When I first "discovered" workboxes Don said no way can we have 108 plastic shoe boxes and 9 racks floating around the house. I really wanted to try this and loved the look of the Trofast system I saw on the yahoo group but didn't want to spend the money for a possible maybe. I am an organizing junky. I have spent hundreds of dollars if not thousands on organizing books, systems, baskets etc. I was skeptical but I kept hearing rave reviews. So....... I bought a cheap coat rack and some shoe organizers and tried it out for a few of the kids.
I loved loved loved the system, but hated hated hated the shoe rack it was weak and kept
toppling over. After brainstorming with Don and explaining to him how effective this system is he caved in and bought the Trofast system. I just wanted a more permanent rack to hang my system from but Don was sure there was something that looked neater so I was forced to show him the Trofast system at Ikea. I originally thought this system would help with the littlest ones keeping them constructively occupied and with Ben to help him to learn to stay on task. What I discovered was that it did so much more than that. We never hunted for missing books, we knew just where we left off and what was undone.
While this did not help with the dawdling, which is what the author promised, it has helped with things like I didn't know what I was supposed to do next, I can't find my book, I don't have..... In the last box I usually leave a lollipop or hershey kiss or sometimes for Melaina, Ben and Joe a box of brownies to be made. There is incentive to get to that last box for sure. Each box contains one thing (see cons below) and this can seem ridiculous but the value is huge. The work strip is where you add the extra things like train the dog, wii fit, practice music. My strips need some tweaking now that we have switched to Trofast so I hope to do this over the Thanksgiving holiday.
Pros to the System
The system has helped me to be more prepared, not skip activities or forget to do. It has helped me to make sure all the kids have completed their work for the day and hand out rewards and consequences accordingly. It has helped immensly with lost books!!!!! We use a modified system where they replace the book in the bin and not bring it to me. I could never check and reload those boxes every night. I only have 6 bins for the youngest three and the highschoolers. The highschoolers only have 6 subjects each and they only have 6 boxes. This helps with the space constraints.
Cons to the System
It is large and takes up a lot of space!!! I had to move all my books to the basement. This ended up being a pro because I think the books always looked like clutter to me. It was not the cure all to getting the kids to actually do the work. I still have to be the driving force to make sure they are moving through the boxes. Because of space constraints for the high schoolers I am sometimes putting more than one item in a bin. This can and has caused confusion. When I can figure out where to put two more systems and I get the finances to do so I will be getting two more. Being very busy I sometimes forget to add in the fun things or the extra things I really want them to do ie poetry memorization. I do not have time to do very many centers but I love the idea.
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