Sue Patrick’s Workbox System

If you read many homeschool blogs, you have probably heard of workboxes. I first became aware of the concept last spring, and since then it seems that many more homeschoolers are trying the workbox system. I was initially intrigued by the system and began to wonder how it would work in our home. When I saw that Sue Patrick’s Workbox  System was on the review list for the Homeschool Crew, I decided to wait on implementing any new systems until after I got a chance to read the book.

Before I read the book, I thought that I had a pretty good idea of the system just by reading people’s blogs. But homeschoolers love to “tweak” curriculum. As I read the book, I realized that like everything else, homeschoolers had tweaked Sue Patrick’s workbox system. Probably many of them didn’t actually have the book, but had learned from what others were doing and had implemented ideas that they liked.

The basic idea behind the workbox system is to divide each student’s daily assignments up into short segments. The materials to do each assignment are placed in the workbox. The student retrieves his first box, does the assignment, then puts the box in a designated place for finished materials. He repeats the procedure until all the boxes are complete.

One of the key components of Sue Patrick’s system is the visual and physical nature of the boxes. According to her, the boxes really need to be boxes (not folders or something else) so that everything can be contained and the boxes can be physically removed. The removal of the boxes provides encouragement for the child as he sees how much work he has done and sees the amount left to do decreasing. It is also important for the boxes to be clear so that the child has an idea about what fun things are coming up. This encourages the child to work diligently to complete the assignments in order to get to the fun activity. The whole process helps the child learn to work independently.

I decided to try the system with my 7 year old son. I set things up as closely as possible to the suggested system in the book. The only exception is that I did not purchase a rack, but used a book shelf that is located near our school area to hold his boxes. At first he did not like the system at all. Of course he doesn’t usually like school anyway so that was not a big surprise. I was stretched to try to think of things to put in all of his boxes. I was able to use some puzzles and educational toys that haven’t been used for a while. I also put a read-aloud book in one of the boxes, which helped me to be accountable to read.

After the first week I began to run out of extra ideas and began to resort to things like coloring pages. I also found that I do NOT like to have to fill workboxes every night. I do all my planning for the week over the weekend typically, so maybe if I had planned all the workbox extras it wouldn’t have been so difficult. But it was still something extra to do every evening. Also, for my son the only workboxes that he could do independently were the “extra” things I was putting in the box. The rest of his boxes required my help, so it couldn’t help him to be in charge of his own schedule if I was busy doing something else.

So, our first trial of the workbox system did not work well for our family. However, I’m not saying we’re not going to try it again. Right now our schedule is a little unpredictable with trying out new products and writing reviews. I am thinking about how to better implement the system in the future. For one thing, I think it would be great for my 3 year old. But, I will need to have adequate pre-planning time to come up with ideas for her boxes. I also will need a better place to store the boxes. The book shelf I was using is in my bedroom, and I found it to be an eye-sore with those boxes on it.

After reading the book, I see some areas in our homeschool that could definitely use improvement. First, I would like to make sure that there are some fun activities throughout our day. Second, I want to find fun and creative ways to review concepts. Reviewing has been a weak point. Finally, I need to do a better job of following through with the ideas that I do have.

The Sue Patrick’s Workbox System User Guide is available to purchase on her website. The ebook is $19 or the printed version is $19.95 plus shipping. Also on the website, is a short explanatory video and sample pages. To read more reviews of the Workbox system, visit the Crew blog.