A few weeks ago while making my usual round of approximately 47273423 homeschooling blogs, I stumbled upon the concept of organizing your child’s day with Sue Patrick’s Workbox System. It is a highly hands-on and visual means of organizing your child’s activities, organizing yourself as a homeschooling mom, using what resources you have more effectively, and fostering independence, fun and self-direction in the child.

The workbox system has become something of a fad in the homeschooling blogosphere and there is an overwhelming amount of information out there, so I’m going to let Sue Patrick tell you herself in her own presentation how the system works, even though she and I have very different worldviews.

There are lots more links to look at. I liked this post by Tracey in Australia because she has a sort of FAQ about workboxes, with pictures of her own. There is a wonderful and very busy Yahoo! group with many helpful people that will answer your questions and give you suggestions. The book comes with access to tons of free printables, including everything you need to make the components of the system.

This system works with any curriculum and any style of homeschooling – from unschooling to Classical to everything in between. We have been using our own version with magazine racks instead of the clear plastic bins, and it has been a huge hit with Shorty. It gives him a sense of independence and personal responsibility while providing him with structure and predictability in a highly visual-spatial way that he enjoys so much he’s declared it “genius”.

I plan what I put in each box by using a grid I made, which has a 4×3 square box of cubes for each day. The cubes correspond to which box is where, and I simply fill in what I’m going to have Shorty do that day, using a separate planner for guidance and an “idea file” for the fun/ center/ enrichment boxes that I’ve been keeping.

Here is the workbox planner I made, in PDF format. Sue Patrick has one, but this was my method of making it more visual for myself. Please right-click and save to your hard drive. It’s free to use; you can either laminate it and use an erasable marker to fill it in week by week, or if you’re a planning freak like me, you can print out one for each week of your school year

Andrea's 5-day workbox planner (400)

UPDATE: Please see my other tools for portfolio planning with workboxes on my downloads page!

Please feel free to link to this post if you’d like to share this workbox planner with others, but please, don’t upload this to any other web site without letting me know first.

Here are some more helpful links about this system:

Workboxes Yahoo! group – indispensable,with tons of printables.
Teacher File Box – membership site with thousands of printable activities and centers for workboxes (it’s only 99 cents to join)
Workbox FAQ by Tracey
Another detailed explanation w/ pictures
Workboxes with Sterilite drawers, with pictures of how she breaks down her curriculum for each drawer
An excellent and thorough explanation
What’s in the Box? – Idea blog for workboxes
Preschool activity bags for workboxes for littles
Laura’s Ziploc Baggie Method
Another Mom’s sterilite drawers

It’s ironic that I say this, as she’s quite adamant that you try her system to a T, but due to extreme space limitations (I live in a tiny 1BR apartment) I had to go with magazine racks instead. I’ll try to upload pictures of what our set up looks like. In the meantime, I hope this information is a blessing to people out there the way it has been for me. As a single parent who home educates, I’ve often found it challenge to manage my time so that Shorty gets EVERYTHING he wants to do, done, and I do, too. This is definitely helping me do that, and for that alone, it’s worth its weight in gold.