Workboxes - An Organizational Tool for School

Several months ago I heard mention of something called "workboxes" and immediately dismissed it as a preschool thing, similar to preschool activities in a bag. It wasn't until ladies on my Tapestry of Grace yahoo group began raving about this system that I sat up and took notice. After reading their emails about how well this was working in their homes, and looking at pictures on homeschool moms' blogs who use this sytem, I was convinced it could really help our son with Sensory Processing Disorder to focus better on each task, finish everything in a timely manner, and have more independence in his schoolwork. So I ordered this book by Sue Patrick, creator of the workbox system, and set to work setting it up in our home.

This is not a curriculum to add to your already full schedule, but a way to organize the curriculum you already have in a way that helps each student visually see exactly what needs to be done each day, in what order, know when they are done, and allows you to use games and other fun things that typically get shoved in the back of our cupboards. Sue Patrick emphasizes in her book the use of games for review. Her book was very easy to read and I urge anyone thinking about trying workboxes to get her book first and read the "why" behind this system. It was $20 very well spent! (and you all know how carefully we spend our money right now!) One, of many, beautiful things about this system is that it can work with daily chores as well, or with the process of learning to get dressed, or learning anything that requires sequential steps. It's not just for homeschooling. What versatility!

In very basic terms, this system uses a shoe rack and clear plastic tubs for each student. In each tub you place everything needed for one school task. Students work through their tubs throughout the day, and when all their work is finished they have an empty shoe rack and a stack of tubs on the floor. You can put a "fun" activity immediately following some work that was hard for that particular child, and the child can see this coming (since the tubs are clear) and it motivates him to get through the hard task in order to get to the fun one! He can also see his shoe rack emptying throughout the day and be encouraged to keep working because he's almost done. I LOVE the way Sue has set this up. But because of very limited funds and space, I decided to use this system as originally designed only for our son with SPD and use large tubs with tall envelopes for everyone else. The individual school tasks are put into envelopes rather than into clear plastic tubs, and the children work through their envelopes in order the same as they would if they had a tub for each task.

I first used this with all 5 children 3 weeks ago. Here is a pic of the boys working at our school table. You can see some of the envelopes lying there.



This was Little Man's tub one day ~ the cookie sheet was the working surface for the tub of magnetic letters. He also had dot markers in his last envelope. The ones inbetween were filled with books to read with mom, picture cards that said, "run around the house 5 times" and "get a snack from mom" and "special time with _____".


Here he is working at his own special school table! You can see his tub with envelopes in the lower right corner.


On the front of each tub, I put a grid with velcro filled squares, which corresponds to small numbered and velcroed squares on each envelope. As they work through each envelope, they take the velcro number off the envelope and put it on their grid. At the end of the day they can see their grid is filled but their tub is empty. This may not be necessary for the older children, but it really helps the younger ones!


The grids are color coded according to our family color code which we have had for years. Here is son C's tub. You can see he is about to start task 6 (of 8 total).


I made up some "work with mom" labels that I can velcro to those envelopes which contain work we need to do together. Once you buy the Sue Patrick book you can download these little labels (and tons more stuff!) from her website, but I just made up my own.


Here is son L's shoe rack. It very nicely fits 12 workboxes. I got the shoe rack at Target for $14.99, and the clear tubs there for a dollar each. So his was the most "expensive" to set up, but well worth it. It has been working great! The activity on the floor under the shoe rack was his activity to do with Little Man, and it wouldn't fit in the workbox.


He puts the first tub on the table, takes out the work, completes it, and then puts the finished work back in and stacks it on the floor. Each workbox contains everything he will need for that task (even down to a pencil!) so there are less interruptions, fewer distractions, and less wasted time. (as an aside fyi, we were given an exercise ball from a generous friend for L to sit on while doing schoolwork. This helps him with posture and core strength [issues related to SPD]. He just happens to be not using it in this picture. We are very thankful for it though!)

I stopped making a tub for Little Man because I hit on the fabulous idea to put his work in his siblings' boxes along with cards that say "spend time with Little Man". So now they each get time with him throughout the day, he is happily occupied all day long, and I am using all our fun preschool things in a way that would not be possible all by myself! More on this in another post.

As the 3 children who are using envelopes finish their tasks, they put them in my "teacher" tub behind their color coded cardstock. This makes it easy in the evenings (or even during the day) for me to go through their envelopes in order, correct work I need to correct, and re-fill them for the next day.


This system has already helped hold me accountable for demonstrating a good work ethic to the children (correcting work and being ready for each day) and helped them be more accountable for getting all their work done. We have gotton more done, with less complaining, and had more fun in the last 3 weeks than we have in a long time! I am excited and thankful to have found this system when I did so I can be ready in the fall with lots of fun review activities to put in their box or envelopes! I also want to make "schedule strips" to use with the workboxes/envelopes. This is another element to the system that Sue Patrick designed but which I have not utilized yet. More on that later.

I had to put some thought into how to best make this work for us, but now it is flowing along pretty smoothly and we are all loving it! After one week, my husband and I asked each of our children which they liked better, this organizational method or a paper assignment sheet. Each one of them enthusiastically said "workboxes!".

Here are some other blogs with pictures of how they use workboxes:

Joyful Mother of 6 Children - uses workboxes as originally designed by Sue Patrick

Ginger Snap Shots - tweaked the system and uses Sterilite drawer towers instead

Color Me Orange - uses tall envelopes and tubs (where I got the idea!)

Walking by the Way - uses shoe rack and plastic tubs as Sue Patrick designed

Our Lifesong - also uses shoe rack and plastic tubs