So I built a Claude skill that handles it. It scans Gmail for emails from the kids' schools and activities, pulls out anything with a date or deadline, adds events straight to our Google Calendar (with my husband on every invite), marks the emails as read, and sends me a digest of what it found. The whole thing runs automatically on Fridays. I just get a phone notification with the summary.
It's saved me hours. So I turned it into a template anyone can set up.
What it does
When you run the skill (or it runs on a schedule), it:
Searches your Gmail for emails from your kids' schools, childcare, and extra-curricular providers from the past 7 days
Reads the ones that matter — events, deadlines, consent forms, policy changes — and skips the noise like payment receipts and fire drill notifications
Adds events and deadlines to your Google Calendar with the right reminders and all the right people invited
Marks those emails as read so they're not cluttering your inbox
Delivers a digest — either as a calendar popup notification or inline in chat
Tell it once who your kids are, where they go, and which email addresses to watch. After that, it just works.
What you need
Claude Pro ($20 USD/month). The skill uses Gmail and Google Calendar integrations, which require a Pro subscription.
Gmail and Google Calendar connected. In Claude, go to Settings, then Integrations, and connect both. Takes about 30 seconds.
Works on browser or desktop. You can set this up on claude.ai or the Claude desktop app. Both support the integrations. The desktop app is better if you want it to run automatically on a schedule - that feature (Scheduled Tasks) is desktop-only. But you can always run it manually from either.
How to set it up
Download the skill file below
Open Claude and create a new Project (Projects → New project → paste the skill into the project instructions). Or just paste it into a new conversation — it'll work, it just won't persist between chats.
Say: "Set up my kids email digest"
Claude will walk you through 10 questions — your kids' names, their schools, the email addresses to monitor, who goes on the calendar invites, your timezone, and how you want the digest delivered
Claude will show you a summary of everything before it builds anything — check it, confirm, done
You get back a personalised skill ready to use
The whole setup takes about 5 minutes. The hardest part is finding the sender email addresses from your kids' schools (Claude will tell you how to look them up in Gmail).
After setup
Say "run my kids email digest" or "any school emails?" and Claude does the rest.
If you want it automatic: open the Claude desktop app, go to Settings → Scheduled Tasks, create a new one, point it at the skill, and pick your day and time. I run mine on Friday mornings. The skill always looks back 7 days, so timing doesn't matter much.
Download the skill
Enjoy <3
Sarah xx