Soaring Creek Academy- Workbox System

We are officially on Spring Break this week, so that has brought on a few changes in our homeschool and organization. I have been busy at work researching, "The Workbox" style of homeschooling and organization to implement.

The workbox system was started with Sue Patrick. Sue homeschooled her son that is autistic and used this system to help him in his learning process. I am not following her system completely. You know, as a homeschooler we like to change things up. Make them our own! Well at least I do! You can learn more about the workbox system and Sue Patrick at her website, www.workboxsystem.com.

A little about our homeschool, we are a Christian Homeschooling family. We want our children to know the Lord and serve him first! We want our children to be wonderful people and love what they do in life. We are using a Classical approach to teach our children with The Well Trained Mind by Susan Wise Bauer and Jessie Wise. We love to read and the kids love to be read to! Along with all of our books we are starting up with the workbox system to attempt to keep on track during the day and so the kids will know what to expect next instead of asking and whining about how much more we have to do!


I have made all of our cards, laminated and put them where we need them to be, so that on Monday when we start back to school the kids know what is happening! We are a little excited about this!

When we enter the classroom to start school we will put the cards on the side of check in for day. When school is over for the day we will put our cards over to the check out for day. This system is to reinforce that the kids can check in and out, and see that they have physically done this. Just like someone would clock in/out at a work place.

These are the actual workboxes that we purchased from Jo Ann's. They were 50% off. These are 10 drawer carts; I made cards with each child's name and a number for each drawer. I also made another card with the number of the drawer. I used Velcro to attach the cards to the drawers. The cards with names and numbers will stay on the carts; where as the cards with just the numbers will be put onto another holder when the child is done with the drawers. In each drawer we will place one activity for the child to complete. For example drawer #1 will have math. When you place the math in the drawer, make sure to have all the materials that are needed to complete the activity. Natalie would need to have her math workbook, manipulative blocks and a pencil. By having all the materials ready in the drawer, you save time by not having the child running around and looking for materials. You may also save your sanity!


The shelf with three shelves holds some of our workbooks and all of our binders and reader books. The tall shelf with cubbies holds our extra supplies, special books the kids are only allowed to use on "special occasion", games and dry erase board markers and erasers. The 3 bin rolling cart holds manipulative blocks, flash cards and lacing beads. On top of the rolling cart is our construction paper, handwriting paper, plain white paper and notebooks.



I haven't exactly figured out if we will use every box every day or not. I have put a jump rope in one box, math in one, art, spelling, handwriting paper and reading books in other boxes! We will continue to work together in our history with Story of the World and Science with our human body study. I have made other cards with activities listed on them, such as outside play time, Wii time, computer time, break, and work with mom, quiet reading, and build with legos. These are ways to give them a variety of different activities to do.



Here are our calendar area, easel and work space for the kids. On the workspace aka table we have two "pen holders". We use them to hold markers, crayons, pencils, scissors, and glue. There is also a box in the middle with stickers, papers and index cards for the kids to do crafts or free time art.



I hope you enjoyed a look into our classroom!! It has been so much fun to teach my little ones this year and try new things. We have said that this is our trial and error year. I have tried a couple of different things and am still trying to figure out what will exactly work for us! I am praying that the workbox system will work, because I think we will love it!

Blessings…Jackie