Back to School Tips Featured on ABC13
I am thrilled to share Back To School Success Strategies with our Houston community!
http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/video?id=8762205
I am thrilled to share Back To School Success Strategies with our Houston community!
http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/video?id=8762205
Back to school time brings backpacks by the back door, papers flying in from kids, and upcoming activities, back to school night and more. Create a command center and landing strip that helps you control the information and stuff.
Do you have a family command center idea to share? What works for you?
Need more ideas? Visit my pinterest board Back to School. http://pinterest.com/EllenDelap/back-to-school/
Back to school! Its that time of year that makes moms happy and sad; happy to start new routines and sad about the energy and organization it can take to get your family going. Throughout the month of August we are featuring organized moms who will help get you started back to school with the toughest tasks.
Moms are challenged to get everyone out the door on time with a smile. These ideas can get everyone’s day started off right.
Morning school routine
The most important thing I do to make school mornings run smoothly is to do ALMOST everything the night before. My goal is for everything to be done except for obviously breakfast, getting dressed, and brushing teeth. Here are some of the things I do the night before that make our mornings more manageable:
* Unload the dishwasher – I loathe spending extra time in the kitchen late at night when it feels like I’ve been in there ALL DAY, but it’s so worth it to start the morning with a clean kitchen. The breakfast dishes are a quick rinse and load and then I’ve got a clean kitchen again.
* Pack lunches, fruit break, water bottles – another kitchen chore that I despise doing at night, BUT it’s even worse to deal with the next morning, so I make myself get it done!
* Set out backpacks, shoes, and any other items that are going to school that day
* Lay school clothes out as I’m tucking kids in at night
When I slack off and don’t do one or more of these chores the night before, the result is a scattered, hectic morning – not a good start to the day!
Another trick that works for me is to require that the kids eat, dress, put on shoes, and brush teeth and hair before they watch any cartoons. They are motivated to get these small chores done and they enjoy having 10 minutes or so of TV time before we head to school.
Meredith Delap is a stay at home mom of three. She enjoys reading, the beach, and peace and quiet.
Fall is around the corner and now is the time to establish successful strategies and routines. This time of year we are ready to begin again, even more so than at the new year. When families work together new routines, the results can be amazing! Communication is the key. No one likes to be told what to do whether you are an adult, teen or even a young child. Asking questions can make the difference on helping your children be successful in school and working together on solutions for family responsibilities and routines. Here are some questions to help your family get a great start this fall. Host a family meeting to collaborate on this.
What are your personal goals for this next year? Help your child establish a minimum goal for one area by asking what specific actions they will take to accomplish this goal. Ask them how you can help them reach the goal. Share with them one goal you have too and ask for their help.
What is the best way for you to keep up with your calendar, recording your homework and other activities? Families can set up a month at a glance calendar in a prominent place for everyone to see or use a digital calendar and print out the month at a glance. Each child will need their own planner for use at school, either a month at a glance, week at a glance or a spiral notebook to write in all assignments, important dates and other details. Parents need a reliable planner system too.
What is your best way to keep up with papers this fall? Some ideas might be one binder with tabbed slash pockets, one folder for each subject and a homework folder, a small box file, or an accordion file with one pocket for each subject. Remember, paper management is a learned skill and very important to practice.
What ways to study help you learn best? Auditory learners learn well with background music, softly playing in the background. Kinesthetic learners learn well with flashcards, re-writing and movement. Visual learners learn best with color, highlighting and underlining. Minimize distractions by keeping study time out of your child’s room. Check grades weekly online with your students asking them to assess what is working for studying.
Ask all your family members to brainstorm all the stuff that must be done each week, including trash, dinner preparation, dishes, laundry, and more. Then ask each family member which task they can do best or which they prefer. When you work from your strengths and/or work on what you prefer, everyone does a better job. Ask for family members to partner in getting these jobs done too, so that no one person has to work alone. Record their responsibilities on a chart and post this again in a prominent place. Everyone has come together to work together as a team.
Start this year off with a plan for everyone in your family. Keep the strategies going with encouragement and enthusiasm, hosting family meetings to continue this dialogue and communicate about other important family values. Starting new or getting back to routines makes a difference for everyone.
Do you say, I would rather jump off a cliff, go to the dentist, or even run away when faced with organizing? One of the most basic emotions we have is fear when getting organized. Whether we fear being shamed, we fear loss, or we fear defeat, we must acknowledge this. In order to overcome your organizing fear, we must address where this comes from.
Have you overcome your organizing fear? What made a difference for you?
Change is hard! We all like things, places and people to remain status quo. But there are lots of transitions that happen and in the midst of a transition, organizing begins to lag behind sometimes. It might be a move, a new job, the loss of a loved one, addition of a new family member or other change that has occurred. Here are a few tips on smoothing transitions.
Tackling toys to many is not a tiny area! But if you tackle it in one hour segments, it gets the job done!
Kids play with toys when they are not ovewhelmed by the quantity. Think about a kindergarten classroom. There are 25 kids and not even 25 toys. So less is more in this space. If you have new toys, you can save them for holiday toy drives. If you have missing parts, just keep a bin of all strays until the parts are rounded up. Summer is great time to organize this area with your kid’s help. This is a teachable skill to be organized and to declutter.
Have black garbage bags with you and your timer. Invite your kids to help and set the timer for 15 minutes. In that time, ask your kids to donate what they don’t love, what they want to share with others, and what is no longer age appropriate. Drop these into the bags, filling only until easily carried to the car. Have your kids drop off the items with you.
Set your timer for 15 more minutes, 3 more times, working around the room. At the end of the sessions, bring the items to the car and be sure to drop them off later that day.
You may have a few keepsake toys to store. Purchase 66 quart bins, with latches to secure closing, to store in the attic.
How many hours will this take? I suggest 2, 3 or 4 one hour sessions to get the job done. Breaking this job into small units makes it happen.
Organizing a kid friendly space means having them have access to their toys. Here are two creative resources for you to use. Busy Boxes from Container Store make rolling toy bins with different size containers. IKEA has Trofast tiered units to help organize toys.
http://www.containerstore.com/shop/toyStorage/boxesCases?productId=10000647
http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/categories/series/19027/?pageNumber=0
Remember to label to keep your toys systems and storage in order. Pictures are a great way to label too!
Small steps lead to big accomplishments! Tackling a tiny area can make a difference in your home or office. This summer we are taking a tour of these projects and creating a plan for you. This project is the laundry room.
Laundry is an important process in our homes and for ourselves and our family. Having a well stocked, efficient space makes it easy to get this job done.
Set your timer for one hour. Eliminate trash first, then recycle plastic containers. Pull out the items that are unused and donate these. With the items that remain, group these together by categories, such as lightbulbs, cleaning, glue and tape, pets, and laundry. Decide if items truly belong in the garage and distribute these at the end of your hour.
Even a laundry room can be a place of beauty! Uniform, attractive containers make the difference. Label the containers to help you and your family maintain order. Think about painting the walls a color you love too!
Laundry stuck in this room forever? Invite your family to the “laundry party” and purchase one laundry basket per person. This way you can distribute laundry to each person’s room effortlessly, with each person putting away their own laundry. If laundry is leaving and not getting put away in your kid’s room, have them watch a movie, fold and put on hangers, and then set a timer for 5 minutes to put it away. Give your family a deadline and a date to get this done every week.
What ways are you tackling your laundry area?
Here is it, the first week of summer vacation. Its time to start a new routine for you and your family, transitioning to ways your family can make the most of summer. Summer routines start now!
Starting your summer routine also requires commitment. If these routines do not go as planned, press the “reset button” and start again the next day.
What routines are you starting this summer?
Join me for summer fun!
Small steps lead to big accomplishments! Tackling a tiny area can make a difference in your home or office. This summer we are taking a tour of these projects and creating a plan for you. This project is the linen closet.
It starts out as just a small mistep. You are in a hurry and drop your towel on the floor. Then company is coming and you swoosh it into the linen closet. Then you don’t know what to do with something in your room, so you open the linen closet and drop in something totally random. And then you are so overwhelmed each time you open the door, how you could ever get organized?
How do you tackle this tiny area? Set your timer for one hour! Have 2 garbage bags ready, one to drop in what is to be donated and one that is for trash. Start at the top shelf, taking each item out and deciding what to do with it. If you are keeping it, establish categories like first aid, medications, body wash, make up, travel, and any others. Any items that need to be distributed to the rest of your home, start a group by the door just for distribution.
Once you have decided what to keep, decide what will keep these categories together. Is it a functional clear plastic shoe box or a pretty wicker tote? Now you know how many to buy, so measure your space. You can order online at Amazon or make a quick trip to a local store to purchase these items. Remember you will be labeling this container to maintain order too.
Tackling this tiny area has big rewards! Now you now what you have, you can easily find it rather than purchase duplicates, and your success will push you forward in the next area you tackle!
Let me know how your baby steps in organizing is coming along!
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