Kids are Funny Creatures
Kids are funny creatures! They will do the most amazing things, and at other times, they will shock you. But the one thing I have learned most about my kids is that they work best with a routine. Yes, the kinds of routine where they wake up in the morning, brush their teeth, eat breakfast, pack their bags, but also a weekly routine. My kids love activities and having a weekly routine for each day of the week makes life much easier with kids. Thus, the creation of the weekly kids activity plan at my house.
How to create a weekly routine
I know this may sound simple or even silly to some people, but sometimes you just need a reminder on how to do things.
In the past, we have had activities during the week like swimming and soccer to help fill in some of the gaps. Right now, that’s not an option so we have to fill in each day with homemade activities. Although I know some areas have this option on a smaller scale.
Create a List of Activities
Create a list of activities you would like your kids to do. Be this academic (reading, writing, math), or fun (coloring/drawing, imagination play, board games) or organized sports (swimming, soccer, hockey).
Each activity has to have a day of the week. Now if you’re doing an organized sport, you won’t have as much flexibility for which day you want, but that will allow you to work around it with other activities. Fill in the weekly calendar (Mon-Friday, or Mon-Sunday) with an activity for each day. Simple.
Example Activities
Academic
working on:
- math skills
- writing skills
- typing skills
- reading
- problem-solving skills
Organized Sports
- hockey,
- soccer,
- swimming
- running,
- rowing,
- baseball,
- basketball
- volleyball
- bowling
- football
- water polo
- dance
- gymnastics
Fun
- imagination play
- coloring
- drawing
- fort building
- seasonal activities
- winter – sledding, ice-skating, skiing, snowboarding
- autumn – nature walks,
- summer – swimming, kayaking,
- spring – biking, going to the park,
Communicate the schedule with your kids
This may sound stupid, but you need to communicate this weekly kids activity plan to your kids.
My kids have a monthly calendar on the fridge, where we put all of their important events, activities, and to help them understand where we are in the week/month/year.
We use stickers to represent each daily activity. (We do this as our kids are still young and can’t read well, but older kids can just have words). So, our kids can just look at the calendar and they know that today we are doing board games and tomorrow is a family bike ride.
As a side note, we let our kids put all the stickers on the calendar so they are actively taking part in creating the schedule, so they have an understanding of what’s going on.
Something to Keep In mind
When coming up with daily activities for kids, the idea is not that this will take precedents over other daily routine items such as homework. So, if for example, on Monday you are working on Math Skills, it is not expected that this activity will be skipped if there is math homework or vise versa. These activities are to be done on top of their daily routine activities such as homework and daily chores.
In the beginning, this may be a bit hard to manage, but after the first-week kids get into the routine and start to look forward to the different activities that occur on different days
Final Thoughts
Like a lot of things in life, this planning can take a bit of time when doing this the first time. But I have found that having a weekly kids activity plan makes our lives much more enjoyable and much less stressful. It helps the kids stay focused and balanced and reduces the number of melt-downs that we have.
When we don’t have organized activities included in the weekly schedule we will revise the plan every 2 months. When organized activities are included we tend to change up the plan every 4 months. I have found this gives the kids time to enjoy the activities and get into the routine, as well as switching up activities to keep them learning and stimulated.
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Great tips!
Thanks! It works great with my kids!
Thank you these are great ideas.
Thanks so much!
Love this, thanks for the tips!!
Thanks!