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School mornings can be a stressful time and I know for me that is the LAST way that I want to start my day. I truly enjoy spending time with my kids and the little time we get to spend together before heading out to school is very meaningful. I definitely don’t want to spend it yelling, feeling frustrated and stressed out!
When my oldest Isabelle was starting full-time kindergarten I was really looking for ways to help her become more independent and resourceful, something that I wasn’t really good at. I was that first time parent that would do a lot of things for her because I felt like I was “helping” and I didn’t want her to become frustrated and upset when something she tried to do wasn’t working.
Once Evan was born I learned REAL QUICK that she needed to be able to do more things on her own. Not just because my time was now divided between two kids but because I realized if she NEVER did things on her own, how was she supposed to learn? I slowly began to realize that my job as her Mom wasn’t to do everything for her but to teach her how to do things herself so that she would -hopefully fingers crossed!- be a self sufficient big kid and even someday an adult who believes in her self, wants to try new things and can feel a sense of accomplishment in doing things all by herself.
That’s when I decided a morning routine checklist would be perfect! It would help her to gain some independence and confidence in herself and hopefully resolve some stress when it came to getting ready for school.
I saw several different morning routine checklist ideas, and ending up LOVING this one! What I like is that it’s very simple and straightforward and I love how the checklist shows both the picture and the description of the task. At the beginning of kindergarten Isabelle wasn’t able to read all by herself so the pictures helped her complete this checklist without my consistent help.
AND it turns out that Isabelle LOVED it too!! She really loved being able to get ready in the morning all by herself and she also really enjoyed being able to “check” each item off her list. That’s why I love too how this list is reusable so you don’t have to print a new list every morning.
I also liked the idea of putting this list on a door knob hanger. I wanted to have the list available for her to see every morning without it being an extra item to clutter up her dresser or nightstand.
Here’s what you need to make the door knob hanger Morning Routine Checklist for Kids:
- Door Hanger
- Plastic Sheet Protector
- Dry Erase Markers
- Reusable Dry Erase Pockets: I also found these dry erase pockets that you can slip the checklist into if you don’t want to do the door hanger
Then to assemble just print off the checklist (or edit it if needed), cut it to the size of your door hanger and cut one of the plastic sheet protectors as well to fit around the door hanger. Once everything is cut and fit into place then I just used some packing tape to secure it in place and VOILA! Your Morning Routine Checklist for Kids is complete!
I hope this little trick will make a difference for you and your family! Please leave a comment to let me know how this has worked for you or any other checklist hack that you have found to work well for you and your family!
