Prepping for Kindergarten: Bulletin Board Paper Ideas for Moms

One thing that we're doing around my house this week is preparing for school.  We have t-minus too little days to put off the preparation of a new schedule any longer.

We've always had a pretty flexible routine but now that we're headed to "big kid" school our flexibility is getting a bit stiff in the joints! 

I got the bright idea to kill two birds with one stone with a scheduling visual for my Diva for the impending school year.  You can do this too if you!  It is very simple and doesn't require any crafting skills other than using a pair of scissors.  I didn't go all out on this with embellishments because we'll probably dismantle it at the half way point of the school year.  Not to mention most five year olds would rather embellish it themselves.

What you need:

A clock template - I used the traditional clock but you could do digital as well.  I found mine at this link: http://www.karrenkountry.com/graphics/templates/kkClockTemplate_6_Inch.jpg

I printed 8 of these bad boys and took a blue Sharpie and created the hands of the clock for the appropriate times I would need them for.

The point of this is to help my daughter learn her schedule and also help her begin learning to tell time on a "old school" clock.  I'll be honest, I'm not even sure if the school systems teach telling time on clocks such as this anymore but I'm thinking they probably do.

So here's what I did:

1.  Decided on the times for wake up, breakfast, hygiene, and leaving time.

2  Drew the hands on each clock that corresponded to the activity of that time (ex. 6:45 wake up)

3.  Cut out the clock faces and secured them to bulletin board paper.

4.  Wrote the time (non numerical) and what we do at that specific time.

The goal?  She connects the written time with the time on the clock and can learn to tell time a bit easier & also know her schedule for school days.

I decided to take it a step further and do an evening schedule as well.

If you cannot see on the picture here's the schedule we have decided upon:

6:45 Wake up, get dressed, and do the hair....

7:00 Breakfast

7:30 Brush teeth, wash face, shoes on, backpack ready

8:00 Go to school

3:00 Home from school, snack, make bed, rest, play, homework

6:30 Dinner

7:00 Shower

8:00 Lights out

There will be changes to the schedule due to dance class and AWANAs but hey that's part of it right?

The next day I went a step further with the usage of the bulletin board paper.  I have mentioned how worksheets are soothing to my child (yes, I know that is odd) - we have done multiple workbooks so I decided to make large, on the wall, worksheets for her to have available whenever the mood strikes her.


Yeah I lost my camera again.  And yeah I ran out of tacks again.  The beauty of masking tape revealed HA!

So here are some large, mom made, worksheets for the playroom wall.  Most of us (I hope) can create a basic K-2 worksheet for our children to work those skills on.  If you use a workbook with your kids you'll easily see what "issues" they may be having and you can then make your own worksheets to help them master the skill they aren't quite grasping.

What makes this even more awesome to kids?  It's on the wall.  If a kid can write on a wall with a marker then their whole demeanor changes.  I let my Diva use different color markers to write in her answers and after she is done she can decorate the worksheets.

Simple, easy, and functional.