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Back to School-Chore Charts for Before and After School

August 13, 2014 By Deirdre

Sometimes it is hard getting back into Back to School Routine. Your family may have some bumpy mornings or times after school. Things that need to get done may get forgotten in the hustle and bustle of daily life. These chore charts for before and after school along with bedtime highlight tasks that when completed will help remove some of the bumps in your routine.

Why These Chores On The Chore Charts:

I tried to place some chores in the bedtime routine that will help the morning routine go so much smoother. You will notice that there are a few items on chore charts that are repeated at bedtime and in the morning. Making sure that children’s backpacks are ready for the school day seems really important so, I mentioned it more than once.

There are probably some chores that you would do in a different order than we do like homework. I like to get it over with as soon as we get home. As the evening goes on we seem to get more tired and grumpy while doing homework. We tried it a few times when we had to do something else right after school. I know as a teacher that kids need to play after school. When we get homework done, we all have more time to play. That is what works for us.

After homework and play, emptying out my son’s backpack so, I can look through notes and papers from school and my son can clean out his lunch box are most important. I truly don’t want fungus growing in his lunchbox.(We didn’t see any last year, but I dread the thought that we could.) You may like to wait until your children go to sleep to sit down and look through papers and notes.

I placed getting clothes out and ready at night. There are some of you who like to do it in the morning. I go to school before my son does and my husband drops him off at school so for us having the clothes out ahead a time has worked. If you like to do it in the morning, that is great!

Why Use Chore Charts?

Last year my mom spent seven weeks in the hospital, my son started full day school, and I went back to work as teacher. We had to set up a routine to get through each day and be ready for the next.

Having a chart that we could quickly refer to really helped us . Having a chart that shared with all the members of my family what we needed to do ensured that we got everything done. My husband could easily do everything I was doing when I had to rush to hospital or be at a school event.

This Year’s Chore Charts

I created the chore charts in this post after a year of trying various charts and routines. These chore charts follow an order that has worked for my family. If you would like a copy of them, you can click on the links below. The chore charts are free so, download and print out as many as you like.

Backpack Checklist Back to School-Chore Charts for Before and After School

Getting back into a Back to School Routine can be tricky and challenging. I hope there charts will help your year start out smoothly.

{Free Printable} Checklist for Kids Backpacks

August 12, 2014 By Deirdre

Yesterday I shared with you tips for selecting kids backpacks. Today I want to share with you a free printable I created to help insure that kids backpacks have everything that they need in them when your children head to school every morning. Two amazing things about this printable copy of the Backpack Checklist are that it can be attached to your kid’s backpacks and that it includes all the major items that need to be in their backpacks.

Wait! You may be thinking I don’t need all of these things in my kids backpacks. They really need to have x,y, and z in their backpacks instead. That maybe true. Rather than create a list that would just work for my son or one that was really long and includes tons of items I tried to keep this list pretty general. I didn’t list the things that will go into his backpack from time to time. There are probably some things like a jacket or extra clothes that may be in my son’s backpack during the year. I did create a space to write in an additional item space for those times or for an item I might have left off.

Using the Checklist for Kids Backpacks

Placing it on your kids backpack

I am simply going to hang the backpack checklist onto my son’s backpack. For right now I am using a metal ring that I threaded through a hole punched into the top of the backpack checklist. Before hanging it on the metal ring I did laminate the checklist. You could easily put the kids backpack checklist in a luggage tag to keep it clean and tear free and then attach the luggage tag to your children’s backpack. We didn’t have one at home so, I went ahead and laminated the checklist. I think it will stay clean and tear free this way too.

To Check or Not to Check

We may actually put check marks in the boxes beside each of the items for awhile at the beginning of school and again later after school breaks. Once we get into the school year, we will probably just run down the list together. If you have an older child or a very independent mature child who would like to run down the checklist on their own that is great.

Using the Checklist After School

The kids backpack checklist can be used when you are unpacking too. You or your kids can quickly empty their backpacks in the order listed on the checklist to make sure they have brought everything back home (except notes and money that you have sent in.).

Here is a printable copy of the backpack checklist. You can click on the backpack checklist link to the left or the one above. The printable contains four backpack checklists. You can use them for your kids backpacks or you can give some to a friend.

This post is part of a Back to School series I am running this summer. Here are some of the other posts in this series:

12 Back to School Clothing Shopping Tips

Back to School Picture No-Nos

Tips for Selecting Kids Backpacks

Update

After sharing this wonderful checklist, I was asked to create a backpack checklist that could be used for going home from school. I recently have created the “Going Home” checklist. Now there are two backpack checklists available that you can laminate back to back. (You can select the one that you feel your child needs most instead of having one on the front and one on the back if you like.) Both the “Going to School” and a “Going Home” checklist are on the same Free Printables Backpack Checklists PDF document to download on the Free Printables Backpack Checklists post.

Countdown to Kindergarten Activities

September 6, 2013 By Deirdre

Countdown to Kindergarten shares the tale of little girl that is made to worry about kindergarten by some rules shared with her by a first grader. The first grade tells her that she can’t bring her stuffed bear to school. She isn’t allowed to bring her cat either. Finally she is told she has to know how to tie her shoes.

She has already mastered so many things. She can count backwards from 10!

The little girl tries to hide her shoes so her mom will have to buy shoes with velcro. She takes out her shoelaces. She sits with her dad and really tries to learn to tie her shoes. She tries all kinds of things with her shoes. She is so worried she will get in trouble!

When she gets to school she finds out the first grader was all wrong. There is a day that she can bring in her stuffed animals. There is a time to work on tying shoes with the teachers help. The little girl is so relieved that she won’t get in trouble. Her teacher makes her day.

What did we do to explore Countdown to Kindergarten?

Shoe Lacing Number Facts

Cardboard shoes made from an old pizza box were created to work on addition facts. Math facts were placed on the left side of each shoe and the answers to the facts were placed right. Shoelace holes were placed below each number fact. Two additional holes were punched at the bottom of each column to act as a starting place for lacing through the facts.

The laces go right to left and back again. Sometimes the lace will go from the number sentence to the sum and sometimes it goes sum to number sentence.

Uppercase to Lowercase Letter Lacing

Some uppercase letters look just like their lowercase letters. Some letters look different. I used some cardboard from the same pizza box to make a lacing activity that allowed JDaniel to work on matching some tricky letters.

Shoelace Painting

A shoelace was dipped into the paint with coffee stirrers created a fun painting tool. Once the shoelace was coated with paint, it was placed on one side of a piece of black construction. When the shoelace was arranged the way we decided we liked it, We closed the other side of the construction paper over the shoelaces.

The outside of the paper was rubbed all over to press the top piece of the paper to create a symmetrical print of the shoelace. When we opened up the paper and lifted off of the lace, we were left with a really pretty print.

It looks a little ghostly! We think it looks really cool.

I have decided to ask you to link your posts to the Read.Explore.Learn. Facebook page instead of running a link up. I hope you will stop by and share your children’s book related activities there.

Disclaimer: This post does contain affiliate links.

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Back to School Lunches without Sandwiches

August 9, 2013 By Deirdre

JDaniel is starting back to school in just over a week. This year he will be entering full-day kindergarten. That means he will need to bring his lunch every day. I am looking forward to making him fun or at least healthy lunches for him. JDaniel loves cheese sandwiches of all kinds, but I tend to think that he may be tired of them after a while. I touched base with members of the Kid Blog Network and the Bento Blogger Facebook groups I belong to and asked them to suggest lunches without sandwiches that I could send to school with him.

These ladies and gentlemen are brilliant. They have given me some amazing links to their best lunches without sandwiches. I hope that you will love them and try them out on with your children too.

Lunches Without Sandwiches

Lunch Box Dad – 1 Meal 3 Ways-Mango Strawberry Chicken Salad

JDaniel4’s Mom-Signs of Spring Lunch

Momables– 10 Non-Sandwich Lunch Ideas

Eclectic Lamb– Dinosaur and Volcano Pizza

Lunch Box Dad– Kermit the Frog’s Green Food Lunch

We Should Be Folding Laundry – Veggie Wraps, Apple and Fruit with Veggie Shreds

JDaniel4’s Mom– Despicable Me: Minion Lunch

Keeley McGuire– 20 None Sandwich School Lunch Ideas for Kids

We Should Be Folding Laundry– Mac and Cheese with Fruit and Veggie Sides

What the Girls are Having– Taco Salad

Eats Amazing– 10 Alternative to Sandwiches for Lunch Boxes

Picture used with permission from Healthy Eating Starts at Home

Healthy Eating Starts at Home– Quesadilla Strips with Layered Dip

Feeling a Little Lunchy- Feeling Like Making Baby Calzones

JDaniel4’s Mom– Salad with Bunny Croutons

Bento for My Girls– Delicious Leftovers (includes a Reese Poke Cake that looks awesome)

Keitha’s Chaos– Katy the Caterpillar Lunch (spinach tortellini with a cheese caterpillar)

Healthy Eating Starts at Home– Steamed Salmon Sushi Rolls

Mama Miss– Edible Fun Bento

Life at the Zoo- Simple Homemade Quiche

East Coast Mommy– French Toast in a Thermal Container

Kids Chaos– Garlic Rocket Pasta

You Are The Roots– Kale and Quinoa Nuggets

East Coast Mommy– Cereal for Lunch

Mama Miss– Easter Themed Bento

Inspired by Family Magazine– 10 Sandwich Less Lunches

Here are the other Kid Blogger Network blogs that are participating:

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Zillions of Reasons To Thank His Teachers

May 16, 2012 By Deirdre

Last fall JDaniel went to preschool for the very first time. He was excited about getting to go to school. Selecting a backpack and getting new sneakers had him anticipating how wonderful school would be.

The reality of actually getting in the car and going to the school was hard. Walking into the classroom unassisted was a challenge somedays. Making the change from being home with me to being with others for a few hours was not in his plans he would tell me. He in fact told me that he wanted quit preschool more than once this year.

Making new friends was hard too. Thankfully he had best friend in his class! Unfortunately he didn’t think he needed to have any other friends. One was plenty he thought.

We talked through his fears and challenges to change. We prayed before school about how things would go at school. We read books about people that had learned to like school.

Despite everything I did, it was the teachers that JDaniel had this year that made this change from home to school really work for him.

So, I want to take a moment to thank Mrs. D and Mrs. G for all they did for my guy this year.

Ladies-

I brought to you a little lamb who was afraid to join your flock. You shepherded him into your classroom each day with love and welcoming words.

Lamb Handprint

When he needed to face the fact that he couldn’t always sit beside his best friend, you helped him find new friends to sit with. It was hard to have his best friend want to make new friends and sit somewhere else during snack and work time, but you helped him overcome the challenge.

Face Collage

You encouraged him to explore new concepts and express himself in new ways. JDaniel isn’t very big on coloring but he did make wonderful drawings of sea creatures and other things with you.

Drawing of an Octopus, a Squid, and a Cuttlefish

Going from two days to three next year may be a challenge for us just as starting school was this year, but ladies you have helped him learn how to leave the nest. JDaniel will have the experiences he had this year at school to look back on and remember. We will be able to talk about how he overcame his shyness and made new friends. He will be able to tell me about how he learned to share his thoughts at circle time after months of your patient encouragement.