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72 Hour Kit Free Printables


It is that time of year that I like to remind us all to take a look at our emergency preparedness status. Today, I have two printables for you to use if you like. 

The first, pictured on the left above, is a sheet of a list of things to pack in your 72 hour kit. I left some blank space so you can add things if you have other ideas you want to add to the list. This list is for one person, so each person would need the items on the list. 

For little kids, we leave out a lot of things. To have it all would be super heavy for a little one to pack around. There are also items I don't want a four year old to have, like a knife. These lists also do not include things like diapers, stuffed animals, crayons, etc. that you might want to pack for a child.

This entire list is really too big to fit everything into one kit. My husband and I split some things up, while still trying to make sure each of us has enough to get us through if we were separated. 

The second printable is a sheet for your emergency contact information. You will put the person's name in the top blue bar. Under "Family Information," you will put who is in the family--names of parents, spouse, children, etc. You also add a family picture. Under "Emergency Contact Information," you will fill in your home address. Then you will list contact phone numbers. Include spouse, parents, grandparents, friends, etc. who can be contacted in case of emergency. Be sure you have some long-distance phone numbers listed--they say long distance phone calls are the first to be restored in emergency situations. The "Personal Information" box is self-explanatory. The "Medical and Insurance Information" is also self-explanatory. Just fill it in and add a photo of the person. We have one of these in each person's kit.

Here are other posts on Emergency Preparedness:
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Baby Meal Planner {Free Printable}

Baby Meal Planner

I have been tracking Brinley's foods in my head, just the same as I did all of my other children. Well, that worked fine for them, but with four kids I need to be able to have head space clear unless the item is very necessary in my head. Therefore, I decided to make a sheet I could use to keep track of things on paper.

Nutritionists suggest you feed your family and self the "rainbow." This holds true for baby. The color of a fruit or vegetable indicates the nutrients that are plentiful within it, so when you feed the rainbow, you get a good variety of nutrients. 

While they call it feeding the rainbow, they actually tend to break it up into Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue/Purple, and White. I, however, like to keep the rainbow mentality in my head and just lump white into yellow when I am organizing it all. 

For a list of what foods go in what group, see my post: 

Feeding the Rainbow


Here is my plan with this sheet (I have only had it for a couple of days so it is all new to me). 

I printed the page and then laminated it. If you want to laminate yours but don't have a laminator, you can either take it to your local copy shop or you can even just slip it into a page protector and write on the outside of the page protector.

On the front side, I wrote in the food boxes with permanent marker. You can clean permanent marker by using finger nail polish remover. I wrote the foods she eats in each category. On the front side, I also have a slot for shopping lists and what I need to make or prepare list. For these two boxes, I use a wet erase marker because those will change weekly. 

For the backside, I also use the wet erase marker (you can also use a dry erase marker--I like wet erase just because it is more difficult for the marker to be wiped off). I can plan out which foods she will eat at each meal for the week. This is helpful to keep myself straight and helpful for my husband or mom or anyone other than myself who will be feeding her. 

I made the sheet to be used from the time solids are started until I decide I don't need it anymore, so it has "snack foods" even though she doesn't have snack time yet and "dairy" and "meats" even though she doesn't eat those yet, either. 

If you would like a copy of this, here is the link:

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Chore Wheel




This is my latest addition to our chore process at our house. I made this back in August, so we have been using it for almost four months now. It has been, and still is, very effective. I love the addition it has made to the home.

We use this chore wheel for a certain chore a family member is in charge of for one week. We do these chores right around dinner time. Some might be before dinner, some might be after. Our kitchen/formal living room area was often times cluttered with random things from family members. I made this wheel for everyone to have a contribution to keeping the area clean. I knew that once they started contributing to keeping it clean, they would be more conscious of the mess they were making. Let's break this down some.

LENGTH
We chose to do each chore for one week at a time. The reason for this is so that if one person slacked on their chore one day, the next person wouldn't be doing double duty the next. You have your chore for one week, and before we switch, you make sure your chore is caught up. So if you were on dishes, you make sure that all dishes are done before passing the job on to the next person. One week is long enough to have time to learn how to do a chore without getting totally sick of it.

CHORES
Our first round of chores was as you see. Office, dishes, sweep, great room, stairs, and feed the pet. 

Our second round of chores was set table, dishes, clear table, great room, help make dinner, and feed the pet. 

Most of these chores are things most of the children need help with. 

Brayden (six) can do these on his own:
  • Pick up a room
  • Sweep
  • Feed pet
  • Set table
  • Clear table
He needs help with these:
  • Dishes
  • Help make dinner
Kaitlyn (four) can do these on her own:
  • Pick up a room
  • Sweep
  • Clear table
She needs moderate help with:
  • Feed pet (for one of our pets, she needs mild help)
  • Set table (we have to get a lot of the things out for her because she can't reach them)
She needs help with:
  • Dishes
  • Help make dinner
McKenna (two) can do these on her own:
  • Pick up a room (though she needs direction sometimes)
  • Sweep (but she can't do a thorough job by herself)
She needs moderate help with:
  • Feed pet
She needs help with:
  • Set table
  • Clear table
  • Dishes
  • Help make dinner
Chore Breakdown
Several of the chores are simply to pick up items that don't belong there and put those items away.

I think sweeping, setting table, clearing table, and feeding the pet are all pretty self-explanatory.

For dishes, we have the child help put away what he or she can. For McKenna, that is basically silverware and a few things down low. Then the child helps load the dishwasher. All three of the kids love being on this chore.

For dinner, I let the child choose the menu for the week, then we make our grocery list. Then each night, we decide what to make from our planned menu and the child helps me make it. 

Bonus Chore
You might have noticed we have a bonus chore each week. It was easier for me to make the pie wheel with 6 slots than with 5, so one was assigned as bonus. If you do your chore, you can then do the bonus chore and get a special surprise. It might be a treat, a high five...anything small. 


ROTATION
We did our first chore wheel rotation for 12 weeks before we were bored with it and needed to change some chores. 

MAKING IT
  1. Create a pie chart in Microsoft Word. 
  2. Create a circle shape that is slightly smaller than the pie wheel. Put this shape on top of the pie wheel you made. This creates the bottom circle where you put names.
  3. Create another pie wheel that is the same size as your circle. 
  4. Print these items.
  5. Laminate items if desired.
  6. Use a fine-point permanent marker to write names and chores. Names go on the large pie, chores go on the small pie. When it is time to change the chores, you can use finger nail polish remover and a cotton ball to remove the marker (thank you to reader Robyn for suggesting this to me on the Emergency Preparedness Binder post! I never would have thought of it). 
  7. Use a pin (tack, safety pin, straight pin, etc.) to poke a hole in the center of each circle. 
  8. Place the small circle on top of the large circle. Use as brad to fasten them together.
I have added a file to my Google documents: Chore Wheel Gray-scale version and Chore Wheel Color (this is like mine).

CONCLUSION
This is a great tool to have in the chore toolbox. Let me know if you have any questions!

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