As a follow up to my “summer scheduling” article, our family is basically taking this one step further and organizing so we can have some fun! The exciting part comes when I follow up to tell you if we’re keeping with the plan or not!
For the past several years I have kept a folder for summer – when I run across a class, activity or museum that I think we might want to do over the summer, I stick it in. It stays on my desk from about March on and I gather ideas for that summer:
As some of you know from past articles, my son was diagnosed with Aspergers a year ago this summer and so this year they’ve been using a lot of visual schedules in his classroom. In order to keep some consistency, his school wonderfully used their software to make these for me for the summer to keep the kids on task. The charts are laminated and he and my daughter mark things off as they do them throughout the day.
We have definitely taken some liberty with the schedule here and there – and the “activity” we have planned for the day can really skew things in one direction or the other, but for the most part it’s helping us to keep organized and some consistency to their days. It also keeps them from immediately sitting at the computer or TV all day.
We spread major things throughout the week, including swim lessons, visits to the park and the library.
Any other major family appointments go on this schedule too so they know what’s going on. We talk each morning through when we start.
