Kanban for Kids

Getting organised can be difficult for most of us, especially in these times when it seems like everyone is "busy." We watch TV while surfing the net, we're always going somewhere, doing something, and it seems like there's just not enough hours in the day!

But for children, especially those with learning difficulties, diagnoses like ADHD or just those who find it difficult to concentrate or keep up any kid these days could really struggle with organising their daily routine, their extra-curricula activities, their free play time, chores plus all their projects and assignments as they get older and receive more & more homework.

The traditional diaries, calendars, reminder notes from teachers are all great prompts. But we have to go searching for them, sifting through piles of paper to find what comes next. And if memory serves correctly, many of those notes will get left in the school bag until the morning it's needed!

Image courtesy of scottchan / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

But again we are often talking about kids here who may not be great at writing and are more tactile learners, looking for visual prompts and hands on learning. Visuals are great! You can get up in the morning, see what's on today and know straight away what you've got to do.

In my "other job" we use a concept called KANBAN. I have no idea what it means, or where it comes from, but it's a software development idea for programmers to keep track of all the things they need to get done to build a program! It's tactile and it's great fun. At the beginning of a project, everyone gets together and takes a sharpie & a pad of sticky notes and writes everything that needs to be done to complete the project. Then they get sorted into categories and pulled off the wall when they are finished.

It's a great way for everyone to see, on a huge wall, how far through the project they are, and who needs to do what each day. Some serious programming teams even have a 5 minute "scrum" in the morning to cheer eachother on and get going for the day! They take a couple of sticky notes each and go work on them.

Isn't that just the coolest idea you could use at home with the kids?

Work Board

So you need 3 things!

1. A felt tip pen (or more for each of the kids)
2. A pad of sticky notes (you can use different colours, shapes, sizes etc)
3. A big blank wall or window

So decide what you want to keep track of? Is it homework, chores, daily routine stuff, after school activities, or everything?

If you want to track everything you could use different colours for different types of items? Pink for homework, green for chores...you get it.

Get together in a "scrum" and write all the things down. One thing per sticky note.

Then sort them into columns.

1. NOT STARTED
2. IN PROGRESS
3. FINISHED

So every day, or every week the kids can see the "not started" stuff that they have to do.

Once they've started, simply move the sticky note into the "in progress" column.

And once it's finished, move it into the "finished" column.

It is so motivating to see things moving through a process like that. And you might be surprised at how quickly the get things done just because they want to see it move through the chain and get to the end!

It's not rocket science. It's quick, simple and cheap, but could have a huge impact on your family and homework time! Wouldn't that be nice???

Happy Learning!

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