Back to School Ideas Continued…

As I have discussed in the last two entries, back to school means preparation.  Being prepared is not just about buying school supplies, clothes and backpacks.  Preparing the home and family for back to school will assure a smooth transition from vacations, beach days and pool parties to backpacks, homework and schedules.  I have talked about the kitchen (the heart of the home), the laundry (the lungs), and today I will discuss the brain of the home.  The brain is where you keep your family’s communications, schedules and important daily documents. 

For many, keeping track of multiple schedules is a full time job.  Knowing who needs to be where can be nerve wracking.  Also, knowing what your kids homework assignments and projects are and when they are due can be mentally exhausting.  A calendar is a must to make sure the family knows what is going on.  Having everything on one calendar can help you plan meals and activities for each week.  For example, if your son has a paper due on Friday, you may say no when he asks to hang out with his friends on Thursday after-school.   

There are many different types of calendars available for family use.  If you are on-line and like e-mail reminders, there are many available options.  Microsoft Outlook is great for calendar, e-mail and contact information all rolled into one location.  Another on-line product that is available is Blis- which stands for Best Life Information Systems.  This incorporates your calendar (compatible with Outlook) and also holds your household information like the plumber’s phone number and your children’s medical information.    Visit www.myblis.com

If you are using a paper calendar, make sure there is enough room for multiple entries.  Try using a different colored pen for each family member.  This system works well with a large wall calendar, including the write-on/wipe-off or black-board versions.  Have your family get in the habit of inputting their activities on the family calendar.

Homework begins as early as preschool for some.  To make sure you are not scrambling before due dates, having a homework zone is beneficial.  For young children who require assistance, keep supplies near the area you will be working with the child.  For most that is the kitchen counter or table.  Keep a bucket of supplies that they will need to accomplish their homework.  Typically they will need scissors, glue, ruler, pencils, and crayons/markers/colored pencils.  A container with a lid is helpful for keeping the supplies together.  Once your children have completed their homework, have the children put their homework directly into their backpack.  It will be hard to remember during the morning rush to grab the homework – one less thing to have to deal with. 

For older children who will need to focus to study for tests and write papers, a desk with their needed supplies can be ideal.  Give them a quiet place for working.  Most tweens and teens like music and TV blaring while they are trying to study.  Multi-tasking in this manner may not be the best for focusing.  Try not to encourage this, and let them know the more they focus the faster they will finish. 

For projects, an accordion file or stack file may help them organize their research.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Keep a supply of printer ink/toner, pens, pencils, and other supplies they may need to get their homework done.  If they have supplies in your office, but they do their homework in their room, getting up to find what they need will only give reason to procrastinate. 

Having a landing zone is key to making mornings run smoothly.  Have a place to hang backpacks by the door that the kids come and go from.  Have the kids get in the habit of always putting their backpack away when they come in the door and cleaning out the backpack immediately.  Have a place where the kids put important papers, like permission slips and fundraising forms, whether it is in your office, or a specific place in the kitchen.  Have them put their homework immediately where they will do their homework.  Try and make sure to have them alert you of any projects that have been assigned, so that information can go on the calendar.  Discuss with them how they will break those projects down. 

Having your children get organized will help prepare them to succeed in school.  Make sure you work towards their organizing strategies.  Their way of organizing may not be your way.  Talk with them to see what strategies they feel work best for them.  Practice what you preach.  If you are asking them to be organized and follow new rules and habits, make sure you enforce them.  Also, set a good example by getting yourself organized.  There is nothing like a child saying “why do I have to do it if you don’t?” and they actually have a valid point!

Stay tuned for next weeks entry for back to school.  We will finish with garage ideas for keeping the kids gear in check for after-school sports. 

For additional tips on Back to School preparation, check out my Web Site Tips page and

sign up for my Free Monthly E-Newsletter at:

www.afreshstartorganing.net

More fresh start Ideas for Back to School

In my last post, we discussed the crazy, busy days when we go back to school.  With organizing systems in place, you and your children will have calmer mornings and more time after school enjoying each other.  As I talked about last week, we need to reclaim the kitchen as the heart of the home.  One of the biggest work areas of the home is the laundry room.  If we were to relate the laundry room to a part of the body, it would be the lungs.  Our lungs bring important oxygen in and releases the CO2 from our bodies.  This in and out is similar to the laundry.  The laundry comes in and goes out constantly.  We need to develop a system that is as easy and natural as breathing, so that we don’t have to think of the laundry as such an overwhelming chore. 

A 12 year old girl in a hurry may not like what she is wearing, so she changes, leaving the clothes she decided against on the floor.  Now those clothes are mixed with a pile of dirty clothes (we will discuss this later) and she has barely anything hanging up in the closet.  You pass her room and think she needs to clean this up, but you are doing laundry that day, so you just pick it up and wash everything.  When she returns home from school her laundry is hung up and put away.  She winds up repeating this and it is now a cycle.  What is she learning?  Only that someone else will come by and do things for her.  When she goes off to college will you fly to where she is weekly to make sure her laundry is done?  I hope the answer is NO!

To make sure your children are up, dressed and ready each morning, you can have them set out their clothes the night before.  Have everything laid out, including socks, belts, underwear, hair ribbons, jewelry and shoes.  This will save a headache in the morning of the “I have nothing to wear!”.  Also, have them lay out their clothes for any after school activities.  They will know ahead of time if something needs to be washed, so you are not doing it first thing in the morning! 

Having your children participate in the upkeep of laundry will reduce the overwhelming amount than if only done by one person (typically a busy parent).  For most household chores, it is easier for parents to just do things for our children than to actually teach them how to do it.  Teaching children how to do things around the house will set them up for the transition to live on their own.  Laundry is a chore that even young children can help with.  As young as three, a child can sort clothes from whites and darks.  I recommend for all laundry areas of the home, hampers that have a divider for sorting.  Here are some examples:

 

Having the laundry sorted prior to laundry day will help save valuable time from sorting a large mountain of dirty clothes.  Also, you will be able to see when a load may need to be done, like when the whites are about to spill over the top.

Socks are an annoying part of laundry, not buts about it.  Another way to have your children help with the sorting is to have a mesh laundry bag, usually used for delicates, attached to your child’s hamper (with a safety pin or clothes pin).  Have your children put their socks in it.  Leave the socks in the bag in the washer and dryer.  Having all the socks in these small laundry bags will help from having to sort out whose sock is whose.  It is also recommended with front loading washers to use these bags.  I know from experience that small socks will clog your drain and cost a lot of money to get it out!  Socks in the drain line is not covered in the washers warranty.  Trust me I had to find out the hard way!  Here is an example of a small mesh laundry bag:

Another way to make sure your children are helping with the laundry is to make sure they put their laundry away themselves.  Again, small children are able to help, with some guidance.  Try having the younger child’s laundry grouped to put away.  For example, have stacks of their underwear, their socks, their shorts and their pajamas in piles that they can start to put away.  Once you know they understand where everything goes, you can ease into letting them do things themselves, like putting their basket of clean clothes into piles before they put things away. 

You can start giving your children more as they get older.  A 10 year old can fold laundry.  A 12 year old can use the washer. of hisAs you start to teach your children how to do more for themselves, the better the family will function.  You will not be responsible for the child’s soccer uniform not washed for their game, they will be!  My son definitely thinks twice before choosing what he wears, because he knows he will have to put away the clothes when they are clean.  He is conscious  choices and has saved time (and money) by not changing clothes every hour!  Even when his friends want to borrow something, he has been known to say NO because he doesn’t want more work in putting a larger amount of clean clothes away!

Stay tuned for next weeks entry for back to school.  I will be blogging on a homework and landing area for   a fresh start for Back to School.

For additional tips on Back to School preparation, check out my Web Site Tips page and

sign up for my Free Monthly E-Newsletter at:

www.afreshstartorganing.net

 

Creating a fresh start for Back to School

The alarm goes off at 6:30 am.  You have an hour to get the kids up, dressed, breakfast made, lunches packed, and backpacks ready.  That is just for the kids.  You have to either be dressed for work, or the gym, or whatever your day entails.  There are breakfast dishes, the laundry, the dog needs a walk and to be fed, and your kids are fighting over who’s turn it is to take the trash out.  The yelling escalates as you feel the tension increasing.  The kids want to watch TV and are fighting over which cartoon they are going to watch.  Your youngest is crying because she wanted to wear her favorite t-shirt (again) and it is not clean.  Your oldest child remembers that he didn’t do his homework assignment for math and he panics. If he doesn’t turn it in, he will miss recess.  Panic and mayhem seem to be the start of your day.  

Does this sound familiar?   Maybe even part of this scenario hits home.  The Mad Morning Rush seems to be the norm in most households.  You vow to make your mornings less stressful, but the next morning is a repeat of the last.  No-one enjoys starting the day off with stress, panic, yelling and crying.  In the next few weeks, I will be posting on ways that will save you time, money and energy to end those crazy mornings (and evenings for that matter).  Organizing your home will help you enjoy a fresh start every day!

This week we are going to focus on the kitchen.  Kitchens used to be the heart of the home.  These days it seems as if families don’t eat together very often.  Between dashing between sports practices, meetings, tutoring, and other after school activities, kids afternoons keep parents on the go.  The car is more often where people eat together than the kitchen table.  Making breakfast, lunch and dinner at home becomes a chore when done in a hurry.  Preparation is key to making meals easier, faster and healthier.  Good products are helpful in keeping food last longer and will save time in the busy day so you can make healthy choices.

Here are some tips for making the kitchen the heart of the home again:

Breakfast:

• Set out the night before what your family will eat (that isn’t perishable).  Have the kids set the table with the items that you will need, such as bowls for cereal or fruit, glasses for juice, plates for toast, etc.  Set out the utensils that they will need, too.  This can be done as soon as you clear the table from dinner.  This will take no more than five minutes, but will save you in the morning rush.
• Have the children help clean up the breakfast dishes immediately.  Dishes loaded in the dishwasher, trash in the trash can and table wiped off.  Again, this will not take long, but this will make sure the table is ready for the next meal.

Lunches:

• To save time and money, making lunches and snacks (for after-school practices) the night before is key.  For food that doesn’t keep well for too long, lay out anything you will need to finish preparations for them in the morning, such as slicing apples or making sandwiches.  This will ensure your kids (and you) can have healthy food throughout the day.  This will keep their energy up for their busy days.
• Have your children help in the preparation.  Have them pick their food choices.  Set limits, such as “pick either Wheat Thins or Gold Fish” or “do you want grapes or apples?”.  These will help make the decisions go quickly and will help guide them in making good choices.  Have the kids put the food into containers, such as Tupperware or Ziplock baggies and into their lunch boxes.  You will be surprised that they will not put in as much food as you would.  This will save you money as they won’t be throwing away uneaten food. 
• When your child comes home from school, have them unpack their lunch boxes so they will be ready for the next day.  Getting into this habit will allow a smooth flow for the next day. 

Dinner:

• Before grocery shopping, look at the calendar to see what days will be better to actually cook and which will be better for leftovers or quick fix meals.  Plan enough food to be kept for the week.  Check to make sure you have all the ingredients necessary to actually plan the meal, so you don’t have to run back out to the store or that you wind up ordering take out instead.  Also, when you do cook, double the meal, so you can freeze half for nights that you don’t have time to cook.  This will ensure your family is getting a healthy meal even when you don’t have time to cook it. 
• Get the family involved.  Give out chores to the kids to make sure you are not doing all the work yourself.  You will not be able to sit and enoy the meal if you are the one getting up to get things that should have been set out before the meal began.  Have one child set the table, one child ask for drink orders, and one child set out any condiments that you will need for the meal.  Do this with clean up, too.  Have one child clear the table, one child load the dishwasher and one child put the condiments away.  Having the family get involved in the meal preparation and clean up will teach them valuable skills for when they live on their own.

Products That Help:

Refrigerator:

Keep fruits and veggies longer with Tupperware’s Fridge-Smart line.  Clean the produce first, then place it in the containers.  The containers have vent holes to keep the food fresh.  There is a list on the side of the containers that tell you how many vent holes to open for the type of produce you are storing.  These products keep produce lasting longer and tasting better.  Another benefit is you can stack the containers on the shelves in the fridge to save space! 

Having your fruits and veggies last longer will save you money.  Having them washed and ready to eat will save time and also allow you to make good choices when you are in a hurry.  Seeing into the containers will ensure when you are making your list for the store, you won’t purchase duplicates or to see if you are almost out.

Pantry:

Keep your snacks visible and fresh longer and your pantry organized with clear containers like Snapware.  These come in different sizes and are easy to open and close.  Also, you are able to see when you are running low on a particular snack, so you can quickly scan the pantry before your grocery run and get it on the list.  You won’t buy duplicates as you guess whether or not that box of crackers is half full.  Your children will be able to quickly grab what they want to add to their lunch.  Even items like raisins, nut, and candy can be kept in these containers.  Products like these will save you money as the food lasts longer.  Chips and crackers don’t break and crumble because they are protected in the container. Fruit Snacks and Fruit Roll Ups are great in these containers too.  Not for the freshness (who knows how long these could last!), but to see how much you have left, and to keep boxes from getting lost in the pantry.

When you come home from the store, unpack items and place in baskets so they are quick to grab.  Items like 100 Calorie packs of food, individual apple sauce, energy bars, and snack size chips and crackers are perfect for baskets.  Being able to grab and go will help the kids get items for their lunches, or if they need a snack they can get it themselves!

Finding ways to help make your meal preparation easy and quick will ensure you send your kids off to school well fed.  By preparing for the next day each night will help make sure you don’t have crazy mornings and let you send your kids off to school with a kiss and a smile!  Stay tuned for next weeks post on Laundry Tips to help you have a fresh start for Back to School!

For additional tips on Back to School preparation, check out my Web Site Tips page and

sign up for my Free Monthly E-Newsletter at:

www.afreshstartorganing.net