I spend most of my time in our kitchen - cooking, baking, cleaning so for me that's the perfect area for our Life Centre, as it can be seen from our living area. Here it is...
A couple more Pics....
So I'll explain to you each of the areas of our Life Centre...
Area 1: The Fridge.... I am a big fan of meal planning! It helps my life run smoother, knowing that I've already sorted dinner out and all I have to do is take whatever out of the freezer and get preparing. It also helps if I'm not home around dinnertime then Matthew or Nan know what we're having and can get it started for me. I plan a months worth of meals and then shop fortnightly - this means I can buy in bulk which helps my budget out. I also look out for supermarket specials and buy them and put them away if I know that something is in my meal plan for the month. I just write up the weeks meals from my monthly plan that I have written down.
Also on our fridge Lives Little Miss's after school routine - this is working really well for her - it helps her to be independent and sort herself out. She's started negotiating with me about which order she wants to do things, and has recently decided she would like to do homework first then watch TV which is fine.
Area 2: The Cupboards....
In this area we have our Family Home Evening Chart, and our Family Scripture reading chart - this gives us a visual reminder that we need to remember to do these things.We cross of our scripture reading chart each day we read - there are some missed days, but hey, we're human and we're trying! :-)
Also now that Little Miss is at school, I've been trying out different ways to help her along with her learning... after speaking with her teacher about reading, I decided to make some words - the ones I notice a lot of in her reading books... just to help her practice them, and to be able to recognise and read them on her own during homework time without me prompting her... at night while I am cooking dinner she likes to be in the kitchen near me, so we use this time to go over the words as they are up on our kitchen cupboards... this works really well for us and she is really enjoying it, and getting better at recognising them in her reading books at homework time.
Area 3: The Side of the cupboards...
I find that calendars are too small these days to write the happenings of 6 people! So I decided to make my own... found some big pieces of paper in my craft cupboard and drew up my own calendars - I've got 2 months up so that I can look at the next month and be organised when it comes to birthdays/upcoming appointments etc. Beside the calendar I keep some pens (different coloured pens for different people/holidays etc), our sharpie for marking off our scripture reading chart, and a peg that holds important notices or things I need to sort out.
Also, Little Miss always asks everyday, what is happening the next day and the day after that and the day after that, and to be honest I kind of get a little annoyed at saying the same thing over and over again. Because she's a visual learner I created her a calendar of her own so that she can see what is happening from day to day...
It just tells her each day of the week and what happens on those days... Weekdays are school days, Monday is Family Home Evening night, Wednesday is the day where she gets her pocket money, Saturday is her swimming lesson day, and Sunday is the day we go to church. She is loving this calendar, and I'm loving not having to tell her over and over again :-) It's all about helping kids to learn, be independent etc right?
Anyway, that's our Life Centre - works for us, and I've finally got it all sorted the way I like it.
Do you have a Life Centre in your home?
2 comments:
I have Sunny's sight words up on a wall too! I think that integrating them into the everyday works more than having to sit at a desk and rote learning. When Sunny started school this year we also made a picture based morning routine and she uses that as she gets ready each morning. Great minds think alike :)
Hello, Your so incredibly organized!! I need to take a leaf or two out of your book as we have organised chaos, But every family is different, It would be a very boring world if every-one thought, acted etc the same way. Please say Hello to everyone from Chaos Headquarters & look forward to catching up in the future.
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