Scheduling

Ugh. Scheduling. Have you seen that meme? "Scheduling is the SLP's version of Tetris." How accurate this is. I like to think that I'm pretty good at scheduling my kiddos in the school, but the honest truth is that I'm flexible. My schedule changes frequently due to growing caseload, group changes, or teachers' needs.I usually start with the post-it note method seen on many blogs, but then switch over to an Exel spreadsheet in order to make it easy to send to teachers and to make frequent changes. Plus it's a great way to add color to my day!

At the beginning of the year, I like to give teachers a half sheet of paper that lets them mark their prefered times. This takes some of the pressure off of my and puts it onto them.

I primarily see kiddos in block of 10, 20, or 30 minute intervals. The schedule I like to use is split into 10 minute increments. You can find an editable Microsoft excel spreadsheet with 10, 20, or 30 minute increments HERE.

Now comes the fun part - personalize!

Here's a step-by-step tutorial to make scheduling a little brighter and cleaner. First, select the worksheet you want; you can pick 10, 20, or 30 minute increments. Next, to add a student, select the cell or cells that you need. For example, I see a group of kindergarten students for 30 minutes. Since I am using the 10 minute schedule sheet, I select 3 cells (7:30-8:30).

Now the fun part - adding color! I like to use different colors for each grade level, but you could use different colors for disorder type, how big the group is, or anything you want. For my kindergarten students, I'm going to use red, so I select the fill arrow (the arrow to the right of the paint bucket) and select red.

I can then enter the names or the type of group I will be seeing into the top cell.

Most sessions are more than once a week, so a simple way to add this to Wednesday is to highlight the 3 red cells and copy (ctrl+c) and paste (ctrl+v).

Viola! Now to add in other groups with more colors. If you have a different start time, you can change that on the left side.

Now printing from Excel can be tricky. You will need to select all the cells you wish to print. Once in the print menu, make sure you select "Print selection" and "fit to page," otherwise you might have the schedule printed on multiple pages.

I hope this makes your scheduling easier and more colorful!