I’ve been wondering how much time you spend doing stuff with your preschooler – not TV or movies, just preschool activities that are fun and also teach her something…anything. I try to spend an hour most days, more on weekends, and not so much on a crazy busy day. Time management has always been an issue for me, because all my work is done online, and there’s just too much there to distract you.

Thankfully, all seems (relatively) quiet on the Britney front. I remember I lost valuable time keeping up with her antics during that entire head-shaving-sanitary-pad-displaying-locking-self-in-bathroom phase. The more time I spend looking up the latest bit of Britney Spears gossip online, the less I get done. Worse, the lesser time I get to spend time with my family, which is unforgivable.

For those of you who’re having trouble finding time to include meaningful and fun activities for your preschoolers in your daily schedule, I highly recommend a preschool activity calendar.

What you do is create a monthly planner. You can do this together with your child, and that’s an hour of quality time right there. Draw up a calendar on a sheet of paper, with large squares for each day of the month, and on each square note down an activity for the day. Some suggestions for preschool activities:

• Make a snack together.
• Read a book.
• Play dough fun – mix play with learning alphabets and numbers.
• Role play. Bring out the props - old scarves, jewelry, accessories - and let her imagination run wild
• Go on a nature walk, picking up interesting things along the way
• Act out a favorite story or nursery rhyme with lots of actions
• Try fun with science – with mirrors for instance. Here are other science activities for preschoolers that don’t take a lot of time.
• Look through family pictures – talk about her grandparents, and other relatives
• Create a love map together. Make a list of all her favorite things –movies, books, songs, stories etc. Things change fast when you’re a 4 year old, so her choice of favorite movie or song will probably be different by the time next month rolls around! This is a great activity for boosting self esteem and confidence.
• Make a sock puppet, and act out a story.
• Put on a puppet show – use papers bags to create easy to make hand puppets. Here are a few ideas on using paper bags to make puppets.
• Make an obstacle course in the yard, and have fun with it!
• Put on some music, and dance together.
• Have a tea party with your child.
• Take some chalk and draw stick figures in the yard.
• Draw a family picture together.
• Play games with sand – fill a tub with sand, and let her write out alphabets and numbers with her finger.
• Play a game of Lotto.
• Play a game of musical hide and seek.
• Do some sensory activities with smell, taste, and hearing.
• Do a memory activity.
• Take a few paper plates, some string and make face masks from them.
• Have a Mommy and Baby workout!

I am sure you have more things your child loves to do that you could include. Write one entry for each day of the month. It’s Okay to have a couple of activities that repeat – for instance, you could set aside more than one day for reading activities, or nature walks, depending on the weather. But you have to make sure you complete the activity for the day, unless there’s an earth shattering emergency.

Once you’ve written everything down, decorate with stickers and sketch pen squiggles. Slip into a plastic cover, and hang it up someplace where you both can easily have a look at it.

Every time you’re done with an activity for the day, draw a star on that day with the marker. All the stars on the calendar as the month comes to an end will make you feel like Super Mom!