out of workbooks) into each box for each day. The children know which order... well actually she had them numbered in different colors, a color for each child, so they go 1-7 on their boxes to get their work done. For the littles, she had velcro numbers they would move from the front of the workbox onto a chart in the school room when they were done. Also, for the littles, many of the activities were things like listening to a book on CD, coloring, you know things they would want to do anyway. Just getting them into the routine of it.

At this point, I just have my drawers set up with each of my books, or types of books. I have my guide book (and my preschool activity book I use with my 2YO) in one drawer. I have all the stuff I read to them in another drawer (because that is all done at one time). I have all our scripture memory in a drawer (because we do the HOD verses and AWANA for each child). Each child has a drawer for their workbooks. What I LOVE about this is it all comes out so quickly and gets put away so quickly. Typically by the end of our school time most of these books are sitting around the living room or dining room, and either I or the kids can easily take them back and get them put away in the boxes.

Julie,
Thank you so much for posting! It gives a great glimpse of how your day goes and wonderful ideas on how to begin the school year!!! I love the idea of giving them a folder w their schedule and using the timer. Also like having "personal supplies" in a turnabout.
Thank you!
Mercy

Glad to help, Mercy! Thanks for your kind words!
In Christ,
Julie

I used the workboxes for my only and it took ME so much time. It was nice in theory, to have it all organized and "pulled" before the day started, but frankly I couldn't add more time to my day to put the right stuff in the right box before school or after the end of the day. If we had a place to go, I didn't want to go back to it when I got home, when I knew dd could just get the supplies herself.

On a positive note, it's great for organizing by subject and having a place to keep ongoing work instead of having it on a pile on the table. So I go back and forth using it this way. DD doesn't seem to share my organization talent. The boxes I have though are large enough to lay 99% of her ongoing work flat so in this respect it's good for this. Otherwise, she really just dumps it on a shelf, which with my analness, drives me batty. GASP!

But I like to change, so sometimes the workboxes are in storage, and sometimes I bring them back out. You know, like my Staples Desk Apprentice (in which I've lost many a drink by spinning it! ) But, this is way for me to rearrange without breaking my back I guess.

my3sons wrote:This helps everyone stay on task and learn a good routine. We are more into a routine than a schedule the more the year goes on. Doing it the same way consistently helps time literally fall off the day. Here is our last year's schedule, just to give you an example...


Sometimes an elaborate setup takes much time, and it isn't really necessary. However, you will know what will work best for you! I hope some of these ideas can help!

In Christ,
Julie

Any schedule that starts off with Mom sleeping is the schedule for me!!

Annaz, I have never spilt my drink while spinning the desk apprentice, but now I will think about that every time I give ours a whirl. I love my desk apprentice!
To keep on task though, since we have 8 children, the amount of boxes always seemed daunting to me although it appeals to my organizational side. I think the boxes in the HOD TMs actually give you visual workboxes without having to find the space to store or the time to load physical workboxes.

I use plastic file boxes, the ones that are made for file folders. Each child has only two main boxes: a Math/Science box and a Language Arts box. The bulk of their books and materials fit into those boxes. We keep our history books, read-alouds and readers on a shelf right next to where we keep the file boxes. Their current reader goes into their Language Arts box. Then, they share a box for Critical Thinking/Logic materials (MindBenders workbooks, logic games that my youngest can pull out and play with while I'm working with my oldest, software, etc.) and another for Language Studies (Greek, Latin video, roots flashcards, etc.). I also have my own box with the things that I personally use (TM's, schedules, etc.) or miscellanous things that we all use together (audios we are all listening to, etc.). I am planning to get more organized with our art supplies and get them into a box too. Right now, they are in wicker baskets but I'm going to make a file box for their art materials (looking forward to purchasing new watercolors for CTC!).

Very simple but it worked well for us last year. They are supposed to only pull out one box at a time. The boxes stack on top of one another when they aren't using the materials in them. The boxes were five dollars each at Dollar General Store.

I don't think the workbox system would work for me. It just seems like more work. With the HOD manuals, we can just pull out whatever file box they need to complete each box's assignment and then pack them back up right away. I don't have to pull materials for them, they can do it themselves.