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This school year I have one at college, one at high school, three at primary school and one at preschool, so as you can imagine, my mornings are HECTIC!, so I am here today to give you three ways to speed up your morning school run! If you only have one or two children to get ready in the morning, chances are you always arrive on time and never have to do ‘the walk of shame’ through the main school reception….
So this is for the mums amongst you that have a slightly larger brood, or mums that need to be out the door on time!
I’m afraid I cannot help with speeding up the journey home, as that lies completely with each individual teacher! (Why can’t they all send the children out at the same time!)
1. LUNCHBOXES ALL THE SAME!
I’m not talking about their pretty lunchbags or their funky marvel backpacks, I mean the actual box that you put the sandwiches in. I have purchased 6 containers all the same size and shape, not only do they stack away easily but you can make all six lots of lunch without trying to find the correct fitting lid, because they are all the same, I have placed a name label onto one lid each, and also little pots for fruit, each morning I make six rounds of sandwiches with various fillings, a bag of crisps (out of the crisp cupboard)and a sweet treat (from the red box at the top of the cupboard, to avoid it all being eaten before the beginning of the week!), once they are all loaded and ready to be despatched into their bags, I pop the correct lid on each and away they go! I got these fab ones from Asda 2 for £1 for the lunchboxes and £1 for the 4 pots.
You can find them right here
2. COLOURED COATHANGERS!
This year I have four children that require school uniform, so with at least 10 polo shirts each (two weeks worth, before I need to iron!) or 5 shirts (they tend not to get AS messy when they are older), 6 pairs of trousers/ shorts or skirts, and various jumpers/cardigans or Blazers, we have LOTS of school uniform, so I have a dedicated wardrobe for it all, so much easier than going through each of their wardrobes and drawers looking in the morning, I can go to the wardrobe, grab a full set for each and lay it out in their bedroom ready for the next morning, the problem my husband struggles with is which piece of uniform belongs to which child, kaide at nearly 11 is only in age 8-9, Eowyn who is 7 is also in age 8-9, so you can see his confusion, he may have put Kaide in a frilly polo shirt last term! So I have a very quick and simple answer, coloured coat hangers, one for each child, so as I am ironing I put all of Eowyns on the Pink coat hangers, Kaide has the yellow ones, Tyrus the blue and as Neva needs larger coathangers she has the black ones, now whoever goes in the wardrobe can easily find his or her clothes, voila!
The 12 pack of coloured coathangers was £1 (so I bought two sets) and the black ones £1 for 10.
3. A STATIONERY BOX – WITH HAIR BOBBLES!
One of the biggest challenges in the morning is unfinished homework or not having the right equipment, so I have made a stationery box, with all of the essentials, pens, pencils, glue stick, hole punch, stapler, calculator, rubbers, pencil sharpener, paperclips, and a packet of hair bobbles, because I find these are like socks, they always get lost! Now, if one of the children is trying to finish their homework during the 15 minute car journey they can grab a pen or pencil as they leave, or if a project hasn’t been hole punched and put in a folder, or the maths homework wasn’t completed and they need to do a few sums, you get the idea! The entire stationery set cost less than £8.
The only rule they have is once they have finished with the item of stationery, THEY MUST PUT IT BACK in the box!
and finally…
4. SOCKS WITH SIZES IN.
All of the children have to wear white, grey or black with no designs or logos, just plain, which is fine, but it is difficult to tell them apart, by getting the socks that have the size inside, you can pair them up when they come out of the tumble dryer or off the line and you know exactly whose they are! I would also suggest that you wash all the socks of the same colour together and place them in a little net bag, that way there is no reason for the socks to go awol, although i’m sure some of them will!
Do you have any top tips to keep the mornings harmonious and stress free, if anyone has the secret for children eating their breakfast quickly, I would love to hear it!
I love the coloured coat hangers hack, I must try this. Socks with sizes inside are a must have
The sized socks were a revelation to me, although I’ve not come across any for school socks, only for non school socks. Although with an only child it’s less of a problem here.
I love these tips! I think we had sized socks a couple of times, but the husband ignored them when pairing! I do love your tip of having the uniform in the same cupboard as my eldest son always seems to end up with my daughters shirts in his wardrobe along with his own (again, down to the husband!)