Well here's my take on a scratch for the activity tracking itch you may have for your kid(s) or maybe even yourself. I know a lot of you are addicted to spreadsheets and lists. I start many only to find they need adjusting and I never quite make it to something that always works for me. I have a toddler, just turned 3 a couple days ago. I feel like she's smart. Who knows... maybe she's not... but I do know that she's into everything. She loves to sing, she loves to dance, she loves to read, she loves to eat, she loves to paint, she loves to glue buttons to my dogs. So I feel as her parent, I should encourage her to do all those things among others that may catch her attention. And also as a parent and a person, I feel some kind of need to track progress. And I'm sure this probably isn't important, but it's ... it's just fun! Just like you use the word spreadsheet and fun in the same sentence! See, we're exactly the SAME!
On a weekly basis, I thought it would be fun to just set aside time for certain activities including music, art, sports...etc. So I was thinking for a bit about how to really go about it in a way where she could see what we were doing and sort of get excited about it. I know someone wants to punch me right now... and probably because life is busy.. and who has time to come home from work and teach their kids which guitar string is G. But hear me out when I say if you spend 20 minutes a night watching tv, you can split that and spend 10 teaching your kid something. By the end of the week, you'd have 70 minutes! But honestly, It's more about introducing them to new things, not necessarily strictly teaching.
So I turned this cork board into a "Tada Tracker" for Roo. And I didn't really invent new things for us... most of them are things we do on a fairly regular basis anyway so it was almost like I just started to keep track of them. Like we usually go to the library on saturday mornings, and then we bake something... etc. so I added those. And just having a piano in the house means your kids are gonna wanna play it, so you might as well show them something while they're playing.
Yes, those are nails. There are so many ways you could do this, but I decided I needed tags that could be moved so that I had a pile at the end of one week. And maybe some weeks it's not quite a pile, but each activity gets a certain amount of points and we tally it up at the end and write down a number in our points column.
I mostly used scrapbooking materials to make this. There is some washy tape bordering the calendar... and I used the inspiration to cut out the words and tags. You can cut circles easily without a cutting machine... or squares... any shape works.
You may want to start yours on Sunday, but I kinda just felt like Monday was a good starting point to get down to business. Sundays are a sort of family fun day so I didn't want to start an activity tracker on a day like that.
So I'll let you know how it's going! I think if anything, she likes seeing what she's accomplished during the week. And if your older child is into a lot of extra-curriculars, tweaked a bit, this could be fun for them too. I might make one for myself.. or hop onto Roo's... anyone can benefit from seeing a pile of accomplishments at the end of a busy week!
Well, goodnight and enjoy the rest of your week!
xo, Fittypants
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