Are your children organized and ready to go in the morning?
How is it when it is time to start homework in the evenings? Can they find their necessary work and tools to get started?
Organization and neatness is an important part of preparing our students for life. Some students are naturally good at having an orderly way to keep their school life organized. However, I would venture to say many could use some support and help. In many cases, organization must be taught.
As parents, how can you help support your kids in developing essential life habits?
In this blog series, we provide a few quick methods that you may find helpful and simple to implement.
The Launching Pad
A launching pad is a set location for the critical items your student will need for the next day. This could be a simple box or basket. In the launching pad, students will put their bags, notebooks, gym clothes, or other essential items. The launching pad needs to be in a consistent place that is convenient, safe and easily accessible.
The idea is that they will have their things in an orderly prepared place the night before as they launch into the next day.
The Clean Sweep 
In order to maintain neatness, perform a clean sweep to declutter your student’s notebooks. Have a set day of the week in which this is done. Do this together with your child so that they will learn the skills of organization with you. This is an important life skill as well. This could involve helping a grammar student make sure their assignments are in the correct section of the notebook. For older students, they may need help organizing their computer desktop screens or organizing their Google drive.
The idea is routine maintenance to help our students and their tools stay tidy and neat.
The Backpack Reset
The backpack can quickly become a place where everything goes without a system of order. This leads to unnecessary overloaded, heavy backpacks. Honestly, it can become a black hole. Start by taking everything out and deciding what needs to be kept or discarded. Kept items can be archived or put away in their proper place. This is another important skill. Some kids (and adults) like to keep everything. This is okay but it cannot live in their backpacks. There may be tests, assignments, or notes that students will want to keep to review for upcoming cumulative tests or exams. A home file folder system is one easy way to accomplish this task.
The idea is to get it out of the backpack and organize it in an orderly method.
Establish a place for everything and keep everything in its place.
We will continue to post organizational methods and strategies.
Do you have methods that work well for your family?
Please share it with us!
At Covenant, we want to support you as parents in raising and training your children.
