Family Workboxes for Young Children: Part 1

My children are young— just turned 7, 5 and 2 years. We do a lot of learning together as a family but several subjects require me to spend one-on-one time with each child because they can’t yet “read to learn”. The effort of scheduling this time and avoiding interruptions during lessons has been overwhelming but I am gradually learning to choreograph our day so that the kids can work together and separately as needed.

We use Charlotte Mason’s method of learning because it considers the whole child—mind, body and spirit. Young children are very physical and their bodies are full of energy. It is nearly impossible to expect young children to sit calmly and quietly for hours on end. Mason’s emphasis on short lessons, intentional arrangement of subjects, and plenty of physical activity, has revolutionized the way I teach my kids at home.

The 1^st step in restructuring our homeschool for success was to come up with a simple chart that shows me what subjects need to be covered each day for family time and individual kids. You can see a picture and some details about it in this earlier post. It helped me move through the day but didn’t help me prepare materials. We were often frustrated when books and supplies were missing at the start of a lesson.

See Part 2 on using workboxes and Part 3 on what goes in the workboxes.