Newbie Needs Help...PLEASE!!

Hi, I'm a school teacher and I head up an ISR Department and I am attempting to do a Spreadsheet that keeps track of several things, such as; Student Name, Time Served In Detention, Infraction, etc... I should state that my wife found a generic spreadsheet that "she" was able to change things around a little bit to fit what I was looking for... BUT here's my question:

At the top of the sheet, I am wanting to have different categories such as; T Tardy, LD Lunch Detention, SKC Skipping Class, etc. I want to assign each infraction its own color, and be able to type in the abbreviation in the cell area, and the color along with abbreviation will automatically pop up in the cell area so I can get a good visual on what's going on.

PLEASE HELP!!!!