Give Your Child Their Own To-Do List

I was given My Student Logbook to review as part of the SchoolHouse Review Crew in exchange for an honest blog review.

My Student Logbook is a book that is designed to make it easier for parents to communicate with their children who are 2^nd grade and up on what tasks we expect them to complete each day. Parents are able to make a to-do list and even set a certain amount of time limits for each task, and then as the student completes them they can check them off each day.

Check out this small little video for more details:

How We Used My Student Logbook

Jimmy is going on 11 years old, but he still has a hard time remembering what he is supposed to do each day. Unless I continue to light a fire under him all throughout the day he doesn’t get even half his chores done or his school work. A lot of that has to do with the fact that he gets easily sidetracked. To his credit, he gets called in four to five different directions in a day a lot! He seems to literally b the right hand man for just about everyone in the family!

When we were given the chance to review My Student Logbook I figured it would help him be able to keep track of what all he’s done throughout the day verses what needs to still get done. Immediately upon its arrival, I made his to-do list. It amazed me how much he has to get done in a day. I actually started to wonder if we were trying to cram too much on him in a day and if that was why he wasn’t accomplishing as much as I thought he should be.

I left the list alone, but did have him record his actions. He actually managed to get a good bit done off of the list for a while. He was quite proud of his accomplishments. He was proud that he got so much done in a day. We were ahead on his school work and making really good head way.

He being interested in continuing to use the logbook was very short lived. He couldn’t even stick with it for 30 days. According to him, it felt like just another chore to do throughout the day. Honestly, I could see his point of view because the list wasn’t changing from day to day. I did add a reward system to him completing his lists for several weeks in a row, but that still wasn’t enough of an incentive to keep him interested in doing this. Since he was getting better at his chores and school work, I didn’t think it was a priority to fight him over this.

I’m a heavy duty list girl, and I can see the benefit behind using the logbook. My lists change from day to day though. Plus I have like three different lists that I check off each day too. I have a list for my personal life, my blog life, and my client’s requests. The things that I have to do are always changing so my list never gets boring to check off.

I think if this program had been started with my seven year old son it would have been a bigger hit because he’s still young enough to be trained to use lists. He also loves to mark off what he gets done. (We have a star board that he just gets thrilled to mark things off on.) I’m thinking of changing it and using it with him now that this review is over.

You can purchase your own student logbook for $15.00. They even have a nice selection of covers for you to choose from. In the back of the book, there are pages for adding little bits and pieces for your child to hang onto for future years as a way of looking back in how they’ve grown which I think is neat.

You can learn more about My Student Logbook by visiting their website. You can also connect with them on Facebook and YouTube.

Do you think your child would keep up with this system for long?

Be sure to check out my fellow Schoolhouse Crew reviews of this product by clicking the image.

P.S. Movie review post will be live later on tonight.