The other night, I just could not sleep! So what better to do then check out what was happening on Twitter!!
I am so glad I did. @reflective was tweeting about a new homeschooling method she had heard about called The Workbox System.
I am an unschooler at heart but it does drive both my parents and husband crazy that the kids should be doing more formal learning. I knew to get the kids back into schooling, I would need a new approach.
I bought the eBook and read through it. Sue Patrick is an incredibly creative person and has some great ideas (even beyond the explanation of the system!).
But I also knew I needed to adapt her system to make it ‘ours!’ So we are doing 6 boxes per child. They can work in any order but need to have save #6 for last. The last box will always have something that is extra fun!
They earn stickers for each of the other five they complete. When they earn 25 stickers we will do some kind of fun field trip, or special outing. Based on five boxes, that should be at the end of each week if all goes well.
Each morning, they will find new things to work on (trying to adapt worksheets as I have time to make them puzzles and more entertaining). So “hopefully” the surprise factor also helps.
Today {first day} kids were so excited. First time in forever where doing math problems was not a ‘fight!” Now to keep me from losing enthusiasm..
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
So glad to hear the kids were all excited about it and it kept them hooked today. You are so right though, if you lose the enthusiasm for it, it won’t work. It sure sounds like it is very organized and the fact that the kids can choose what they do in what order is really nice. Of course, incentives are always helpful, unless you live at my house. My kids from a young age would look me right in the eye and tell me I could not bribe them – of course that is not what I was trying to do, but they thought any point system or sticker chart was just that – ugh!
While I don’t do boxes, I do put out all the kids work with a list of what needs to be done each day – they get to decide what order and when they want me to work with themm within reason of course.
Good luck!
Thank you for sharing your review. I’m still pondering how and what I want to implement. (I never make decisions quickly.)
I like the idea of a special surprise to end the day. Can I get one of those for me?
I look forward to hearing more about how this progresses. Best wishes!