printables Archives - Growing In Grace

Kindergarten Agenda Page (for girls)

July 19, 2013Tracy

When I began working on a student planner for my Oldest, Middlest immediately started asking for one of her own. Of course, I’d love to begin teaching her independence and keeping up with her own work, but she’s a pre-reader/pre-writer so practically I was stumped as to how that was even possible.

It took me awhile to think through how to do it, and then another while to get motivated to find the graphics after I had the idea. But thanks to mycutegraphics.com, I think I nailed it. Sorry if you have a boy. Maybe when Littlest gets bigger I’ll get around to making a blue one. But for now, Middlest can’t wait to track her assignments.

I’m going to let her put stickers on the pictures when she’s done. You could also have your child circle, box, or cross out the pictures. The one picture represents her time with me; the second picture represents the work page for that subject. At the bottom, I have pictures that represent our different shared activities (history, science, and art). Whichever activity we do on that day, she can mark or sticker it to show what we did. Then, she gets to color the happy face if she had a good attitude on that day.

It’s a simple activity in helping her understand what comes next in her day, and hopefully will save me from some of the “what’s next, Mommy?”

Here’s hoping, anyway.

Feel free to download this planner page to use with your child (click on the image to access the pdf), or take my idea and run with it. Mycutegraphics.com has lots of cute free graphics to help you with your project.

Student Planner

July 17, 2013Tracy

I’ve been working on a student planner for Oldest to organize his assignments this next year. We will have weekly planning meetings where he can choose a few activities and help write in the rest on each day to plan the week.

The trouble has been finding a planner that would work for us, and of course, I finally decided to just do it myself. Here’s the result.

Feel free to download and enjoy with your child. Just click on the image to access the pdf.

Organizing in the New Year

January 4, 2013Tracy

Every new year, I’m totally inspired to get my life back under some semblance of control, to pilfer through the clutter and forge a new path toward organization.

Often, I ricochet between success and failure in this department. So in high hopes of making strides toward a new me, I’ve embraced my new year’s tradition of an organizational overhaul.

I just finished reading a tremendously helpful book entitled, Organizing for Your Brain Type. (link includes more about the book, plus a free quiz to find your organizing personality) LOVE it! It helped to break down my personality and what organizational approaches will work well for me and what will most likely fail. Nice to know that before you get started. I am the “innovator,” the creator, the lover of all things fun and beautiful. I also organize by stacks; everything must be out where I can see it or it might as well not exist. This totally explained why keeping a household binder with my planner has been such a struggle. I like the idea of the system but it takes oodles of discipline for me to actually make it work. It’s either always open on the table adding to the daily clutter, or it’s tucked away and absolutely useless (I never remember to open it).

The solution? A vertical system of organizing. In other words, the “command center” approach is much more likely to be successful than the binder approach, because I can have all my must-have info right in front of me at all times. So, I’m in the process of converting the side of my fridge. I’ll show you the finished product later, but for right now, I thought I’d share a few printables.

You see, as part of my innovator/creator personality, organization cannot be merely functional; it has to be either fun or beautiful (and ideally both!) So, I’ve devoted the time and energy to actually embrace this aspect of my organizing personality.

The first printable is my new cleaning schedule (inspired by a few different Pinterest posts) on 4×6 cards. I’m going to place these in an adhesive pocket on my fridge and daily switch to the next card. It will have both my repetitive maintenance tasks and my special cleaning task for the day.

The second printable is my new To-Do system on 3×5 cards. Each day, I’ll have up to 6 items on my to-do list that I’ve chosen from my longer list of Projects and To-Dos (this longer list will be on a dry erase board—pics coming soon—that way, Hubby can easily add any projects that he needs me to tackle).

Click on the images to download the printables. I’m so exited! Now, I’m off to make my home both functional and beautiful.

**UPDATED** for new designs

Weekly Home Planner Download

September 3, 2012Tracy

I’ve been working on trying to organize my home as the new school year swings into gear, and part of that overall has been my household/homeschool planner. Because I just can’t seem to find a planner that has all I want, I’ve been working on creating my own.

When I first started using a household notebook four or five years ago, a daily planner worked really well for me. Now, I really need something that covers me for the week and doesn’t add a lot of extra work to my day. I need structure and organization not more work.

A weekly to-do list, a place for a few routine tasks that need to be checked off (I’ve coordinated my planner with the alarms I set), a place for specific weekly tasks (cards to be mailed, calls to be made, or appointments to be kept), and then a simple cleaning schedule were a few of the items I really wanted in my planner. Also, I wanted a little inspiration at the top—some Scripture paraphrases to help me focus my week. I have four different inspirations for each week of the average month.

Diligence: She eateth not the bread of idleness. (Prov. 31:27)

Faithfulness: Serve the Lord with gladness for the abundance of all things. (Deut. 28:46)

Purpose: Do all for the glory of God. (1 Cor. 10:31)

Perseverance: God finished the work which he had done. (Gen. 2:2)

Because my weekends look much different from the rest of my week, this planner is really for Monday through Friday. I intend to make a separate planner for the weekends and print that to the back of these sheets. But for now, I’m really liking the new approach. I hope you do, too! Enjoy!