The Workbox System....It Worked for Us!

When we first started homeschooling, I tried so VERY hard to make it look like "real" school. We bought some second-hand desks at a local thrift store, (one for each kid) and scrubbed them as clean as we could get them. Hubby tore apart the girls' bunk beds, and made loft beds out of them so they could have their shiny new desks under there for a makeshift classroom. We used the workbox system, though we made ours with these instead. Yup, that was one sharp-looking classroom alright. For a home with VERY LITTLE SPACE, these carts were a Godsend.

Every day, I simply took their assignments in each subject, (along with any coordinating supplies, worksheets, etc.) and slid them into the drawers in each child's drawers. About halfway down, which would be their mid-morning work drawer, I put some little snack (fruit snack, granola bar, etc.) and a juice box, along with a search-a-word or color by number math sheet....something FUN, to refresh them a little and give their brains a break. Or I'd put a note in one drawer that simply said "Come see Mommy for a hug" or "RECESS! Get your shoes!!!" and we'd go outside one at a time til we were all out there, running and playing and getting the silly's out  :)

 

 

 

While we've since moved into a larger home with more space, and since the girls grew too tall over this past year to continue to SAFELY go under the loft beds to sit at their desks, we've changed the way we homeschool now. I'll save that for a later post  :)  But for anyone just starting, and not knowing WHERE to start, or what to do, I would highly recommend the Workbox System. It gave us enough organization without feeling overwhelmed & we didn't have to worry about making enough space for a ton of books to be piled up. And this is why the Workbox System worked for us  :)

Why We Homeschool

I was never one of "those moms".....you know the ones; the ones who are over-protective of their kids to the point they can't MOVE without being right behind them. The ones who are already standing right next to their kid, Kleenex in hand, waiting for a sneeze that may never come. You know....THOSE moms.

But 3 years ago, I had just had enough. Enough of my kids coming home from school in tears because they were bullied on the playground and the teacher wouldn't address the bully. Enough of calling the school, only to be told they didn't consider the bullying to be "THAT" serious. Enough of being told that my oldest wasn't "getting" multiplication so they were just going to fail him and move on to division, a mathematical equation which requires the knowledge of multiplication. I pointed out what I thought was the obvious; that division and algebra would depend on him knowing multiplication. I tried sharing some of the ways we were already working on multiplication facts with him at home, only to be told they didn't have time to do anything else; the standards in public school now required the teachers to move on, regardless of whether my child (and a few others, I found out later) didn't "GET IT".

Enough.

So after much prayer and even MORE prayer, my husband and I made the decision together for me to leave my job at a local church, and stay home to teach our children. At THEIR pace. In THEIR time. No bullying to be seen (except for the inevitable sibling rivalry).



While homeschooling is not made for everyone - not for the faint of heart - it has been one of the best decisions we've ever made for our family. Not only have our children excelled academically since being home and learning at their own natural pace, they have blossomed as young people in a real world. Instead of being in a classroom of 20 other kids their age, from the same neighborhood & same background, they now have the joy of interacting with people of ALL ages, from ALL backgrounds, from ALL neighborhoods. They've begun Bible quizzing via our local church where they compete at several other churches; the girls have joined the church choir recently; they are enrolled in a Homeschool  Music Program at our local state university.

Yup.... these are just some of the reasons why we homeschool. And not one of us can imagine it any other way.