Works for Me Wednesday ~ Summer Daily Schedule

Summer is definitely here! I adore the beautiful, sunshiny days, bike rides to the park, extra time with family and friends, and yummy summer foods ~ fresh watermelon, strawberries, salsa, and ice cream, of course! Woo Hoo!

Yesterday I shared how I am intentional about heading into the Summer Season with purpose and a plan (recap here). Today I'll share what I've learned about bringing order and structure to our daily lives...our official Bultema "Build A Healthy Day" Daily Summer Schedule. :)

As you know, I have 4 kids ~ ages 15, 8, 7, and 6. My hope each summer is to provide a home full of love, fun and warmth, while also teaching them Christlike character and responsibility. In the past, I've tried to create a summer schedule with times and activities (i.e. 8:00 quiet time, 8:30 breakfast, 9:00 outdoors time, etc..) Unfortunately for us, it never works. It rains, my eldest son sleeps until noon, the kids wake up starved at 6:00 AM, etc.. By week 3 of summer, I've given up.

This summer, I decided to try something new! Ultimately my desire is to focus on teaching the kids how to build a healthy day ~ physically, emotionally, and spiritually.
So for each family member (yes, including me and John too!!) ~ I made a sheet called "Building a Healthy Day". I included all different aspects ~ reading the Bible, exercise, drinking water, reading 20 minutes, chores, etc..

I printed off the sheets on a different color of paper for each family member. At our family meeting, I shared the new Daily Schedules, and gave everyone a chance to personalize their new schedule with stickers, etc.. After the schedules were personalized, I took them to get laminated (I went to Staples ~ only 99 cents each). Now that the schedules are laminated, we can use dry erase markers on them each day!

Here are some pictures....

You can see on the fridge a folder I made to keep all of our schedules. And here's a schedule more up close ~ here's my schedule (on sunshiny yellow paper)...

And Manda's nicely decorated schedule...

We still have a chore chart to keep track of their daily chores. I change the chore chart once a week (have to keep everything fair, you know ~ smile!) If you need ideas for chore charts, there are many ideas on the web. Here's some from Parent Magazine to get you started ~ here

This is our first official week of using the "Building A Healthy Day" schedule. So far it is working GREAT! I love watching the kids grab their water bottle to make sure they drink their water, head outdoors to get their exercise time in, and practice their Memory verse to check that square too. My hope is that by using the Daily Schedule, it will help create healthy, God-honoring habits that will last a lifetime!! And that works for me!!

Do you have a Summer Scheduling tip to share?? Please leave a comment ~ I love hearing your ideas! And for more Works for Me Wednesday tips, take a peek here!

Have a fun, joy-filled day!!

P.S. The winners from the Seeds Family Worship CD Giveaway are Karen M., Jen T., Julie R., Jill M, and Heather D. (Winners, please e-mail me your mailing address). Thanks to all who entered!! And a HUGE thank you to Seeds for generously donating the CD's, and for coming out with such awesome scripture music!! Woo Hoo!!