Work it, work boxes!

If you know what these are... chances are you're a home schooler!

Besides being a fun burst of color in our home school room, this little wonder is a tool of organization called work boxes! There are several ways to use work boxes, and I tried a couple of them before finding a good fit for us.

In each drawer (work box) I keep the supplies needed for one subject. Then it's easy to grab & go.

They each have a number circle on them that is laminated for durability and stuck on with sticky velcro. When a subject is done for the day, my little student pulls off its number circle and replaces it with a check mark circle.

Now my son can see what subjects he's done with for the day and how many are left before he's finished with school. There's no need to ask me if we're almost done (which of course is as beloved of a question as "are we there yet?" in the car...).

In our last workbox I keep a little reminder to clean his desk and sharpen his pencils for the next day, after which he can help himself to gum.

I started out loading the drawers nightly with only what was needed for the next day, but the down side to that was having to add and remove things from the boxes on a daily basis. And doing it in the evening.

After talking to a friend about how she uses her work boxes, I now keep everything possible for each subject in its box at all times, whether we'll use it the next day or not. I also leave every subject's work box in place whether it will be used the next day or not. Instead of looking through teacher's manuals the night before and loading each box for the next day, they're already loaded. All I do now in preparation is put numbers on the boxes of subjects we'll be covering that day. Since we rotate Science, Poetry, and Art (only doing one of those three each day), I leave the check mark in place on two of those boxes.

Next year when I'm printing my planner, I'll number my subject boxes in the planner to correspond with each subject's work box.

That's my version of work boxes in a nut shell. If you'd like to see how other people use work boxes, click here.

*Update: I changed up our work boxes once I had two kids in school, see our new workboxes here.