Schedule

Scheduling. Now that's a word that brings mixed feelings in me. I do not like routine. Yet, I do like being organized and having things running smoothly. I am sure many of you have heard the saying that kids thrive on and love structure. Well, I had to realized the truth of that statement. So, as much as I do not like routine I have to have structure to our day for our life to run smoothly to minimize aggravation and stress.

So, What did I do to go about this whole thing of scheduling. A few months ago, with the help of my dear very organized and disciplined husband, I came up with a weekly daily schedule that looked like this.

It worked well, in that the kids loved to know what was coming next. I had less whys and resistance when told that it was time to do something or when I said no to a particular activity. The only thing I did not like was
1. that any time we had to change something it became a big problem, because "it was not on the schedule".
2. I had to print off a new schedule every week.

So, in light of these issues and because I wanted to revamp it a bit, as far as what would be on the schedule, I decided to try to improve on it.

Now, I remembered that I had this magnetic calendar which had been given to Zach as a gift when he was 3. I had not found a way to use it in an appropriate manner yet, but it had been hanging on the door for a while now. Then the idea came. And this is what I came up with.

I kept the general format of the old schedule, but these are the changes I made:

• this time I added times to it.
  


• Where before I had to print a sheet for each child, I decided to have their schedule side by side, since they do do most stuff together.


• Made the schedule day by day as opposed to weekly ( I may still have a weekly schedule for myself but i will only show them the schedule for the day.


• And best of all ,I printed it on magnetic paper, or on paper and taped it unto magnetic paper. This gives me flexibility to change things around within a day, and the activities become reusable day after day.

I will use the top part of the board, which is also magnetic, to put in special activities, for which I actually have appropriate magnets that came with the board; things like park day, fieldtrip, doctor's appointment, vacation etc...

This is our first week with this schedule and I really like the flexibility of it. The kids are also fine with it and that is of course a good thing.

This schedule is strictly for daily activities. I also have a seperate schedule school schedule detailing what subject are done when.

Have a great day,