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I am going to try workboxes this year for my 13 year old son who has a hard time staying on task and my 11 year old daughter who is a master avoider.  I don't have room or money for the carts with drawers, but I did get some Storex book bins to use. Prices online are all over the place, but my walmart has large rainbow ones like these that are 5 for $10 and I got some black small ones from overstock that were 12/$24.

 

But there are two things I can't figure out how to deal with.  One, shared subjects.  What do you do for subjects that the kids do together using the same materials?  There are a couple of things like science that we all do together.  Two, online assignments.  What do you do for things like "practice typing for 10 minutes" or "do your spelling lesson (online)"? 

 

ETA I'm trying to avoid having a checklist.  My son doesn't like them and it seems like it will kind of defeat the purpose of having workboxes.  But I am having trouble figuring out what else I can do.

Edited by Ariston
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Also how do you assign the work in general?  Do you put a post it note on the book  w/ the assignment on it?

 

Brainstorming for my original question, I was thinking it might work to have one box devoted to the online work with just a clipboard and a checklist in that box.  That way its still a discrete contained unit and doesn't detract from the workbox system.  Still thinking on it....

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Maybe a piece of paper with one task written on it? It might take away the "checklist" feel. I have seen this with the piece of paper stacked among other items. I have also seen it with a binder with one task per page, and kids can turn the pages as they go, but still are only seeing one task at a time. A lot of kids get overwhelmed by checklists.

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I am going to try workboxes this year for my 13 year old son who has a hard time staying on task and my 11 year old daughter who is a master avoider.  I don't have room or money for the carts with drawers, but I did get some Storex book bins to use. Prices online are all over the place, but my walmart has large rainbow ones like these that are 5 for $10 and I got some black small ones from overstock that were 12/$24.

 

But there are two things I can't figure out how to deal with.  One, shared subjects.  What do you do for subjects that the kids do together using the same materials?  There are a couple of things like science that we all do together.  Two, online assignments.  What do you do for things like "practice typing for 10 minutes" or "do your spelling lesson (online)"? 

 

ETA I'm trying to avoid having a checklist.  My son doesn't like them and it seems like it will kind of defeat the purpose of having workboxes.  But I am having trouble figuring out what else I can do.

 

I always started my day with the "together" items, so I didn't put those in the kids' workboxes. We did those, and then they went to their workboxes for independent/one-on-one with mom work.

 

For things like practicing typing, you can either put that on the velcro schedule (the one that has all of the numbers to pull off when a box is completed--I put chores on ours), or make up a card to put in one of boxes to remind him to do things like that. Have fun!

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For assignments, ours were often things like "read the next chapter" or "do the next lesson" so no instructions were needed. Sometimes it was "do this for 30 minutes" to make it the same each day--again no instructions needed.

 

Sometimes I used red and green sticky tabs--green for go, red for stop, marking where to start and stop in the book.

 

Ditto on the treats to find, and not overwhelming with instructions!

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I am going to add.... if it wouldn't make them go off task too much, you can have fun tasks too like "set a timer for 15 minutes and take a break." You can also hide treats in the boxes for them to come across.

 

I saw the treat idea, fun!  Like the idea of the timer too! and the binder!  Might have to try a few things and see what works best.

Thanks!

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