by Carly Black | Jan 18, 2020 | Home Solutions, Organization
Keep it simple. That’s the big secret. Don’t build a command center that does everything or holds everything. It will become one more place that causes you to feel overwhelmed. Keep it simple with a monthly schedule, mail and paper collectors, and weekly meals.
Having both a monthly calendar and a weekly calendar keep us in sync and make for well-managed, smooth days. This is my secret to finding what some might call balance. I don’t believe in balance. Even when there might be “balance” kids can instantly make the moment of balance feel chaotic. Someone took a toy from the other one or the milk is in the glass they didn’t want or they just plain don’t want to do what’s being asked of them. These moments can throw a wrench in any schedule and make a mom feel off balance. But these events are inevitable when our agenda and our children’s agenda do not mesh. Keep track and keep kids informed with a centrally located family command center.
Calendars for Command Centers
My husband and I had a sit down when we first got married to discuss how we would communicate our schedules. We’ve only been married a handful of years and it’s taken us some trial and error to get a system that works for us. You see my husband is a techy kind of guy and keeps everything on his phone. I’m good with that, but if I’m going to remember something I need to see it in writing.
In order to accommodate both of our styles, we use a combined email in iCal and a whiteboard calendar in our command center. The first time we shared our calendars I nearly hyperventilated with all the dots showing up! My husband likes to add EVERYTHING to his calendar, even if he doesn’t wholeheartedly commit to an event. Our solution was to create a combined email so that only the events we needed to share with each other would show up in the calendar.
To help me see these events rather than just dots on my phone I insisted on keeping a handwritten calendar as part of our family command center. I found a large whiteboard calendar that works perfectly. It also helps to have markers in several colors. Teaching has taught me the beauty of color coding for organizational purposes. Another great advantage of using a whiteboard calendar is that it can be magnetic.
A full month calendar is great, but a weekly schedule to list our dinners is also necessary. I recently discovered a weekly meal planner by Everase that sticks to our refrigerator. There is enough space to write out ingredients you’ll be using so everyone in the family, and babysitters, know what not to eat.
Before incorporating this meal planner, my husband asking me what’s for dinner would send me into an anxious panic. With a weekly meal planner added to our family command center, he doesn’t have to ask. This also helps our in-home babysitter from cooking anything I might be planning to use in a dinner recipe or side dish. We learned this lesson the hard way.
Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. Thank you for supporting our website.
Paper Keepers
Well-managed is the only way to feel relaxed and when mom feels relaxed the household will follow suit. If you’re anything like me the mess alone can cause stress. In our house, there is a small section of countertop in our kitchen that seems to have magnetic powers for attracting all things extra. Rather than letting things pile up on the counter, we have incorporated the Sunday basket idea.
I found a 12 x 10 size basket that now sits in the place where all those papers and random items would gather. The concept behind the Sunday basket is to take a moment on Sunday to then empty the basket. This one small weekly task has kept my anxiety and blood pressure in check. It still amazes me how a small change in habit can make a large impact.
Even though we have the basket we still need a place to keep all the paperwork. Forms from preschool, coupons intended to be used, and all those other papers that aren’t quite ready for the file folder or the trash. This is why our command center has a wall-mounted paper organizer for each person in the family. At the start of each month, we go through the organizer and give it a good cleaning.
Kids’ Responsibility
Having a command center that gives each of my kids an area to place papers helps to start an important habit early. My son is always bringing papers home from preschool. As a teacher, I know that this is going to be an ongoing situation. Eventually, he’ll be old enough to take care of his bookbag on his own and I don’t want to miss any important papers. Teaching him the habit of where to place papers is important to start now. This will help me feel less stressed when I start reading about deadlines for field trip forms in the school newsletter.
Using a family command center has so many advantages. In my new course for teacher moms, I share specific ways that you can leverage your command center and more for well-managed days. The course runs for five weeks combining personal coaching with self-paced lessons and actions. Each week covers one topic that will help you take control of the chaos that may be causing a rush of overwhelm the moment you walk through the door. We will address planning the week effectively for meals and schedules, as well as, the best methods for family communication so everyone knows the plan and it doesn’t all fall on mom.
Take a look at the course description on the TeachMomRepeat Academy page or send me an email right now to get started.
by Carly Black | Jul 30, 2018 | Home Solutions, Mom Solutions, Organization
Summer is winding down and the stores have already stocked the shelves with school supplies. This will be my first school supply shopping trip where I will need to follow a list not created by me. My son is entering preschool in the fall. It’s adorable how he tells people he’s going to work but he really means school. #teacherparentproblems
Because this is my first time starting the school year as a teacher and a parent of one school-aged child things are a little different. My entire morning routine is going to change. The first week or two I’ll be running on those start of the school year fumes. But eventually the teacher tired is going to set in and my son’s new sleeping schedule will make him irritable making us all want to press snooze. This is why I’m putting together a Make Over Your Mornings email challenge that will begin after the Labor Day holiday. You can learn more about it by signing up below.
Organizing my mornings will only be part of what needs to change. Thankfully we won’t be looking at any homework time in the evenings with a preschooler, but some of you may be in the same boat of added “to dos” this school year. As a middle school teacher, I’m well aware of the changes that come with students starting school-sponsored sports teams. The added amount of homework. An increase in the number of academic classes and teachers to student schedules. All of these are big changes for kids, and for parents.
This is why I have teamed up with my friend Amy from Organization Boutique. As a parent of middle schoolers herself and an expert on organizing, Amy shares how parents can prepare for life in middle school. My added teacher perspective ensures you can feel confident and ready for the changes that come with starting middle school.
Why Students Need Organizational Skills
Look at how many people are searching for time management tips. It’s so much easier to learn when you are younger and have fewer responsibilities. Not to mention how it can prepare for high school, college and beyond. Many job postings want to hire people with strong organization skills. Parents and teachers can’t always remind them of what needs to get done and how to do it. Taking on responsibilities helps build self-esteem and confidence.
Organizational Skills = More Efficient + Less stress
Time Management Skills for Students
Teacher Advice: Start with the class schedule. Most districts offer a time for students to walk their new schedule. Specifically, the incoming grade that is new to the building. This is a great time for students to familiarize themselves with the school building. Take notice of the distance between classes and the student’s locker. Students should work out the times they will have to stop at their locker and which materials they will take with them at each stop.
Buying materials for middle school might look a lot different than elementary. There really aren’t a lot of supplies needed. Teachers may ask for items they will collect and use as a community supply rather than expecting students to keep track of them individually. So stick to the list! Avoid your child having extra materials that might be distracting during class time or clutter their lockers.
Parent Advice: Use a paper or digital calendar/planner to plan long-term projects and keep track of activities outside of school. Have your child schedule out their school hours, activities, chores, and any other planned events. This will help them see how much free time they have so they know where the best time to schedule homework and anything else that comes up. Have them follow the schedule for a week and then talk about how it went and make any needed adjustments. Keep doing this on a weekly basis until they are confident in their planning skills.
Stop procrastination in its track! Many parents have been up until midnight helping their student finish a project they just started that evening even though they knew about it a month before. Teach your child to plan in advance. Have your child write out all the steps they will need to take to complete a long-term assignment, then schedule each step by putting it on their calendar with a deadline.
Don’t be the alarm for your kids. This may take a lot of time and effort depending on your child’s personality. Some are naturally early risers and don’t have a problem waking with an alarm. Others are heavy sleepers or slow to wake and may need an extra loud alarm clock or to have the alarm across the room to avoid snooze.
Lockers
Teacher Advice: You might be a teacher if you roll your eyes while walking down the locker decorations isle. Seriously, why do kids need carpet in their lockers? Ok, the chandelier lights are kind of cute and much more practical. The shelves that you can add are definitely a great idea! I also like the magnetic containers for holding loose pens or pencils.
Some schools, like mine, provide a color coding system for class folders. This makes it easier to organize the locker by placing materials in the order they will be needed. For example, if books, folders, and notebooks are placed together, spine facing out vertically, in the order of class period from left to right students can keep them in that order throughout the day. Each time they grab a set of materials from the left they should return them to the right. This will cycle materials keeping them in order. Using a strategy like this from the start will hopefully keep the locker clean and homework where it belongs.
Parent Advice: Learn from my mistake – buy a locker shelf to help organize the locker. When attending the orientation day before school starts, most of the locker prep revolves around learning the combination and adding decorative accessories. Students don’t have all their books yet so it’s just putting some supplies in there. I didn’t really think about how much other stuff needed to be stored in the locker and my son’s binders and folders were destroyed because he needed to stack so much in it. He literally brought one “binder” home at the end of the year and it was just the front cover.
Extra Clothes and Lunches
Teacher Advice: Most schools will provide or suggest students keep a daily agenda. It’s a good idea to mark each day that will require Gym clothes or sports practice clothing. Especially considering these are not always year-long activities. Seasons change, quarters change. It’s important to have these dates marked ahead of time.
Another question to ask on Open House nights is where to keep extra bags at school. For example, our football players have a special place to keep all their pads and equipment during the school day until it’s time for practice. If the bag isn’t going to fit in their locker find out what the expectation is for students.
Lunchtime in middle school is often precious social time. Which is why teachers can find it effective to revoke this time as a way to motivate students to complete assignments or show better behavior in class. A working lunch doesn’t always need to be a punitive though. Encourage your child to talk about what lunch looks like for them. Everyday! It can change every day.
Parent Advice: Middle-schoolers should be responsible for remembering to take gym/sports clothes to school and to bring them home for washing. Have your child create a checklist posted to the door they exit. It serves as a double-check that they have everything for school and after-school activities without you needing to remind them.
You may want your kids to plan out their outfit the night before or the beginning of the week. So far my kids have been pretty drama-free with clothing but I remember stressing out about school clothes. Pre-planning can help but it’s not a miracle-worker. Sometimes preteen/teen hormones win.
Middle schoolers are old enough to be able to pack lunches on their own. Just double check that it’s not filled with Doritos and Oreos!
Setting up lunch prep areas in the pantry and fridge with pre-portioned servings will help make packing lunches easier. Your child can help prepare the portions at the beginning of the week. They are more likely to eat it if they’ve helped in the process.
Homework Tips
Teacher Advice: Homework is a hot topic in many educational conversations right now. There are a number of schools that have created homework policies. Anything from expecting a specific amount per week to absolutely no homework should be assigned. My best advice here is to know what the homework policy is for your child. It might be a building policy or it might be that each teacher has their own. Be sure to pay attention to that first week of school papers or emails teachers are sending home. As an English teacher, I will plug here for reading every day, regardless of the homework assigned.
A few questions to ask teachers: When is there time to complete unfinished assignments? Is this scheduled every day or does it need to be scheduled when needed? Some middle schools may still have study hall included in their master schedule. We do not. If students are behind on assignments and are not completing them at home they would need to schedule work time with that teacher. It might be before school or after school.
Parent Advice: Using a planning system will help your child identify time available for homework and plan out longer projects. Just because they know they have time available, doesn’t guarantee they will actually do their homework. You still need to check in with your child about homework every day.
It’s so important to have a distraction-free homework space. Create a homework center at home, stocked with all the school supplies your kids need to complete homework. Some supplies middle school students may need at home: pencils, erasers, pencil sharpener or extra lead for mechanical pencils, highlighters, colored pencils/markers, glue sticks, scissors.
If you don’t already, have a rule that all school materials go back in the bookbag immediately after finishing homework. Don’t let their homework clutter the kitchen table or home office. They will likely forget stuff at home if it’s not put away right away.
Interested in additional tips? Check out How to Organize and Prepare for Back to School or Parents: How to help your middle schooler (and you) navigate this season
If you have any of your own advice that would help please share it in the comments. Good luck this school year!
by Carly Black | Jul 20, 2017 | Home Solutions, Mom Solutions, Organization, Parenting
It never fails, when I tell people I teach middle school they respond with some version of Why? Their twisted up face recalls their own experience and for most, it’s not a good one. Middle school is a difficult season for many people. It’s one of the reasons I chose to teach this grade level; mine was pretty rough having to move during the school year. But middle school is really the last chance for kids to be kids before that pressure of adulting takes hold. It’s called the middle school for a reason, it’s a transition period. Transition means you’re having to do something for the first time and that’s tough. Besides middle school today is not like middle school in “our day,” so let me share a few ways to help make these years easier.
Responsibility Grows in Middle School
These years of transition call for a shift in responsibility. I’ve recently read several parenting blogs that have addressed this topic and how it’s a problem area for parents. Meaning we aren’t giving our kids enough responsibilities so that they grow up knowing how to handle important tasks or take care of difficult situations. I would have to agree with this because over the years I’ve heard many parents apologize for their child with, “It’s my fault they didn’t” fill in the blank. It’s not your fault parents! Teachers are very good at communicating their expectations, so your child knows what they need to accomplish they just chose not to do it. Help your child add responsibilities to their daily routines. Think about what tasks you do for them currently that you could one-by-one start making them responsible for. Especially tasks that are school related.
Organization & Time Management in Middle School
Here are two places where you can really help your child gain more responsibility. Keeping papers organized is a major issue with most middle schoolers, they don’t know how to do it. Many of their elementary teachers did these things for them in order to keep order in their classrooms. Now that students are traveling between classes this could be different for every class or there may not be a system for students to use at all.
Start by showing them how you organize. Not all the details but think of a place where you have a system and show them how that works for you. Everyone is different, so brainstorm with them ways that could work for them. For me color coding separate folders works. Some kids like to have one place for everything and prefer the zippered binders with an accordion folder system. However, they choose to do it is fine, as long as there is a system. During the Open House at your school talk about how to organize their locker. There are so many accessories for this, but simple is also good. Load books left to right, pull from the left place back on the right and the books will rotate through the day. Stacked is not a good idea!
Managing their time is also a major pitfall for many middle school students. They are naturally becoming more social and now have the opportunity of extracurriculars that they didn’t have with elementary school. Our building provides students with a planner to write down all their assignments and activities. Keeping up with this is something we as teachers try to oversee, but it really helps when parents do as well. It will also keep you informed of what they are doing in school. Again, show them how you do this. Even if you keep a calendar on your phone it helps when they see that this is a lifelong skill and there is value to learning how to manage our time. There is nothing worse than seeing a student’s organizer with the word ABSENT written across all the squares. They now have nowhere to write what they actually missed on that day. This is also an indicator that they don’t understand the use of a planner or choose to use it for its true purpose. Once they do use a planner for its true purpose they may need help executing the follow through. It may be written down, but are they completing the tasks and making time for the activities they listed? Helping them find a routine for school-related tasks can be helpful. Remember it’s all about showing them what it can look like and then let them take responsibility for these tasks. If it starts to fall apart, revisit why it’s not working, and then look at ways to make changes to help the system work again.
Be involved vs. over-involved
Technology has given teachers so many new, easy ways to communicate with parents that were never there in the past. Some teachers embrace this and some let the district or building make communication. Either way look for how you can stay up to date with what’s happening in your child’s classrooms. Please read the newsletters! This is a great time for everyone in the family to sit down with their planners and write down important events. Schools are also posting grades online in a way that allow parents and students access. Make sure you know how to access these sites. There are often options for adding additional contact information and for alerts when your child has missing assignments or low grades. THIS IS NOT AN INVITATION TO TAKE CONTROL. Here is a perfect example of how you can help your child gain more responsibility. This is not the time to do it for them. Ask them questions. If they don’t know the answer help them prepare a conversation to have with their teacher. Let them go to the teacher before you do. This is what they need! They need that opportunity to take care of a situation on their own, but if they haven’t done this before it’s good to practice at home first. Roleplay, you be the teacher and let them ask their questions. Even the most approachable teacher can still be intimidating simply because they are the teacher. Keep in mind our end goal as parents are to grow and encourage capable adults.
Add Value to Their Middle School Experience
School today looks a whole lot different from what we experienced, but this is not a bad thing. Often times I see parents struggle with this, it looks so different they throw their hands up and choose to disconnect with that part of what their child is doing. Middle school is often the time that parents stop attending open houses or conferences or really talking to their child about school at all; until there is an issue. Many teachers have embraced the way technology allows parents to peek inside their classroom on a daily or weekly basis. When you ask your child about something you read or saw from these opportunities it adds value to what we as teachers are doing in the classroom. Kids translate that as you care about what’s happening there and recognize the importance of school. When you ask “how was school today?” the common answer will be, “good.” When you start the conversation with, “tell me more about that immigration project you worked on today,” a one-word answer is a lot harder to give.
Middle school is full of new things, but those things don’t have to be negative. Let’s give kids a joyful memory of middle school. I know that’s my goal! Are you a parent of a middle schooler? Share in the comments what has worked for you and your child. Are you a middle school teacher? Tell us how you help parents and students navigate this changing season of childhood.
