Maximize your time with your kids with this simple activity planner

I’m currently fighting cancer and the chemo makes me tired. I have the dichotomy of wanting to spend time with my kids, but also needing to rest. Even healthy moms have this issue, so I had an idea that might help my kids and I make memories, combat the mom guilt, but also not completely wipe me out.

I made one of these for each of my two kids (my son with autism wouldn’t get it yet, but I have routines where we spend time together as well). There’s a template you can download here for both the girly and boyish version of the activity planner.

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Basically it’s a giant tic-tac-toe with space for your child to fill out 9 activities they want to do with mama. I had my kids also pick one date each where we leave the house together. Try to remember to take pictures. After you print the printable(s), you want to laminate them. Amazon has a really inexpensive laminator that I include on the supply list for this post.

On the back of the laminated activity planner you can affix a magnet so you can keep it safe and clean on the fridge. I like laminating the activity planner because you can use a dry eraser marker and reuse it over and over.

Have your kids fill out the nine things they want to do with you (time frame is totally up to you and dependent on the flexibility of your schedule). As you do the activities, cross them off, and when they’re done wipe them all off and stay all over again!

When my son (he’s 4) was picking his activities, he chose “make paper cookies” as an activity. This is a really simple craft, and I took pictures to show you how we did it. For the “chocolate chips” I hole punched black construction paper, and for the “cookie sheet” I cut out the bottom of a box, leaving about an inch of the sides for a lip. I then covered it with tin foil to make it look realistic, although he wasn’t really into the tin foil.