**UPDATE: This giveaway has ended! Please check your email inbox if you entered! Thanks for participating 🙂

Today I’m reviewing a family schedule and chore chart from Love My Schedule. I think you’re going to love this magnetic family schedule as much as I do! Spoiler alert: They’re magnetic, wet-erase, and they don’t fall off the fridge!

Family Scheduling and Management Tools

This post is a collaboration with Love My Schedule.  I was given this product for review and giveaway.  However, all opinions expressed are my own.  

Staying organized and productive is a strong focus for me here.  With a 5-year-old, 3-year-old, and 1-year-old, embarking on our first year of homeschool, and still trying to tackle personal goals… well, organized is the only way to be.  We generally keep to a routine, rather than specifically time based schedule.  It usually works better for me to have a more general flow to my day.  If you’re interested in my take on establishing routines and habits, read my post here.

This post is directly related to that, and it is about a scheduling tool that is totally versatile.  Maybe you’re wanting to have family plans accessible everyday so that people can be prepared.  (Does that work?) Or you may need a visual reminder to keep your day on track.  Maybe you have kids that enjoy being able to tell for themselves what is coming next.  Either way–if you have a strict time-based schedule or if you’re on more of a routine flow–this family schedule will work for you.

The Family Schedule

The Love My Schedule products are all magnetic and wet-erase.  Each basic chore chart has 6 different blocks that can be assigned to specific people and coordinated with the 5 colored strips on the family schedule. (Expansion packs are available too, if you have a bigger family or more lists.)

I’ve tried a few different magnetic, dry erase boards for family schedule or to-do list purposes and there are a few reasons I like this better than any of those.  First, it’s Wet-Erase, which means if I can manage to give it a few seconds to dry, it will not smudge.  Dry erase is handy, but it is not forgiving.  Kids fingerprints, inadvertent smudging… I end up having to reprint it nearly every day.  Wet erase holds up so much better to daily scrutiny.  Second, the entire product is magnetic.  It’s not a board with a couple magnets on the back; every single segment is a flexible magnetic strip.  I cannot even tell you how many times my dry erase boards have been jostled and gone spinning off across the kitchen floor. There is no chance of that with this. Third, it is specifically designed for multiple schedules.  It’s especially great for us homeschoolers coordinating multiple kids activities all day long.  I think it would be useful even if you don’t homeschool, particularly if you have kids with different extra-curricular activities.  It’s a great way to lay it all out there and see who is doing what and when.

I have mine set up now with hour blocks.  An hour is far more than we need for most things, but when we finish the kids get to go play and burn off some steam between events, and I get to bust out some housework.  Additionally, I’ve found that it helps to have certain things that are strictly bound to a time.  They work as mini-reset buttons throughout the day.  We try to always start morning time at 8:30, and nap/quiet-times are almost always at 2.  If things have gone askew, reading books together fixes it.  Of course, you could set yours up with any amount of time segment that suits your family.

The only thing I don’t like about the schedule is that it is difficult to set up for different days of the week.  For example, we have a different schedule/flow on Tuesdays than we do on Mondays.  I would have to erase everything every day and set it up new each morning.  The other thing I may try is using the different colored strips for the different days of the week.  We don’t really need all different schedules right now.  The little ones either do what we’re doing (kind of) or I channel them off into other activities for a work period.  But, I’m not sure it’s that big of a deal to me right now either.  I still keep my bullet journal list and that accomodates the differences in the day just fine.

The Chore Chart

These chore charts are the first we have used consistently.  Part of that is probably that we’ve just reached ages where chores work, but the other part definitely has to do with the design.  I picked up a Melissa & Doug chore chart a couple months ago.  It’s cute, but the chores were already listed, some weren’t relevant, and there were SO many little magnetic pieces to distribute if the chores were completed.  Eventually, I threw away all the “reward” magnets because they kept ending up on the floor and I have a child that tries to eats everything.

I’ll do another post soon about how we’re encouraging our kids to help around the house.  It’s new right now, and I’m sure it will change in the coming months (years) but we’re trying to get there.  Slow and steady! We’re currently using this chart to keep track of the jobs the kids do and what we’ve agreed to pay them.  They don’t do all of these things in a week, usually just a few of them, and we encourage helping out in other ways too.  I also have my week of house-cleaning focus points up here.  Lastly, there’s a block where I put jobs that I’m having trouble getting to.  Josh helps with what he can in the evening and it all gets done eventually.

You can find the family schedule and the chore chart here from www.lovemyschedule.com.

And now… the Giveaway!!!

If either of these things sound like something you’d like to try, you’re in luck!  Today, I am so excited to be teaming up with Amy over at Love My Schedule to bring you a fantastic giveaway that will help you schedule ALL the things!  This is my very first giveaway on the blog, so if you’re reading this, welcome to the action!

We are giving away a Love My Schedule bundle which includes: 1 family schedule and 1 family chore chart.  Both are magnetic, and wet erase–absolutely customizable to your family. The giveaway is running for a week (August 10-17), so be sure to share it with your friends! Simply enter the giveaway with your email address and check out Minding My Peas and Love My Schedule on Facebook. I’ll be selecting a random winner on Thursday, August 17th. Winner will be notified via the email address used to sign up. Good luck!

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