Workboxing Kindergarten

Workboxes work for kindergarten!

We are using the workbox system for school this year. Eden is moving from unlimited, open ended, choice-based activity to more discrete tasks that require completion.

Man that sounded un-fun.

But honestly, workboxing can be tons of fun and very motiviating depending upon what gets popped into them.

For instance, in one of Josh's boxes this week I put some Shapescapes. The task was to create two seagoing vessels, one submersible and one wind powered. It is a construction toy, but it is more like art since the child is creating something more like a sculpture. This blends with our larger curriculm study Winterpromise's Adventures in the Sea & Sky, a link to which is located in the side bar. As my friend Dr. Beth recently reminded me, random reinforcement is the most rewarding reinforcement so I randomly place fun stuff in his boxes to keep the fun quotient up. (One workboxer I read about popped a box of brownie mix in a drawer. Chemistry, yum.)

One of the terrific advantages to this system is that I can get my kids to ''work'' with stuff to which they aren't normally drawn. I'm talking about stuff like puzzles, logic games and colouring books. Some of these things are valuable and fun but the kid just needs a push to realize he'll enjoy them. So here's what he did with the underused Shapescapes. He was delighted, by the way.


But I'm supposed to be talking about kindergarten workboxes and the system generally.

Eden has 8 "boxes" in our kitchen. It is actually two separate chests of drawers. We have a Rubbermaid tower of 5 drawers and a shorter tower of 3 drawers. They are numbered 1-8 with cute little princess labels. (Downloaded from the yahoo workboxes group, and printed and laminated.) Each label has a velcro dot on it and each drawer has a corresponding piece of velcro.

The child empties the boxes sequentially. When she is done with a box she removes the velcro number and places it on the corresponding spot on a schedule card. This process of removing and replacing is a bit like checking off a to-do list, but more gratifying. When the schedule card is full the school day is done. Eden's card has 12 spots, but we'll only use 8 of them for the foreseeable future.

Here are Josh's boxes. (I forgot to take a photo of Eden's drawers before she started using them.) His have basketball player number cards. He has 12 boxes. But a 'box' includes one discrete task like the book he's reading, or his Exlpode the Code or a file folder game...it isn't as much work as it seems so don't think I'm a crazy slave driver.

Eden only has 8 boxes in her system at the moment, and her boxes include larger drawers to accommodate the larger items I would like her to use. If you can't fit the whole toy in a box, you can always just pop a single piece in as a cue to what the child should be using for that stage. I did that recently with the Shapescapes and also when Eden worked with Melissa & Doug sequencing beads.

The boxes allow the differentiation of each task. Each task is presented individually, together with the necessary tools. The task is ideally presented in a way that is self explanatory. (Some users of this system will include a second velcro sticky on the outside of the box with a card that says "Work with Mom." This card essentially indicates that the task is not self explanatory or requires some teaching or other input from Mom. I don't have any of these in my system yet, as I expect Eden to require some direction for every box at the moment.)

This is pretty self explanatory, though I did help get her started by cutting out the eyes.






I try to include reading or pre-reading, writing or pre-writing and math activities every day. My goal for the moment is to get her reviewing letters, and learning to complete a task. (To that end, it is important to avoid open ended tasks, or at least leave them to the last box or two. The child should understand that there is a concrete task to accomplish. Otherwise it is less satisfying and even a bit frustrating. In fact, satisfaction has been the biggest pay off since we adopted this system.) I also try to get some hands on work, crafty stuff, a book and something just plain fun in there. If the previous day was a bit of a dud the next day will be much lighter and easier, to keep the experience positive. Here are a few of today's boxes for Eden.

At the left is part of what was in Eden's first box. I usually reserve the first box as our "circle time" box. That box includes new concepts I would like to introduce or items for review. This morning we discussed the letter 'Ff'.

In the Montessori method you introduce the sound and don't really emphasize the names of letters. This f is textured and part of our Red Letter Book. When discussing the letter we say 'ffffff' and trace the shape of it in the same direction as it is written. Of course she already knew the letter name and sound, but we still need to reinforce and review. We discussed other words that begin with 'f.' She is terrific at this. Next, she sorted the language objects, placing those that begin with 'f' on the letter.

During circle time we also reviewed some geography. (Don't tell me junior kindergarten is too young for geography. If you have ever told a child "Lions live in Africa" you have made my point. How can we omit to teach a child what we mean by Africa?!!) We discussed that a globe is a symbol for the earth. We reviewed the terms 'continent' and 'ocean', and the way the sun creates night and day. We will be continuing to identifying the continents on our world puzzle map. The introduction of the globe the other day also led to a discussion of the shape "sphere." So we also discussed the geometric solid "sphere" and played with the mystery bag to find the "spheres." Tomorrow we'll do a sphere sort.

I sourced the letter "f" inspired activities to stuff in the boxes here. Today was heavy on paper activities but I normally try to vary them with some hands-on or gross motor work.

Below are a cut and paste fish and a handwriting skills page. Also we had a leaf matching page, a puzzle and a metal inset (montessori handwriting development, more on that soon.)




Crayons and markers are stored on top of the chest of drawers because they are needed for many of the activities. Also on top of the drawers is a basket into which finished work is placed.


Leaf matching from enchanted learning. (We're also working on listening for the last sound of a word. ;) )
This one is a puzzle. It's also from Confessions of a Homeschooler. I just print and laminate. She loves them. Here she is doing another puzzle and a sequential shape sort on the day we reviewed ''m''. Guess what surprise she found in her box that day? Yum.
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Here I popped a book that Eden would not normally ask for. She was thrilled to read it.


You can put anything that you want to schedule into your time into the boxes . Chores, snacks or even outdoor time. You can also use fewer boxes on any given day, by just placing fewer numbers on the boxes and leaving some squares on the schedule full. Josh's set is modular (Sterilite chests of three) so I could easily add or remove three at a time.

The possibilities are endless and the satisfaction is priceless.