YES! You heard right. You can build your entire independent work center for FREE. Building an independent work center is a daunting task. I’m sure you’ve seen my picture of a full library of boxes and got instantly overwhelmed thinking you don’t have the time or money to acquire that many tasks. BUT YOU CAN!
What is an Independent Work Center?
An Independent Work Center (also known as a task box system) is a part of your classroom where students go to work completely by themselves. They each have a schedule of boxes, worksheets, or tasks to complete assigned by you based on what they have mastered. YES, independent work is for mastered tasks.
Why mastered tasks?
We want the tasks to be at mastery for their student so they can focus on being independent! That is the whole point of this center.
Why should I start an Independent Work Center?
Besides working on building student independence which should always be your number one goal… Independent Work Centers free up teachers and staff to work 1:1 with students! They also work great for a time of day where you might be down staff!
How do I set one up?
You can read all about setting up an Independent Work Center here.
Okay, so how do I do this for free?
Yes! In the beginning of this post I stated that you can set up this center for free!!!! I have all of the tasks you need to get started in my Simply Free Library. To join you just need to sign up for my email list and you will receive your password to the free library. It takes 2 minutes to join and you will receive instant access to over 70 free task boxes to download! Way more than enough to begin your own Independent Work Center. Get your password by clicking here.
What types of tasks are in the free library?
Every month I add 5-10 new tasks! It is always growing and I am always taking requests. There are already tasks for every holiday and I am adding tasks for every basic skills and vocabulary set I can think of these. Theres tasks for coins and money ID, 1:1 correspondence, and more! These tasks are lower level tasks to work with students at mastery.
How do I prep so many at once?
Don’t! I suggest starting with 5-10 boxes that would work for most of your students and building a new new boxes a month to add to it!
What about fine motor boxes?
I have tons of ideas on how to DIY your own fine motor boxes on my blog! Here is just a few ideas. If you are interested in purchasing fine motor centers, you can read more about how I set those up here.
Click here to join the Simply Free Library!
