Keeping up with day care and school schedules

School schedules are taped to the inside of my kitchen
cabinet for easy access and doesn't clutter!

Now that King Diaper is going to a little preschool program a couple of mornings a week, we have more schedules and things to keep up with at our house.  I use my outlook calendar to keep with both personal and professional appointments, but what do I do with all of those calendar schedules of lunch menus and activities and school.  I don't have the time to enter all of those things on my calendar.

First, I needed a place to keep monthly handouts from his teacher safe and out of the way.  We are always in the kitchen in the morning and at night as we are prepping for the day.  I have scotch taped our school papers inside of my kitchen cabinet.  This keeps them from cluttering up the rest of our house and from getting lost.

Next, I took a picture with my phone of each one.  This will allow me to pull up weekly units, menus and the daily schedule while on the go.  And this is great for me while I'm out of town traveling for work.

Each month, I'm be able to replace previous monthly schedules with the new ones.  Also, encourage your husband or other care takers in the home to photograph these items as well.  Or, you could place these photos in a Dropbox folder and share with the necessary care givers or relatives that help to care for your child.  The main thing to remember here is to have everything organized and accessible to those taking care of your child.  You will always know about special occasions at school or request from the teacher.

Google Calendar is a great way to keep up and share
schedules!

What if you are keeping up with a rotation of car pool scheduling with other parents?  Create an electronic calendar to share in Google Calendar.  It is free and anyone that is part of the calendar sharing can see what is added or changed with ease.  This can also be done with children's appointments such as doctors, hair, and extra curricular activities.

Finally, if your child has started a new school or just has contact information from the teacher, add a contact with all of the information into your phone.  It just makes it so much easier to keep up with everything.  If your child's teacher didn't give out an email automatically, ask he or she if you can have an email address for easy communication.  Many times, it is easier to send a quick question to the teacher through email.

Make use of that phone!  You pay
enough for it!

Take advantage of easy tools that are at the palm of your hand.  Paper handouts are great, but it isn't necessary to photocopy these sheets over and over to keep up with them all.  And better yet, if your teacher would like to, he or she could email you these forms and calendars directly to your inbox and save them from there to a folder that is also stored to your phone like dropbox.

The key to keeping up is making the most use of electronic tools.  They simplify your life and make it where you can access information on demand.  This is one of the ways we keep our sanity at our house.

Feel free to comment and share ideas that you have for staying organized with school schedules.  There are lots of ways to do this.  Find something that works for you and your family.  It will make each day and week run a bit smoother.

Have a great and organized week!