How I Limit Screen Time - A Free Printable List

I have a daily struggle in my house to balance time on screens with the rest of life. We are a family fond of electronic devices of any kind. My kids do not own phones, but we have tablets and computers and tvs and an iPod. I came across this post about the Momentum Optimization Project by Narrowback Slacker. Yes! This is what I need. I implemented it recently with tears from one kids and enthusiasm from the other. I plan to tweak this as needed, and keep it going year round. I think it will be less important to limit screen time because they will not be asking so early in the day, and hopefully this will help them find other things to do before jumping straight to computer games or tv however screen time will never be truly unlimited. Bedtime is also enforced here, even in the summer although it is generally later than through the school year.

I used the Momentum Optimization Project as a springboard but made it my own. I have two printable versions below. In the second one I took out the two things that are more likely to not apply to other families. 

Just click on the one you want for a larger graphic and right click or (CTRL + click) to save and print.

My kids have certain chores they do every morning and I'm adding on a small one: tidying the main bathroom every day. It's not my mess in there. I've made a list for tidying their rooms and for the new bathroom job loosely based again on the lists Narrowback Slacker posted regarding the Momentum Optimization Project.

Again, just click on the black and white lists below and save or print. I also printed them out on coloured paper just for fun.

I love the idea behind this and I'm hoping it sticks in our house.

What are your requirements for screen time for your kids?

8 Sweet Free Printables found on Pinterest

I love printables, have I said that yet? Here are a few things I found around Pinterest last week for you, your kids, and one early idea for Father's Day. . .


For when Mom needs some quiet time:

Sewing Cards

aren't they sweet?

Build your own cupcakes

and then, if you need to extend the activity they would look sweet on the front of cards, don't you think?

ClickNColour

Slightly more advanced designs to colour online or print out to colour.

Tool Box Robot Masks

I just think these are so much fun. :)

For you:

chalkboard verses

I love these but that's a lot of ink. I'm going to try printing one, maybe not a full page. Wouldn't they look good in a white frame?

Instagram-style photo cards

These are going on my fridge!

Mini office supply book covers for matchbooks

Be organized and look good. What to do with the matches when I foreclose on their homes?

For Father's Day:

A book about Dad

You really should check this out. Quick, easy, nearly painless and it's so much better than a plain card.

Have fun and may your printer never run out of ink. 

Or, if it does, here's hoping it's cheap to fill. :D

When The Toys Are Not Picked Up

What do you do when the toys aren't picked up? I found this great idea on Pinterest from Just Another Day In Paradise.

We call it the chore box. They have regular chores they have to do daily but the idea with this bin is that when they leave their toys lying around even after being asked to pick them up they lose them. Into the bin they go until they 'ransom' them with extra chores. 

I made a list of chores, cut them into strips, laminated them, made a simple pocket labelled "Uh Oh Chores" and taped it to the bin. These chores are things like wipe down kitchen cupboard fronts, run around the house 3 times, clean around the kitchen trash can, wipe down bathroom sink and countertop, and other such things.

It works pretty well when I put the effort in to use it. It's probably time to crack down again. I like that it's a simple, straightforward consequence, easy to use and very helpful to me!

I apologize for the dark pictures. :(

Want to make chores more fun? There's an app for that.

Chore Cards byAppDads.com

This wonderful gem of an idea is what I use for organizing kids chores. It makes it easy for me to assign them and the kids LOVE that they get to use my iPod to scan the QR code on each chore as they finish.

The app comes with chores loaded in it and you can pick the ones you want included for each kid. You just keep track of things in the app and manually swipe them over to the 'pocket' on the bottom right or you can print the cards out. They fit perfectly on Avery business card paper. I had some from a long time ago just hanging around so I used them, but you could use regular card stock.

The cards it comes with are definitely little kiddish and are missing quite a few of the ones I wanted so I made up custom ones right in the app. All you need is whatever picture you want to use on the custom card.  We use a combination of the two. They have boy tigers and girl tigers and they are pretty cute. 

  

I quickly made these simple card holders from coloured paper and cut up hockey card holders and they're working out great. The top one holds the extra chores, the other two Petunia and Ironman's chores for the day. They have before school, after school and done slots. They put the ones they've scanned in the done slot white side facing out. 

The funny thing about the AppDads site is they don't give you any ideas about how to use the cards once they're printed. I would like to know where they keep them or if they're up in some kind of chart in their homes.

Simple Checklist To Organize Your Homeschool Week

** Update: I've had to remove the link to the blank daily plan. I had left it editable in the hopes that people would save a copy and then edit their copy but that is not happening. I've now taken it offline and I'm not sure if or how I will replace it. Sorry for any inconvenience. It is an easy table to duplicate if you are so inclined. **

How do you organize your homeschool day? 

Do you use a planner or checklist? Or an online program?

This list is a simple thing, but what a big help to have a visual of our week. 

The last couple years I used an online scheduling program called Homeschool Skedtrack which, while I really liked it, is very intensive in terms of adding in all the lessons you are going to do in a year for each subject. At least the way I did it. It kept me on track for the year and it was something to look at every morning to see what we needed to do and check it off.

Funny thing, this list is working just as well for us. I post the list for the boy and the girl on the side of the fridge and as they do their subjects they check them off. My girl is in grade 3 so she can run through the 'on my own' section while I work on other things with my boy in grade 1. This list was passed on to my from our Homeschool Teacher.

I decided to leave all of my girl's curriculum in the editable list because I know I always like to see what others are using. :)

This is how we've been using it. 

Click on the image below to view or print blank checklist.

And just for fun, in case you're wondering what the list above is referring to, here's a list of the curriculum we are currently using for Grade 3. There are a couple areas not covered by the list, like Social Studies for example. I realize that.

MATH - BJU Press Math 3

HANDWRITING - www.education.com cursive worksheets

WRITESHOP - WriteShop Junior Book D

HISTORY -  Corresponding chapters in Mystery of History 1 and Story of the World Vol 1

SCIENCE - Sonlight Science D

DRAW WRITE NOW - Draw Write Now, Book 1

Hope your week goes smoothly!

Morning Routine Cards

These free printable morning routine cards for preschoolers are from livinglocurto.com. They are great for helping keep the boy on task. I laminated them and added magnets so that he can flip them and see this ...

If you would like to print this on the back side of the morning routine cards, click on the picture above.

Home Management Planner Pages

Here are the pages from my home management planner. Click on the image or the link for a larger view, and if there is a magnifying glass be sure to click it once, then right click and save the image to your computer. For most of them I've included my planner page and a blank alternative.

**UPDATE: These are no longer available for download**

Morning Routine and Evening Routine
I personally think the Evening Routine is the most important part of the day (organization-wise) - but I am definitely still working on being consistent in doing it. The ideas in these two routines you might recognize from the fly lady. I've changed them up to fit me. I have to say there are a couple things on there that I still aspire to do. Clean the bathrooms every morning, I don't think so! Maybe one day.

my morning checklist

morning checklist - blank

my evening checklist

evening checklist - blank

Daily Checklists

There's a new addition to my daily checklists because I borrowed it, almost straight across but not quite, from my friend Natasha of Domestica, the awesomest new blog. Check it out for fresh inspiration and ideas on home and life. 

my monday checklist

monday checklist - blank

my tuesday checklist

tuesday checklist - blank

my wednesday checklist

wednesday checklist - blank

my thursday checklist

thursday checklist - blank

my friday checklist

friday checklist - blank

A few more . . .

weekly planner pg 1

weekly planner pg 2

emergency contact sheet

my weekly chore checklist

weekly chore checklist - blank

to do list

For more links to free planner pages and more information on how to create your own planner, check this post

Home Organization - my planner

I've been working on my home management planner - for lack of a better name. It's kind of my home office in a binder. I've been redoing some of my checklists and such. I was going to fix up just a couple, but they all got a makeover.

I will post the pages as well for you, but for now I'll tell you about what I do.

I started putting together my planner about six months ago. When I started, I looked at a lot of checklists and planner pages available already, because I thought if I could find a set to just download and print it would be so much easier and faster than making my own. I didn't find exactly what I was looking for, so I've taken what I found and compiled it and added colour to it all to make it pretty. You can decide for yourself if I managed that, but I work much better in colour.

I use a zippered Mead brand binder like this from Walmart (it was a lot less there than on the Mead site), and I would say that a zippered binder is a very good idea. It has more pockets inside that are very useful as well.

I put my pages in page protectors and I use wipe off markers to write on the page protectors. It all wipes off very easily. I would prefer to print off fresh sheets (especially the monday to friday checklists, for example), but when I add up how much printing and ink that is ... wipe off works fine.

I have sections for my weekly planner, meal planning (which is not very developed yet!), addresses, homeschool and an events section that is divided further into smaller sections such as christmas, awana, family camp, etc.

I'm telling you all this to inspire you to try it. Having all the information and papers that are usually scattered across the house in one place is a huge benefit. Having a schedule of when you do what, broken down weekly/daily makes for a lot less wasted time (in theory, anyway!).

Check out these sites for more information on creating a home management binder of your own:

Organizing Your Way 
Organized Home
Calendars That Work 
Fly Lady
Mom Agenda