“I participated in a campaign on behalf of Mom Central Consulting for Boys & Girls Clubs of America. I received a promotional item as a thank you for participating.”
Each year, 1 million students fail to graduate high school. This scary statistic, proves it is increasingly important to support today’s youth. This Back-to-School season, BGCA and long-time partner Disney have launched an online supply drive. By simply playing a pop-quiz style game, you can help donate school supplies to local BGCA Clubs. For every five correct answers, a donation of supplies will be made!
Click here to try your hand at playing the pop-quiz style game.
More Resources: The BGCA website also offers a plethora of educational content for parents as they prepare to send children back to school!
Back To School in our home means back to schedules back to activities, back to craziness and for me as the mom it’s back to getting my family organized as we kick off another new school year. As we begin I want to make it less chaotic, less cluttered and continue training my kids to be organized an
d independent, to begin the process of ending the chaos and clutter I use these 5 back to school organization tips
#1 – Family Meetings – Hold a weekly family meeting to bring your family together and provide an opportunity for family discussion, decision-making and keeping everyone in the know. Family meetings can also be used to dream, set goals, create to-do lists, discuss Chores, come up with meal ideas, find out peoples needs such as who needs shampoo or tooth paste and talk about what each family member has on their schedules for the week. Click here for additional information on how to hold a family meeting.
#2 – Kids Che
ck Lists –
Weekly Checklist :
Use a weekly to do list for your kids to help them know what they have going on from when they have PE at school to what after school activities and homework they have each day by helping them to become responsible for their own schedules using a weekly to do list.
This will help them to establish daily routines so that they know what is expected – from the time they wake-up t
o the time they go to bed.
Click here for FREE weekly kids to do list printables.
Morning Checklist :
Are you tired of barking orders each school morning to get your kids to brush thier teeth, eat breakfast, get dressed and so on? Simplify your morning by using a morning checklist that you can print off weekly or print one off and frame it to create a dry erase board. Place the framed list on your counter each morning allowing your child to check off their morning to do list.
Click here to get your FREE morning kid checklist – two styles to choose from.
#3 Prepare the night before – Train your children to prepare for their day the night before by packing their lunches, cleaning out and re-filling their backpacks, placing their shoes by the door and checking the family calendar. Also have them prepare for after school activities by packing what they will need into a sports bag, including snacks, sports equipment, water bottles, etc. you can even set the table the night before and put items like bowls, utensils, cereal, fruit, toaster and bread out to avoid a morning rush. Think about what is it that you can do the night before to ease the morning chaos.
# 4 Homework Caddies – After the school bell rings and your kids have had some down time it is time for Homework – be prepared with the use of a Homework caddie or what I refer to as the on-the-go homework station. This can be used at home or while riding around in the “kid taxi,” going from one activity to the next. Create a do-it-yourself (DIY) on-the-go homework station to travel around the house or on the road filled with all the supplies your kids will need to do their homework
#5 Tag /Label Your Kids – Label, Label, Label before your kids head back to school label all of their belongings – School supplies, back packs,
lunch boxes, thermos, water bottles, jackets, sweat shirts, shoes, clothing etc.
It will make it easy for them to identify their belongings both when lost or mixed up with another child who owns the same item.
Purchase personalized labels with your children’s names to use or you can also use sharpie permanent markers. Luggage tags are a great option to use on on their backpacks, lunch boxes and duffel bags.
Click here For my complete DIY portable homework station box instructions.