Scrum For Kids

We were delighted to be sent some questions in regard to Scrum For Kids, and certainly welcome them!

We plan to answer them in topic groups or through individual content posts:

When you load up your board on Sunday evening, I assume everyone participates in the tasks to be “loaded” by considering regular recurring tasks, referring to a calendar perhaps of the week to come and any special things/homework due during the week?  Do you also include personal “goals” for the week that the kids determine?

Excellent observations all.  Certainly, each team member considers the upcoming week in terms of calendar.  However, the emphasis of the weekly story board focuses more on the day of week items are due rather than the date.  (The day of the week a task is expected to be completed is published on every task card of the weekly board.)  Recurring assignment tasks are designated due dates as assigned by our children’s classroom teachers.  We adjust the day of the week an assignment is due if a holiday or member’s absence/ illness interrupts the normal iteration of a week, but usually recurring task cards emphasize the day of week a task must be complete (which allows cards to be reused week after week.)

We do include the date and day of the week ad-hoc or one-off tasks are due in the case of long term projects, tests or quizzes.  Likewise, we indicate the calendar date and day of week a task needs to be complete when it is a subset of a long term project with an independent deliverable date (outline, research sources due, complete study guide, etc.).

We also use ad-hoc cards to articulate team member goals as needed.  These can be personal, academic or family goals.  Examples on our board have included, “Be a servant leader,” “Maintain family values at school,” “Be a good sister,” “Turn in completed homework as soon as I get to school,” and “Record all assignments in assignment notebook.”  If the goal targets a critical behavior that the team member wants to monitor daily, we make daily cards of the target behavior for the board to underscore it is a recurring behavioral/attitudinal task required to support the family team.  For example, “Be a good sister,” ran for three weeks on our board last Spring. Each girl in our family was obligated to move (and justify) five Monday-Friday task cards.

In addition to recurring task cards and team member ad hoc cards, we’ve used the school’s homework web site to cut and snip relevant one-off cards for items such as, “Read chapters 1-4,” and “Complete Math Sheet 4a,” etc. that we then posted directly onto the board.  We also copy and snip announcements that detail one-off tasks that come home from schools and post permission slips and practice logs on the board to be completed by the team as they move their cards.