As I mentioned back in April, (here) I’m revamping my Home Management Binder. Because I was so sick of thinking about house stuff, I started with my Family Fun section. In that section I have our Activities Directory, Day Trip Planner, Movie Night Check List, and Library/Book List. I’m sure I’ll add more things to it, but for now, that’s a good start.
I’ve decided to move onto the Kid’s section next. I already have a section for the kid’s in my current HMB, but it’s need some changes and some updates. To figure out what needs to be in this section, I thought about all the information I need to have for each of our boys. Currently, they each have their own subsection, and I’m thinking that keeping it this way will work best. Our Teen’s section currently holds all of his school stuff, the student handbook, a list of his classes and teachers, important school dates, and things like that. Liam’s is full with kindergarten prep stuff. A few weeks ago I shared the School Info sheets with you (you can find them here) so I have that taken care of. Next was just figuring what other information needed to be in these areas.
This is the breakdown:
- School Info Sheets
- Important School Date Lists
- Friends Phone and Address Lists
- Online Accounts List
- School Handbooks and other information sheets
And once we move and get settled, I’ll probably add stuff for their activities, like swimming lessons and so on. But this is a good start. I created a few printables to help keep all information together and easy to find.
First up, Important School Dates. Now, up until last year, I just use to keep the first school notice in place of this list. But last year, our Teen’s school didn’t send home a list of all the non-school days like previous schools did. Instead, I had to go through his agenda, month by month, and copy them all down. So, I created this list to help keep track of them. At the beginning of each month, I transfer the info onto our family calendar so that we all know what is going on.
Important School Dates
See, just a basic form to fill in dates.
So, that takes care of keeping track of non-school days, and other important school events. But what do kids do when they’re not in school? Well, sometimes, they hang out with friends. To keep track of their friends, their phone numbers, their addresses, their parents names (I’m sooooo horrible with names) I decided to create a directory page, where we could keep all that info. This is what I came up with:
Friends Directory
Some you might note, that there are two spots for cell numbers. This is because we have a Teen, and many of his friends have their own cell phones. Even when our Teen gets his own, I still want this information. And yes, there is a section for the parents names as well, because I always find myself forgetting names, and I feel awful about that. There’s a also space for the birthday info, and the ever important “Things to Note” This where I make note of any food allergies their friends have so I can be sure to avoid serving those foods for snacks. I also keep note of anything I’ve noticed their friends didn’t like. Our Teen has a friend who doesn’t like cake, so for birthdays, I make sure to include a second option with the cake, or we do things like build your own sundaes.
And last but most certainly not least. An online tracker. We have pretty strict rules regarding internet use: We need to know what site our children are using, their user names for those site, AND passwords. As our Teen is getting older, we’ll have to change and adapt, but until this point, that’s what we’ve required. We don’t access any of his accounts, it’s just for precaution, and for those “just in case” moments.
On the same sheet I also included a spot to write down our internet or online rules. This eliminates those “You never told me that” arguments. They don’t happen often, but when they do, I can just refer the kids (only our Teen at this point) to the book, and they can see the rules they have to obey while online.
Online Activity Tracker
And that concludes the Kid’s section, for the moment. I’m sure that there is something I will think of later on, but that’s the beauty of binders, it’s so easy to add items and take items away as your needs change.
What about you? Is there certain info you like to keep on hand for your kids? Do you have rules and guidelines for how they use online time? Is there something I should have thought have of but missed?
I hope that all of you are having a wonderful evening, and I hope to see you tomorrow. For now I’m off to make Liam some tea and oatmeal. The strange things that wacky kid of mine asks for for a bed time snack. 🙂
