Today is my first day of summer vacation! I returned to teaching this year after ten years, so this is my first summer home with my daughter.  I am very excited for us to have this special time together. I wanted to create a calendar with her of all the things we want to do this summer. I also thought it would be a great way to teach her the days of the week and the concept of today, tomorrow, and yesterday.

While I am all for planning out the next few months, I also want to make sure we are able to relax and NOT be tied down to a schedule. I decided to buy one of the post-it calendars, that way, we can easily move things around. These calendars are made to be used as a weekly calendar with each family member getting a row. I easily converted it to a monthly calendar using the first column as a place for events we haven’t picked specific dates for yet.

Olivia had a great time making the calendar with me. I am also glad that I now have all of the schedules for our favorite places all in one place. First, I put in Olivia’s already confirmed activities – Camp, Music Class, Ballet.  Then I searched the internet for any and all kids’ activities in our area. I read different events to Olivia to see what interested her.

For weekly events, such as Storytime at Barnes and Noble on Friday nights, I marked it at the top of the Friday column.

Sesame Place, Adventure Aquarium, The Zoo are all places we want to go this summer.  As soon as we pick a date, we can just move the post-it from the first column to the actual date. Home Depot is one of Olivia’s favorite stores.  They do Kids’ Workshops and I am waiting for the July / August schedule to come out.

I made a lot of  generic “park”, “library” and “pool” post-its, too.  Since these are weather dependent, I also placed them to the side.  

I’ve hung the calendar to the side of our refrigerator so Olivia can see it.  At dinner we can chat about what we are going to do the next day — and the countdown to our vacation is on! Seven days until we leave.

Do you have any special plans for the summer? How do you keep all of the activities you want to do with the kids organized so you don’t forget any? Leave me a comment and let me know. Thanks for reading!

P.S. I love post-its! Read here for different ways I use them to stay organized:
Put it on a Post-It!