Summer Schedules

I'm not really a schedule person. I'm a "fly by the seat of my pants until I realize that I forgot to wear any pants" type person.

My kids...not so much.

They need structure. They need order. They need to eat breakfast each morning.

(They need a different mom, but let's save that for another post.)

So in order to help my poor starving children and make sure I'm properly clothed each day during the summer, I created our summer schedule chart.

Each day has little pictures representing our activities for the day in the order they need to be done in. I've even include things like getting dressed, eating, and brushing our teeth. Because if I don't include them, they might not get done.

Once our chores are finished in the morning, the kids and I sit on the living room floor and look through little pictures that I've preselected. We choose several to be our "fill-in-the-blank" activities. We plan out the rest of the day together and post it on our chart.

The kids love knowing exactly what order things will happen in, and I have a visual reminder for exactly what I've promised they'll be able to do.

I leave the pictures up all week so that they kids can remember all the fun things we've done. This helps with the, "I never get to..." comments. I'm all about proof.

For the pictures, I searched for thumbnails in google images that represented all the things we might do this summer and copied them onto a word document. Then I printed the page out on ink-jet sticker paper and cut into squares.

I'm not very artistic, so the rest of the chart is made of 1 sheet of foam board, construction paper, and some poorly drawn lines. Feel free to improve on this idea. It won't be too hard.



*Edited to add...I used the same images each time to represent the meals. We don't actually eat spaghetti every night. Although my children would probably be thrilled if we did. I store the pictures that change each day in an envelope, and while the kids finish up their chores, I go through and pick out activities that I can actually live with for them to choose from.

---For more Works For Me Wednesday posts, check out Shannon at Rocks In My Dryer.

--- Subscribe to World's Greatest Mommy posts by email or in a reader.