What products for a Kindergarten child?

I get quite a few emails asking for help. Mums in particular wanting to know what products would be suit their child's stage and behavioural needs.

I thought I might share these and my responses, in case it may help you....

So here is a recent email from Vanessa:

My eldest daughter commences Kindergarten next year and I've been looking for a weekly organisational calendar for her, so she can see what's happening, also a daily routine chart to help her organise herself - teeth brushing, homework, packing her school bag, and reward chart so she can start earning pocket money to go into her school banking account.....simple chores like tidying up toys, setting the table and putting her shoes/clothes away.....

Mostly, I wasn't sure which magnet packs I need - she does activities such as swimming, gymnastics and she'll be attending care one or two days after school....

can you help me ?? thank you in advance........

Our response to Vanessa:

Vanessa, what a great time to start this organisational process with your child! With 6 months until the start of a new school, you will be able to teach your child some great organisational skills as well as the specific tasks involved in getting ready in plenty of time to make the transition of those busy school mornings a lot easier!

Firstly, you are interested in the My Week Chart. This chart comes in a range of designs and colours and includes both the Social & School magnet packs. These cover the activities that you have outlined in your email as activities your daughter is already involved in.

The social pack includes:

• Sleep over
• Gym/movement
• Clubs
• Mum date
• Family visit
• Art and craft
• Holidays
• Church
• Birthdays
• Library
• Dance
• Shopping
• Grandparents x 2
• Music
• Dad date
• The park
• Play date x 2
• Playgroup
• Family outing
• Swimming
• Blanks x 2

and the school pack includes:

• Library day
• Sports
• Canteen
• Music
• Before school care
• After school care
• Parent helper
• Test
• Excursion
• Sport Carnival
• Homework x 2
• Assembly
• Scripture
• Reading Groups
• Maths
• News day
• School day x 5
• Blank

The daily routine pack you mentioned, we call the 'Morning & Bedtime Routine', this is a chart that includes 50 magnets that visually depict tasks that are typical for getting reading for the morning or for bedtime.

The morning pack includes the following magnets:

• toilet trip
• brush teeth
• brush hair
• sunscreen on
• wash face
• blank
• wash up
• pack lunch
• breakfast
• pack bag
• pyjamas off and away
• shoes and socks on
• get dressed
• underwear on
• free play
• morning job
• make bed
• up on time
• bag in the car
• medicine
• devotions/story
• vitamins
• 3 x 'ready for the day' magnets that fit in with the My Reward Chart series of products

and the evening pack includes:

• bathtime
• hang towel
• brush teeth
• wash face
• toilet trip
• free play
• tidy toys
• ready on time
• homework
• evening job
• vitamins
• mum/dad time
• bed time
• devotions/story
• medicine
• bag away
• clothes ready
• pyjamas on
• clothes away
• unpack lunch box
• dinner time
• wash up
• 3 x 'ready for bed' magnets that fit in with the My Reward Chart series of products.

Both of these products, the My Week Chart and the Morning & Bedtime Routine chart work very well together. As your child will be able to identify each day from the week chart if there are additional things that she will need to pack in her school bag for school, or for an afternoon activity.

The morning and bedtime routine charts both includes a magnet in each pack for a morning and an evening job, however if you wanted to include specific jobs, there are blank magnets that you could write the specific task on in a whiteboard marker. However, a lot of the simple routine type chores are itemised as individual magnets, like putting clothes away and hanging up towels, etc. There is also a 'reward' magnet for completing both the morning and evening routine chart, which helps this chart to work well with the reward chart, as you have mentioned.

The Reward Chart we would recommend would be the Reward Chart (5+). This includes reward magnets such as clean room, homework done, as well as virtues such as patience, self control and kindness to name a few. As mentioned earlier, this works very well with the Morning & Bedtime Routine chart.

As these three charts are very popular for this age group, we have actually packaged together a 'bundle' that will save you a little bit of money! The School Kids Bundle includes:

• My Week Chart
• My Morning & Bedtime Routine Chart
• My Reward Chart (5+)

I hope this helps, however I am always available by email if you have any questions!