Organizational Helps
This page contains some files and forms that I have created to help me with my household and school responsibilities - or to help my children with theirs. They come in a variety of categories, so I'll try to keep like things together. I've left them all in Word Documents, so that you can download them and then modify them as needed to fit your own specific situation.
Setting SMART Goals
Setting good goals is a skill all its own. It is one that kids need help developing, and sometimes moms too! This is a tool I designed for my children to teach them how to set good goals, and then practice setting and evaluating goals each month. You might find it helpful as well!
Good Goals and How to Set Them
School Planning
As children get older, it's good for them to have some input to the content of their schooling. Also, when attitudes toward learning have not been top-notch, it's worthwhile to evaluate what might improve them. I got this idea from another homeschooler and thought it was a good one. Sometime during the break between school years (summer, or whenever that is for you), plan a School Evaluation Lunch. Treat this as you would a business lunch with a colleague. Pick a nice place to go out to lunch, someplace where you can sit and talk for a while without a lot of distraction. Have each child fill out the worksheet below and then spend some time talking about your past school year and their desires for the next one. Be clear that the ultimate decision stops with you, but encourage their input. The worksheet will help them look at specific aspects of the school year and formulate their thoughts about what they'd like. Using the information you gather, you can incorporate their thoughts and ideas into your next school year, giving them more ownership of their learning.
School Evaluation Form
Meal Planning
Figuring out what to make for meals is one thing that TOTALLY stresses me out! Either I just can't think of anything that sounds good, or it's too late to make anything decent, or I can find a recipe to make but I don't have all the ingredients, or our schedule makes my meal prep time rather scant - or something! Out of dire necessity, I began to make a menu plan in order to cut down on my stress level. Each 4 weeks, I plan out a menu for breakfast, lunch and dinner for the whole 4 weeks. I know for some people that sounds like a load of stress all on it's own - but it really helps me cut down my stress. I reuse the same page over and over again, just modifying as I go or adding in different things I'd like to try for variety. I make sure that when I am making my menu, I have my calendar nearby so that I can see when we have times that we'll be out of the house, out of town, or just in a big hurry due to soccer, ballet, or other activities. That way I can appropriately schedule crockpot meals, or other time saving meals for that day. Also, I always keep a short list of "really quick meal" ideas at the bottom of my page, in case my well-laid plans end up going the way of lots of well-laid plans sometimes do - and I need a meal in short order! This is what mine looks like, and if you come to my house, you will find it in a prominent place on the front of my fridge. This also helps cut down on the "What are we having for dinner, Mom?" questions - since everyone can just check for themselves. Use mine if you like and change it however it works best for you!
MENU PLAN FOR 4 WEEKS
Sometimes I just can't really think of what to put on my menu list, and sometimes I go a day or two after the completion of a list without having time to make the new one. So, then I have to punt. I put together this list of meal options that I can draw from in a pinch. Maybe it will spark some ideas for you too!
MEAL LIST
Grocery Shopping
I don't particularly care for grocery shopping. It's not that I don't like doing it, it's just that it consumes such a large amount of time and costs me a lot of money! So, one of the things that I do in my kitchen management, is to use my menu plan (above) to create a grocery list. I like to save time when I shop, so I have created these 2 list masters that hang on my fridge, right under the menu plan. Whenever I notice that we've run out of something, I write it on the appropriate list, or I use these lists to make my "big shopping" list from my menus. I generally shop in 2 stores - Aldi and WalMart. On occassion, or for certain items, I go to Sam's Club (my sister calls this the "$100 Store" because you can never leave it without having spent at least $100 - so I try not to go there often, because I find that to be true!), or Wild Oats/Whole Foods, or a foreign grocery store near us. So, I have spots for those as well, so that I don't have to remember what I need from there.
ALDI SHOPPING LIST MASTER
WALMART AND OTHER SHOPPING LIST MASTER
House Cleaning
I am a firm believer in the discipline of training children to do chores, clean house, etc. In fact, we'll sometimes call it "school." Once we took a whole week off to do a THOROUGH housecleaning and I called it a whole week of Home Economics! I also believe that as mothers, we have to actually train our children to do house work. That means that we have to take the time to do any new task with them several times, until they can demonstrate knowing how to do it well. Otherwise, we will constantly be frustrated, and they will develop bad habits. My kids start doing household tasks as soon as they can walk, and every six months or so, I evaluate their abilities and change their list to reflect newly acquired skills, or new jobs that need to be done. Older ones can pass off responsibilities to younger ones, as the younger ones gain the skills for new tasks. I was recently challenged (from another homeschooling website) to not refer to these things as chores - thus giving them a negative connotation - but rather as "service opportunities," a chance to serve the family with your time and talents. I'm afraid it might already be too late for a couple of my kids, as they just think of them as chores - but I'm going to give a "reformation of thinking" a good try in the upcoming days. I've posted my children's service opportunities list here for you to use as a sample. Their current ages - at the time of this list - are 13, 10 and 5.
Service Opportunity Chart
And then sometimes, no matter how many times you teach, train and remind - some kids just need a reminder every single time of how to do something correctly. This is particularly true of bathroom cleaning at our house. So, I made up this checklist for cleaning the bathroom, so that people could refer to it as they cleaned. I posted it inside the medicine cabinet door in both bathrooms.
Bathroom Cleaning Checklist
Schedules
I admit it, I'm a scheduler. Perhaps that is going to make you not like me and never visit my site again - but so be it. I have decided that at this point in my life, there is little I can do about it, so I accept the fact. I love schedules and I thrive on them. I find that my children do better with them too, so I use them. I have loosened up, as time goes on, so that I'm not the "Schedule Nazi" that I most likely was years ago - but I still do love schedules. My biggest problem was trying to figure out a schedule that my preschooler could follow somewhat independently, without me micro-managing his day. I came up with this picture schedule for him and he loved it. Ahh, a Little Scheduler after my own heart! :-)
Preschool Picture Schedule
Along the line of schedules, I like to make incentive charts and programs to guide my children into behaviors or activities that I desire for them to develop. These are not always long-lasting, but they are usually effective in the short-term. We haven't always taken summer breaks, but this year (2008) we did. I didn't want bored people sitting around all day vegging out in front of the TV or computer or video games, so I came up with a "screen points" earning system. I bought a roll of tickets (like they use for raffles and such) at WalMart and made a list of how these tickets could be earned. Five tickets could be traded for a 30 minute coupon, which entitled you to 30 minutes of "screen time." "Screen Time" consisted of either TV, video or computer games - their choice. This way the amount of time spent in front of electronic screens was limited, and they were earning it by doing things that had educationally redemptive value. Obviously the older ones needed to work a bit harder at their tickets than my pre-K-er, but they had more skills to use.
Screen Points List
