ForeverFamily Posted June 21, 2012 Share Posted June 21, 2012 I am thinking about using the workbox system for my upcoming 1st and K4. Most of the curricula we are using this upcoming year is mom intensive. Has anyone successfully used the workbox system with mom intensive curric.? Correct me if I am wrong, it seems to me that the workbox system is designed to help the students work more independently so I am not sure if it would work well with the curric. we are going to use. The other thing I am worried about is having my Dd4 use it as well as my Dd6 and have the system still work. I will be mostly needing to teach my Dd6 and then when I am done switch to my Dd4 or vice versa. I am not sure how I would line up the workboxes to have my Dd4 do some independent work while I am working with my Dd6 and vice versa. Depending on the day one may work faster than the other. Has anyone made this work? I think my kiddos would enjoy using the work box system. I guess what I am getting at is since we are using mostly Mom intensive curric. would the work box system just make our school day unnecessarily more complicated or would it stream line things? Hope that makes sense. Any experience with this or thoughts would be wonderful! Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WeeBeaks Posted June 21, 2012 Share Posted June 21, 2012 (edited) I have used workboxes successfully with Sonlight and Tapestry of Grace, etc. It works, though Sue Patrick's book does lead one to the impression workboxes are more for independent curricula. I put the book to read or whatever it is in their boxes. When having 2 or more with things needing lots of mom time, I arrange all the "work with mom" for one at the beginning of the day while putting math or other independent things for the other first in his day. The other one has all his "work with mom" things at the end. Sometimes one worked fast and the other slow and two (or more) needed me at once, but the above worked pretty well. I also occasionally pretaught a math concept the night before with my oldest so he could have his math first in the day without needing me as much. I previewed it with him and did a few problems to judge how confident he was, and then had him read the textbook the next morning to review and do the workbook. Re 4yo level - does she read at all? My 4yo can read some words, especially color words to help her do coloring sheets and workbooks. I put in her boxes "independent" things such as puzzles, lacing beads, coloring sheets, dot a dot markers, stickers. She has enough small fun things to keep her busy until it is her turn to be with me intensively for a reading lesson. I do help her intermittently get started on things, but the activities are chosen so that once she has started she can work 15 minutes at least alone. Edited June 21, 2012 by WeeBeaks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ForeverFamily Posted June 21, 2012 Author Share Posted June 21, 2012 My 4 year old isn't reading yet, something we will be working on this next school year.;) I like your idea of adding in fun activities, my almost 3 year old would probably love to do that as well. I know this is kind of going against the whole idea of the workbox system, but do you ever make your younger ones spend a certain amount of time on an activity, like the ones you mentioned, before moving on to the next one. My Dd4's personality is one that I could see her flying quickly through all of the activities just because she would have fun getting to the next one. She has A LOT of energy! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WeeBeaks Posted June 21, 2012 Share Posted June 21, 2012 I know this is kind of going against the whole idea of the workbox system, but do you ever make your younger ones spend a certain amount of time on an activity, like the ones you mentioned, before moving on to the next one. My Dd4's personality is one that I could see her flying quickly through all of the activities just because she would have fun getting to the next one. She has A LOT of energy! No, I don't personally. Sometimes my youngers do fly through. About as close as I come is audio books with a headset or TAG books. Audios can't be rushed. :D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ForeverFamily Posted June 21, 2012 Author Share Posted June 21, 2012 After re-reading my last post I don't think I did a very good job getting across what I meant. So I figured I better explain it better just so there is no confusion. What I meant was having your child wait a minimum amount of time (like 10 to 15 min.) before they can move on to the next workbox, and they can spend that 10 or 15 min. working on the current activity or doing something else of their choice. Just so each workbox are spaced out a little. But if they choose to spend longer than that on any one activity than that is fine too! No, I don't personally. Sometimes my youngers do fly through. About as close as I come is audio books with a headset or TAG books. Audios can't be rushed. :D Audio books are a great idea! So what I am thinking is maybe to have my Dd4 do her mom intensive work first (which will take about 15 minutes) and then have her workboxes thereafter be independent work/activities. I will have my Dd6 start with some independent work than do more mom intensive work after that. As for having my Dd4 wait a minimum amount of time between each workbox, I will just wait and see how she does on her own first. If she flys through and spends only 2 to 3 minutes on each box than I may try and encourage her to spend a little more time on each. But it won't really matter as much because her mom-intensive work will already be done and she won't "need" me school wise after that except for maybe some help with directions on her worksheets. I do really like the idea of the workboxes giving her some planned activities to do. I just really hope my Dd6 will be able to concentrate on her work while her sister is having fun doing various activities. Sorry, just thinking out loud here. It sounds like a lot of work to come up with several unique activities everyday.:tongue_smilie: WeeBeaks do you have certian rotation of activities that you do for your kiddos, so you don't have to think too much;)? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MerryAtHope Posted June 21, 2012 Share Posted June 21, 2012 The author, Sue Patrick, actually used Sonlight as well. When the box is to be done with mom, you can just put a "with mom" tag or sticker on it. What does your 4 year-old do now while you do school? Some of those same things might be organized by workboxes. When I started out, I would do something with my youngest first, then do subjects together with both kids, and then work one on one with my oldest. So I had my oldest do something independent while I worked with my youngest, but then my youngest usually had some room time playing & listening to an audio CD while I worked one on one with my oldest. Box ideas for younger ones: play dough, puzzles, lacing beads, dress-up, puppets, blocks, dolls, lincoln logs, magnet letters, coloring, simple dot-to-dots or mazes, counting bears, pattern blocks, geoboards, cuisenaire rods, base 10 blocks, dump truck with beans...almost anything that you would have them do for an activity can be a fun thing for workboxes, especially if you are wanting to keep one busy while you work with the other. I didn't have workboxes back when my kids were young, but I used to rotate bins of toys and then do other things like have time outside, or standing on a chair at the sink with bowls & spoons to play with the water, and so on. Train them young how to clean up and you can have lots of options. Usually they would do something for 10-20 minutes and then be on to the next--I always kept a list of possibilities. That could easily be adapted for workbox use. www.paulasarchives.com has good ideas for preschoolers too. Have fun! Merry :-) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WeeBeaks Posted June 21, 2012 Share Posted June 21, 2012 WeeBeaks do you have certian rotation of activities that you do for your kiddos, so you don't have to think too much;)? Not written out per se. I have one of those IKEA room divider things and have cubbies I use for each kid (out of their reach in the top rows). When I'm filling the night before for you my youngers, I look at my cube and usually alternate boxes of a more "schooly" think like wooden letters or practicing writing with a break of an audiobook, then a more brain or fine motor intensive thing, then stickers or something funner. My IKEA room divider thing I use their baskets that fit in for the bottom row. I keep my audio books (each book and tape or CD in its own ziploc), manipulatives, puzzles, etc in there. I open the bins and ponder. LOL This past year I started doing preschool busy activity swaps and doing orders from Oriental Trading to expand my selection of consumable pre-K and toddler activities. We seem to prefer the consumable ones make up a portion of their day here. We have the manipulatives, cloth busy books and such too, but they are huge fans of consumables like stickers, sunlight catchers from Oriental Trading, Dot and Dot and so forth. If you need pure ideas, there are yahoo groups dedicated to sharing ideas for different age groups, plus of course blogs and Pinterest. I'm coming out of that this year as my 4yo will be a Ker and have more reading ability and my toddler will be newly 2 and not developmental ready for audiobooks even much. When I start again I plan to use Pinterest to organize myself more. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maizeydaizey Posted June 21, 2012 Share Posted June 21, 2012 When I need certain parts of our workboxes done at certain times I tag the front of the box, either numbering them in a certain order to ensure parts of project are sequentially completed or a note with something like 'at 10:30 am' or 'after lunch'. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pixjen Posted June 21, 2012 Share Posted June 21, 2012 I only have one child (7yr old) I'm hsing, and just about everything we do is "mom intensive." I have a modified workbox set up that's worked well for us. I use some IKEA mesh metal magazine holders that I used to store each subject. Most of my curriculum isn't workbook based, so I don't have many worksheets. We usually just go in order, grabbing the next holder off the bookshelf as we go along. Sometimes DS gets bored going in the same order every day so I let him pick the next one from time to time. I don't do any of the velcro numbering systems or tracking, perhaps because we do basically everything together. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
happypamama Posted June 21, 2012 Share Posted June 21, 2012 My children are older than yours, but they have a mix of independent and mom-intensive subjects. What I do is to put DD's specific subjects in workboxes for her, and DS1's subjects in workboxes for him. (Okay, and we have a workbox for DS2, where I put fun/early learning activities for him, mostly stuff he can play with on his own; I read to him when I have a break with the big kids, but oooh, he was asking to have more boxes for himself, so maybe I'll put a book to read together in another one for him.) Anyway, then I put subjects we do together in boxes. As the kids work on their subjects, I work with them on the ones they need my help with. They both need me for math, but I put the math stuff in workboxes anyway; they just set those ones aside until I can work with them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ForeverFamily Posted June 21, 2012 Author Share Posted June 21, 2012 You all have such great ideas!!! :D Thank you!!! I couldn't quite picture how to make workboxes work for both my Dd6 and Dd4 and now I am starting to see how it can work! I am taking lots of notes! You all have given me a lot to think about. I think my girls will really enjoy them, and I may even be brave enough to add my almost 3 year old to the mix. Thanks for all of the ideas of Fun things to put in my Dd4's boxes. For some reason I am never good at coming up with trying to put together little fun acitivities. I think my Dd4 would really benefit from having little planned activities. My biggest challenge now will probably be my Dd6 being jealous about what's in her sister's workboxes.:lol: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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