You can never have too many legos!

But you can reach a point where you need to get organized! So, after the trip to the lego store, we came home and began obsessing over legos all week. First Habeeb and Jman worked on building Jman's new lego train set together.
That led to us wanting to find all the bricks for the other lego trains we have. However, that was an impossible job with the state of the lego collection. To give you an idea, we had a large four drawer dresser full of legos, plus others that overflowed and were in bins or in various creations somewhere around the house. It was time to organize the legos.
It took days, and we're still not 100% finished, but we're 90-something% finished, enough to be able to begin rebuilding some of the train sets. Habeeb wanted to rebuild the Santa Fe Super Chief. I was working on the Holiday Train. Sly was building whatever custom creations entered his head (and generally getting in the way!). Jman played with his trains, and crashed them, and then they had to be rebuilt, again, and again. And SB3 just fussed for attention and tried to eat any legos he got his hands on. But here are a couple of shots to give you an idea of the work area. There are bins with larger sets of bricks, small drawers with sets of smaller bricks, and then there's the tackle boxes for the tiny specialized pieces. (Remember those 'workboxes' from homeschooling? Well, they're lego bins now!)

And finally, here's a happy Jman with a few more train cars going around. I'd love to have some 'finished' pictures for you, but that may take another week of playing with legos!

Workboxes

Honestly, we're not DOING too much today. Everyone in the house (except for ME) is sick with 'the crud.' Even the baby is sick.

But I am a somewhat evil mom, so there is SOME school going on, albeit more relaxed. One way I decided to support the relaxing today but still get something accomplished is by going ahead and using a set of workboxes for sicko Sly afterall. So, I simply pulled out the books or papers he'd be assigned today on his chart and dropped them in one set of the boxes. It's taken a little prodding and redirecting (he'd rather be watching the Sci-Fi channel or reading the sequel to Hatchet), but he's slowly but surely picking up assignments and working his way through them.

Here's a picture of the still incomplete box system. Jman's boxes are on the left rack and Sly's are on the right. That pile of stuff on the far right are some of the 'extras' I plan on incorporating into the box system on occasion. There's another pile of stuff on the opposite wall (not pictured) and in 'the cave' (a storage room in the house).

As I understand it, you're supposed to also have a visual schedule with velcro numbers to supplement the rack of boxes. Rather than moving velcro numbers around, and/or creating a stack of completed boxes next to the racks, I'm thinking I'll opt for green "to do" signs on one side of a box and red 'done' signs on the other side. In the mornings, all the green 'to do' signs will be facing outwards. When the box is finished, it can be turned around with the 'done' side showing. Presto--seems much simpler and still effective to me. We'll give it a whirl and see how it goes.

My understanding is that the official workbox system also supplies 'Work with Mom' cards where necessary (either an assignment the kid can't or shouldn't do alone, or if the kid is simply stuck and needs help). I'm not adding those in at this time. I plan on everything for Jman being 'work with mom,' and Sly should have enough sense to know when to ask for help and when not to.

Another suggestion is to provide cards that have times on them for applicable activities. I suppose one could use clock times if they were supposed to do certain boxes at certain times of day. We're more flexible than that, though. However, I do see that having time limit cards (or time requirement cards) could be appropriate for open-ended activities, such as drawing or studying flash cards or anything without a clear 'ending point.' Again, not something I foresee adding anytime soon, though I'm sure we will be doing plenty of tweaks and modifications as we try this system out for the boys.

Welcome

Welcome to The School Box, where we hope our students learn to Think Outside The Box!

We happened upon calling our homeschool "The School Box" because way back when, we carried my homeschooling ds's school books around in a file box. I would take my younger ds (Jman) to the special autism preschool class he was in each morning a good 40 minutes up the road. He was only in class for 2.5 hours, so it wasn't worth driving back home. Instead, I would take my older ds (Sly) and his 'school box' to some restaurant where we would have breakfast and knock out his school work for the day. He was only 5yo, so that was plenty of time to knock out his K work.

Well, over the years, things have changed some. We eventually pulled Jman out of school and began homeschooling him full time as well, and Sly of course moved up in grade level. But our family also moves fairly frequently (dh Habeeb is in the Navy), and we just love a good road trip! When we'd be on the road for as much as a month at a time (or occasionally more), we'd pack the books and supplies we thought we might want in an old metal milk crate, yet another 'school box.'

Now, more recently, we're thinking about giving the latest homeschooling organizational fad a try. It's called 'workboxes.' Perhaps I was intrigued simply because it had the word 'box' in it! Whatever the reason, I went out and bought some racks and plastic shoeboxes to try as a system for my ds on the spectrum. When I get the kinks worked out, I'll take a pix and post it.

Honestly, workboxes are not something we haven't seen before. They used workboxes in Jman's autism classrooms, and that's apparently where the 'workboxes' author got her idea, from the TEACCH model. It's really not much more than a hands-on manipulative and visual schedule and organizational tool, much like an office inbox/outbox system, but with a lot more boxes. Different folks are finding different ways of implementing and adapting the basic idea, and a search on the internet will reveal many blogs, homeschool forums, and even a new yahoo group that discuss workboxes and adaptations thereof. This, I suppose, is another of those.

I do however have a slightly diffferent spin on my intentions with workboxes. Most folks seem to see workboxes as a way to help their kids work more constructively and especially more independently. That, indeed, was much the approach in the autism classrooms my sons was in. There is something to be said for that. However, I want to use workboxes for exactly the opposite effect. I intend to use the workboxes to work on things TOGETHER with my ds on the spectrum. He does plenty enough independently. What he really needs work on is NOT academics for the sake of academics, or keeping himself entertained so I can be free to do other stuff besides deal with him. No, what he needs is more opportunities to do things WITH ME.

So, instead of loading up workboxes to keep Jman productively managed and occupied or to develop his independence, I intend to use them to scaffold opportunites for us to work together. I will be sharing more about how we do that (including whether we are successful or failing miserably) here.

But this is not a blog just about workboxes. Quite the contrary. This is our homeschool blog for The School Box, a place where we learn to Think Outside the Box. With that in mind, we could post just about anything on here! Fwiw, I'm not planning on using workboxes with my oldest son at this time. Sly is now 11.5 yo and doing Sonlight Core 5 (Eastern Hemisphere). For him, we use a large chart that has about 5 weeks worth of school scheduled in pencil, and X things off as we go. It's working pretty well for him right now, so no need to change that up. We also have another little man in our student population--SB3, 8 months old and as cute as they come. His current homeschool goals include mastering forward propulsion--he's ALMOST crawling, but not quite! Our principal, of course, is Habeeb, mentioned before, a wonderfully supportive homeschooling dad and husband. And I, JamBerry, am the tenured teacher, mom, and wife. Welcome to The School Box!