Set Your Homeschool Day on Autopilot with Task Cards

Many years ago, I came across some information about Sue Patrick's Workboxes, an organizational system designed to aide her autistic son in developing independent study skills.

In the simplest of terms, workboxes are made from a drawer organizer cart. Each school day, you fill the drawers with school assignments or fun activities and instruct your child to work their way down the cart, doing the task in the first drawer before moving on to the next one. Your child would be motivated to do the school work you've placed in one box in hopes they'd find a reward such as a fun game, a snack, or a pass for a break in the next box.

My Type A personality loved the idea of this well-ordered school-day tool.

I appreciated the autonomous learning that the workbox method promised. As an added bonus, I was assured that if I implemented something similar in my own home, those dozens of learning games collecting dust in my school cabinet would finally get played with.

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But, after much consideration, I scrapped the entire idea altogether for the following reasons:

I live in an acutely small house. I have five kids that would all need an entire workbox system for themselves. With a few swift calculations, it was obvious to me that my tiny little home could not possibly hold 60+ boxes! 

Rearranging books, games, manipulatives, etc. in drawers, bins, boxes, or the like every night seemed like an exhausting endeavor.

While I liked the idea of Sue's system, I knew I'd need a structure that would encourage educational independence in each of my kids, but that wouldn't require a giant home renovation to make it happen.

After much deliberation and a little bit of elbow grease, I created my Task Card System.

 

These colorful one-inch "reminders" have revolutionized our daily schedule. No longer do I have to prod or cajole my children a million times a day to continue at their tasks. The motivation is built right into the system.

Here's how The Task Card system works

In the evening, I quickly scan my Brave Homeschool Planer (It takes about 10 minutes, tops!) and determine what activities I have assigned for the following school day. I still maintain our TRIO of subjects but am now able to mix in an occasional "extra" to avoid a lot of downtime while I am working with or teaching another child. Extras might include play an educational game on the computer, complete a learning puzzle, have a snack, play with the baby, etc. These extras supply an intrinsic motivation for my kids to keep on keepin' on. Who wouldn't want to complete a math assignment knowing that snack time, computer time, playtime, etc. came next?

Admittedly, selecting the next day's activities each evening does require a little bit of purposeful selection. I have to order each Task Card in such a way that allows one child to complete a subject that requires my assistance while the other kids work on more independent subjects. Group subjects also have to be timed accordingly. But as Mom, I get the privilege of re-ordering the cards in the middle of the day if needed.

(Such was the case the other day when I had the entire day "ordered" and had to whisk us all out the door for a rather random trip to the doctor. When we returned, I made a few simple adjustments to the Task Cards and the kids were back to business as usual.)

The Perks of using The Task Card system

The most obvious perk of The Task Card System is that I have the benefits of Sue Patrick's original idea--fostering independent learning and using all those fun "extras" that would otherwise get forgotten or passed over--without all the clunky boxes taking up space and demanding to be cleaned out/reorganized/de-cluttered every evening.

In addition, I never have to nag. My kids know exactly what is expected of them each day. For the most part, they get to set the pace of their own learning. So, should they buckle down and complete all the items on their card by lunch, they have the rest of the day to do as they please. But, should they lollygag and twitter away precious learning time, a longer-than-normal school day becomes the natural consequence.

 

To use the Task Card System

From the Base Chart, pull off all the one-inch tags needed for the following day's work.

 
Attach these to the individual child's Task Card. (Both the Base Chart and the Task Cards can be printed in multiple colors to accommodate large families.)

Insert these cards into each child's book bin. Or, simply lay them out wherever daily work takes place.

The next day, remind each child to look over his/her Task Card and get going with their day.

When a child completes one tag's task, he/she returns it to the correct Base Chart making it very clear what has or has not been completed. (The Base Chart has a picture of the tag with a blank square just below it. The completed tag gets placed in the correct blank square. That way, you don't have to go searching all over the chart at the end of the night when you reorder the cards. Everything has a place and everything is in its place.

At the end of the school day, instruct each child to return their empty Task Card to their book bin in order that you may attach the next day's tags.

How to put it all together

This is a digital download. After purchasing, you will immediately be sent a print-ready file. The 14-page file includes:

• 1 sheet of 48 Task Tags that can be reproduced for multiple children (Each sheet includes enough tags for 2 children.)
  
• 8 Base Charts in the following colors: navy blue, light grey, pink, light purple, maroon, army green, mustard yellow, and light blue
• 8 Task Cards in the same colors (Each sheet includes cards for 2 children.)
  

To ensure the best quality product when printing from a home printer, select "fit to print" before printing. Print onto 8 1/2  x 11 cardstock.

Next, laminate all the sheets you've printed. The one-inch tags then need to be cut into individual squares. Apply clear velcro dots to the backs of the Tags, the empty squares on the Base Chart, and each of the 12 squares on the Task Cards.

Attach the Base Charts to a wall using 3M adhesive strips.

For more information on how to set it up and how to utilize the task cards throughout the homeschool day, be sure to watch a short series of video clips answering the FAQs.

 

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