15 Apps to Help Mom Through the School Year

The free Cozi app (free) lets you manage your family calendar by adding appointments, setting reminders, and uploading to-do lists that all family members can see. Cozi works on your iPhone or iPad, Android, BlackBerry, or the web, and your updates automatically sync to all users connected to your account. Cozi can even send emails confirming appointments to any family member's inbox or text them directly. Also keep track of memories and photos in the Cozi family journal.

If parenthood is all about juggling, then working parenthood is about juggling 10 things at once. If you try to keep your work, your kids, and your own schedule going on one calendar, chances are it is pretty packed. It also often means that your colleagues get notices for your kids' doctor's appointments because you were just trying to block out the time. With UpTo — Social Calendar (free), you can share events with whomever you want while still blocking time on your calendar so others know you're out. Which means your colleagues can receive a notice that you need to leave early on Thursday, but they don't need to know it is for the school play.

While we're constantly in awe of our children's amazing creations, the paintings, sculptures, and sketches do tend to pile up at an insanely fast pace. Artkive (free) offers a straightforward, easy-to-use approach to archiving (get it?) your children's work. The app is best for parents whose main priority is organizing and storing creations, and it also allows you to turn their paintings and drawings into books and other keepsakes.

You swore you'd never be a soccer mom, and now here you are bringing snacks to the sidelines each week. Help keep your tots' teams under control with TeamSnap (free), an app that manages your team's roster and schedule. It maps your way to your next game, sends out messages to the team, and even organizes photos you take during the games.

Between PTA meetings, playdates, teacher conferences, and team practices — not to mention your job — there are plenty of places a mama could lose her phone. Find My iPhone (free) does just what the app says — it helps you locate your missing iOS device and protect your data, so you can get right back on schedule as soon as possible.

Say goodbye to the sea of class lists and team rosters taking up space on your refrigerator. With Ringya (free), the traditional contact list can find its way into the wastebasket once and for all. Simply snap a photo of any phone list, and watch as it is uploaded into your phone and categorized as a "ring" or an organized contact list. You can then share your "ring" with others who have the app so everyone can share the list.

Should you need to tell teammates that soccer practice is canceled, simply enter the app and click on the soccer ring, and a message (a phone call, text message, or email) can instantly be sent to everyone at once. And for those of you who, like me, only know some of your tot's friends' parents as "John's mom," the app displays whatever info it has about a caller (info that you can adjust once the list is imported) when the phone rings.

We don't like to call it bribing, but sometimes it takes an incentive plan to get your tots to complete some tasks around the home. When threatening to take away screen time isn't working anymore, turn to ChoreMonster (free), a rewards app that actually works because it feels more like a game than a chore. Parents go into the app and set up the chores, rewards (ranging from extra minutes of bedtime reading to money and ice cream outings), schedules, and point values. Then, kids log into the app to see what is expected of them, when they must complete it by, and how many points it is worth. Once your son completes a chore, he can mark it complete, and parents receive an alert so they can approve it. As tasks are completed, points and tickets are earned — points go toward rewards, while tickets are used in the app to collect new monsters.