Freedom from the After-School Blues

Have you ever felt like you have all the pieces to the puzzle, but you just can't seem to make them fit together the right way?  Well, life is like that A LOT of the time.  In this case, organization is just what you need.  Organization helps you see the overall vision of where you want to be and allows you to plan out the details of how to get there.

Today's organizational objective:  

Help my children see and understand their after school schedule more clearly and give them more freedom/responsibility during that time.

My older kids have been wanting more free time after school instead of doing homework and chores.  (Insert whiny voices and grumbling.)  But, since homework and chores are never going to be absent from our lists, I decided to get creative and give them some additional responsibility in choosing when and what activities they would like to do after school, within reason, of course.

The result was a really neat chart that visually outlines how much time they have between when they get home after school and before bed time.

 Chart Making Steps :

1-  What do we do?  What responsibilities do we have?  What fun things do we want to do?

2-  How much time do we have?

3- How much time does each task take & what are the time limits?

Ex.: 

• Snack time = 25 min. (It also include a little down time.)  
• Shower/Bath time = 25 min.  
• Dinner & Clean-up = 60 min.

4- I made an Excel spreadsheet (see above) that uses each cell to represent 5 minutes and outlined the space to represent the predetermine block of time (approximately, of course).  This gives the kids a visual representation of how much time we're actually talking about, how it compares with other activity's time frames, and how much time they have in a "Free Choice" block.

5-  Free Choice blocks are designed to give the children the freedom to mange their time on their own.  They can choose to do chores/responsibilities first or playtime.  It's their choice, as long as they don't go over their limits and get all their responsibilities completed.

6- In the end, the kids have a basic outline of how the afternoon goes.  Some things are non-negotiable (like homework and chores) and others are more fun (like playtime).  But, this gives them the ability to choose when they'd like to do fun things and realize that if they focus on homework and complete it faster (without grumbling so much) that they can increase their "Free Choice" time.

7- Pictures help represent certain times and make it more fun.  They also serve as a way for the children to choose and organize their time.  Velcro will give them the ability to rearrange their daily choices.  There are also other pictures that represent things like music practice, chores, etc. that will be beside the chart to make rearranging more fun and exciting.



My kids are excited.  :)  Let's hope this works and helps us Get it All Together.