Type A Mom's Family Wall Calendar - "Map of the Week"

We have a great family digital schedule that my husband and I use to make sure everything is running smoothly. There are a lot of activities that happen when you have three kids in a house, and we consistently check our online schedule to make sure we don’t miss anything and to update it when things change.  As my kids got older I started to see that while the adults knew what the schedule was and when things would change, the kids did not know.  Things would catch them off guard or confuse them because they didn’t know what was coming next, which would sometimes result in a struggle to get them out the door to an appointment. So, I realized that we needed a kid schedule that is accessible to them so they can understand their days!  

Thinking back to my movie making days, I remembered that there were different kinds of schedules for a movie shoot.  In one instance we would have a shorter schedule called a “Day out of Days” in which there would be a quick one line explanation for what was happening on each shoot day.  I realized that this is what the kids needed – a quick overview of the important things so they can see what affects them each day and prepare for what’s coming.  My youngest son calls this our “Map of the Week” and that is precisely what it is!

Every Sunday I sit down and write out this schedule.  I use a wall calendar (Family Planning Pad | Sugar Paper) from Sugar Paper that hangs on our bulletin board in our kitchen.  The calendar has a hook to hang on the wall, a spiral top to easily flip the calendar to the next week, and it’s organized with the five weekdays across the top and Saturday and Sunday along the bottom.  Visually setting up the week that way has proven to be a great way for the kids to understand the school week versus the weekend.

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Setting up Type A Mom’s “Map of the Week”:

1. Take out your phone and use your family digital calendar as a guide for the week. Consider choosing a fun marker color the kids can easily see, and then begin by adding the dates of the week across the entire calendar.
2. The overall point of this calendar is to show the kids what is happening that week in an organized and not overwhelming way – we don’t want to make them anxious about all the things going on!  A way to help that is to only add appointments that affect the kids on this calendar – no need to add your dentist appointment on there unless it affects their day.  
3. Begin by assuming that the kids are in school their regular hours each week, just like you do with the digital calendar, which means you don’t need to add it to this calendar because they know it’s a school day.  Then, anything that is not school, you will add to the calendar. For example, if it is crazy hair day at school, it affects the kids for the entire day.  So for that example, you will write that at the top of the day (and note which school if the kids are at different schools).  Then add the extracurriculars and their times in ascending order, so earliest time to latest time.  You state the time, then indent to add the kid’s initial, add a colon, and then write the activity. For example, a Thursday might look like this:

• 3-4pm
  • N: Soccer practice
• 4:30-6pm
  • C: Dance class

4. Next, you will add your plans if there is something that affects the kids. For example, every morning I take my youngest kid to preschool and my husband takes our older two to elementary school.  But if I have a meeting near or at elementary school in the morning, or my husband has a morning meeting near preschool, we will switch who takes which kids.  That is out of the ordinary and will affect the kids, so I will add that to the calendar so everyone knows. Another example is that I will add in if my husband and I are going out to dinner and who the sitter will be and what their hours will be so that kids can process that. For example, if I am taking all of my kids to school on a Thursday morning, I’d add this to the top of the day (since it’s happening at the start of the day):

• Mommy takes all 3 kids to school

5. Sometimes you don’t know your schedule for the upcoming weekend but you’re thinking about going to a museum or a movie or out to dinner as a family.  In that case, add that idea to the calendar with a question mark so you can all talk about it, and so no one can say they weren’t prepared for that possibility!
6. The last entries to add to this calendar are the dinners under the “menu” area at the end of each day. A way to do this is to take stock of what’s in your fridge, look at the calendar for how busy each day is and therefore how much time you’ll have to make dinner, and then write in ideas for each night’s dinner.  Then you (or any caregiver) can look at the menu and know what to prepare without wasting time staring into the fridge wondering what to make!  A more detailed explanation for a way to efficiently organize this is in a Type A Mom article about dinner planning.

7. During the week things may cancel and you will need to add things. When that happens, try to use a different color marker to cross off the appointment and add the new one so it’s noticeable to the kids. 

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I started doing this wall schedule before all of my kids could read would read because it felt like this is what they do at school so why not do it at home too? The teachers always have a schedule on the wall that they point to even if the kids can’t read, so I figured I could do that too and walk them through what was going on that week/day.  I show it to them Monday morning and point out what is happening each day. They look for their first initial to see their activities and then ask me questions, and they start to understand the rhythm of the week.  A great benefit to this wall schedule is I have one kid who doesn’t like to be surprised.  So when this kid sees the schedule, they feel comforted knowing what’s coming and what could possibly happen that week which helps us all.

I have found this to be a great way to keep everyone informed about what’s happening each day, and I hope it can help your family too!