Lesson Plans: Workboxes

It seems the latest craze in the homeschooling community is Sue Patrick's Workbox System. I have NOT tried this system, nor do I feel I have the space needed! It's seems that the physical aspect of this system requires you to have boxes for each subject. You place your child's work into each "workbox".

It's the child's job to complete each task in each box. At the end of the day the parent is required to set up the boxes for the next day work. It's suppose to help the child stay on task and encourage them etc. I'm SURE there is MORE to the system, but I at least seem to have the physical aspects of it down, from reviewing what other homeschoolers are doing. I've seen many share what's in the box over the course of the last few months.

I KNOW that there is value in a child being able to see what's coming up and what is going to happen. I've noticed with my own homeschool journey my kids do much better when they KNOW what's going on or what they have to do today!

I don't have space to set up workboxes even if I wanted too.  The physical space that it demands is above and beyond what my house can handle. It also would require me to set things up daily and to be honest that's even more then I want to do.

I know I haven't been posting my lesson plans like I have wanted. Honestly it's just not a grove I'm into yet! However I have made a lesson plan template that I use with the kids that have greatly help me with planning, grading, and help them see what's excepted from them each day.

Each child gets a their own lesson sheet per week and they get posted on the refrigerator. The preview of the template does not do it justice. If you were to download it you will see that each subject is it's own box with a smaller box next to it. (As seen in this picture below)

The picture is just a partial picture of the document. However it shows how each subject is it's own box with a smaller box next to it.

Over the weekend I fill out 2 lesson plan sheets one for Superstar and one for Web-Princess. Seeing we do some of our work "together" the top half of the lesson plans shows the together work and the bottom half, after the word child, shows the individual work.

When I write out the lesson plans I will often just write down the page numbers, seeing the kids KNOW what book is their grammar book, math book, etc. As they finish the work they put an X in the smaller box next to each subject. This help because like with the workboxes they can see what is needed to be done and what is done! Having it posted on our refrigerator allows daddy to SEE what we've done too.

This helps with grading because I take the lesson plan sheets and grade the work that was done. (They are plans and sometimes things don't go as plan). I then can also use it to make up the new plan because I know where we left off.

On the together work section of the lesson plans I do have some abbreviation that might needs some explaining.

DEV=Devotions

HIS=History

SCI=Science

You may notice that I have science in the together section and the individual section. This is because I do both with the kids. I have something I do together and some things I do individually. This is what works for US!

You may also notice that Tuesdays are pretty empty! That's because that is the day we typically are with our co-op so we don't much "book work" that day.

As for the template that was made in a word processor program. If you are proficient in using a word processor or spreadsheet program then I'm sure you could make a lesson plan sheet that is more tailored for your homeschooling needs.