Chore Charts/Laundry Schedule

This summer I decided to make chore charts for my kids.  It's good for them to have some structure to their days during our more relaxed summer, and they are getting older and able to do more things independently around the house to help out.

I cut some white vinyl with my silhouette machine and put it on a piece of sheet metal I had bought at Hobby Lobby.  I used tin snips to cut the metal.  I hammered the pieces of metal onto a tin board and attached it to our kitchen wall with command strips.  It has not fallen yet.  

I cut black vinyl for the chore icons and put them on little bottle cap decorations I found in the scrapbooking section at Hobby Lobby.  I used a glue dot to stick a magnet to the back.  

Maren likes to put "in progress" chores on the middle line

All the kids have a sun icon which represents morning jobs.  They are supposed to do the following first thing when they get up: make bed, get dressed, fix hair, brush teeth (after breakfast), read scriptures/write journal for 10 min, pray, check to make sure bathroom is tidy.  I have a laminated checklist in their rooms where they can check off these chores with a dry erase marker.

They also all have a music icon for their instrument practicing and a book icon for any summer school work I assign.  Once a week, Maren and Joshua also have a shirt icon to remind them to do their laundry.  The rotating icons which I change every 2 weeks are: breakfast dishes, lunch dishes, dinner dishes, sweeping, vacuuming, yard work, clean out car, and garbage/recycling.  I've been giving the person with breakfast dishes the lunch dishes also, since sometimes breakfast doesn't get cleaned up very well and then they can just do them all at lunchtime.  I have 2 yard workers to go out and do weeding or watering or whatever I need. 

We are 3 weeks in to using the charts and so far they are working great.  It's easy for me to see what people still need to do before they can play and who's in charge of what dishes, because I often forget.  And it helps remind the kids what they are supposed to be doing around the house.

Related to this, several months ago I made myself a laundry chart in the hope that it would help me not have 10 loads of laundry to do every saturday.  It has worked a little bit.  I have assigned Maren and Joshua days to do their own laundry, and when it's their day, I add the laundry icon to their chore board.  I'm apparently not as good at telling myself what to do as I am at bossing my kids around.  BUT, I am getting better at doing a bit of laundry each day and avoiding the saturday pile up. Now if only I could get it all put away . . .

9 innings of school

Last week, I was getting ready for an impromptu Cincinnati Reds party for our family for dinner (but that's another story).  I was also trying to get the kids to do their schoolwork, but they were not cooperating.  Since I had baseball on the brain, I thought to myself "maybe they'll do their work if I turn it into a baseball game somehow".

I quickly drew a scoreboard for each of the boys.  They were playing against me, not against each other. I filled up 9 of their work folders with schoolwork, and told them that each folder was like one baseball inning.

They could earn 3 runs per inning by doing their work without complaining, doing it neatly, and doing it quickly. However, I could also score runs each inning. Mommy would score when they complained, were sloppy, worked too slowly, or threw things (a too often occurrence in our schoolroom unfortunately).

I could not believe how well it worked.  The boys were excited and started right away. It was the easiest day of school we've had so far this year.  I got a couple of points for sloppy work, but other than that they "beat my head off" as Christopher likes to say.

The boys have asked that we play baseball every school day since then.  I need to look into making some more permanent scoreboards.  I'm sure it will lose it's magic at some point, but until then I shall enjoy the easy school days.  *contented sigh*

Family Economy

I know I don't post that much. Erin does such a great job, but I sure love reading about everything she's doing with her family, so I thought I'd share what we are going to do this year with our new "Family Economy."




I've got a new job system. I have been through many. I've liked all of them for their time and the ages of my kids. Then I get bored and uninspired and don't follow through and I need something new. I read the book "The Entitlement Trap" by Richard and Linda Eyre and was inspired by their family economy. Our family is going to implement a system of earning, saving, and spending money based on many of the ideas they presented in their book.

Each of the children can earn up to four tickets a day. The tickets are kept on the far right peg of a 5 peg board that was used for a job chart system called Accountable Kids. (That was a good one. We used that job chart for a long time.) The other 4 pegs are where they will hang the tickets after the job is completed.

The first ticket is put on after their "Morning Magic" is completed by 9am. This entails getting yourself up, making your bed, getting dressed, hair, breakfast, teeth, read scriptures, prayer, and ready for homeschool by 9am.

The second ticket is for practicing their instrument.

The third and fourth ticket are for two jobs that will rotate from month to month. That is why they are on sticky notes in the photo, so I can move them around.
The rotating jobs are :
Kitchen- empty dishwasher before breakfast and clear the table and load the dishes after dinner.
Trash/Laundry- On Monday, Wash, dry and put away clothes. On Thursday put the bins out to the curb in the morning and bring them back in at night. Also, take all trash out as needed.
Meal Helper- Help cook, set table or counter, get water for everyone.
Luke's helper- Play with Luke and help him with anything he needs as Mom asks.
Upstairs pick up- Check floor, counters, desks and put everything in its place.
Downstairs pick up- Check floor, counters, desks and put everything in its place.

At the end of the day, the child will put however many tickets they earned into a family bank (just a box.)
They do their jobs for the 5 weekdays and then Saturday is PAYDAY! We will pull the tickets out of the family bank and see how much they earned! The older boys (ages 8 and 9) are earning actual money that will be deposited into their checking accounts at Bank of America. They will pay tithing, put some money in savings, and the rest is for spending. The boys will be responsible from now on for purchasing their own shoes, clothes, entertainment, and gifts.
Eliza (age 5) is earning money to buy a vending machine to put into my husband's store. After she pays that off, she'll probably save up her tickets for specific toys she wants, or TV watching privileges or something. I don't know quite what yet.

I'm looking forward to more help around the house and for the kids to really feel ownership of their money and their things.

Cleaning up the Zoo (a.k.a. our house)

I've been wanting to implement a cleaning system with our kids for a while now but just haven't been able to get it done. With the new school year starting soon, I thought this would be a perfect time to help the kids get into a cleaning routine.

When reading a blog post on Chocolate on my Cranium, I saw that she assigns zones for her children to clean each day.  I liked that idea, but wanted to think of some way to make it sound a bit fun to the kids.  Ya know, 'cause I like to complicate things.  I decided since our house often seems like a zoo anyway, we'd just go with that theme.

I made a map of the downstairs of our house and labeled the rooms as areas of the zoo.


I made little square animal pictures to represent each person in the family.  The kids enjoyed picking out what zoo animal they wanted to be.  We decided daddy should be the lion, because he's the king of the jungle, Maren wanted to be a dolphin, Joshua is a monkey, Christopher is a tiger (I told him he should be my snuggle puppy, but he wouldn't have it), and Nathan is a kangaroo.  He's in a jumping phase right now.  I'm a chicken, or mother hen, because, well, we needed to have a chicken, right?

I made a weekly assignments chart where we put each person's picture so they know what area to clean that week, and a chart with written explanations of what needs to be done in each room to be considered "clean".

Now it gets a little tricky to explain, especially for me because I'm not always good at making sense.    I wanted to encourage our kids to do all the cleaning in their area by themselves in a set amount of time, so I invented different levels of cleaning achievement. I made a chart, and after the time is up, the zoo inspector comes around to check.  Their animal picture gets put on the level they are at currently. The chart is as follows:

zoo animal: does no work
assistant groundskeeper: does less than half of the work
groundskeeper: does most of the work - gets paid 10 cents
zookeeper: does all of the work - gets paid 50 cents
animal trainer: does their work and helps others - 25 cents for each additional area

the kids were all zoo animals until the first zoo inspection

My 6 year old said right away "I want to be a zoo animal" to which I responded "Well, the zoo animals don't get to watch tv, play wii or computer, read books at bedtime, and they have to take a nap during the day and go to bed early.  They also have to wear diapers in the house." (okay, I wouldn't really enforce the last one, but it made him stop and think.)  Finding out that the zookeeper is a paid position also helped him change his mind.  Nathan, of course, will probably be stuck as a zoo animal for a long time.

I know different people have different feelings about paying their kids to help with house work.  I would like my kids to have some money that they earn and are responsible for, to help them learn to work and save, and so I wanted to give them money for a job well done.  Jason thinks room and board should be enough, but I persuaded him.  Maybe 50 cents a day is too much, and if it is, we'll cut it back.  I kind of doubt any of them will make it to zookeeper status within the first month.  They tend to glance over things and not be thorough. I'm hoping the money will help motivate them to be more careful.

I'll be the zoo inspector for now, but I think in the future I'll let them take turns going around and inspecting everyone's work to help them be more aware of what is out of place.  Maybe I'll get a fun hat or zookeeper's vest to help them play the part.

The kids were really excited when I introduced the idea, and insisted I make a map for the upstairs as well, and they wanted to name their rooms.  Maren lives in "book bay" and Joshua and Christopher live in "genius jungle".  Joshua said "Get it Christopher?  'Cuz we're geniuses!"  Sure buddy.  Who was gluing stickers onto the paper earlier?  Awww, cute kids.  Nathan lives in "kangaroo cave", because Maren says his room is small.

We'll try to do our jobs before dinnertime, or after dinner if we have too many afternoon activities. It will probably vary day by day, but hopefully this will help keep the house cleaner, help my kids learn how to work better, and be a little bit of sugar to help the medicine go down.  I'll let you know how it goes.

(for more ideas to help make cleaning fun, see this post and this post)


linked to: raising olives

How We Homeschool

playing superspies

We are now in our 3^rd year of homeschooling, and each year we have done it a bit differently.  The first 2 years were very relaxed; mainly, my daughter read a lot of books, worked out of a math workbook, and we played a lot.  This year we have been a bit more structured about it since my oldest is now in 2^nd grade and my son has started kindergarten.  I thought I’d share how a typical day for us goes, in case you’re thinking of homeschooling and wondering what it might look like, or just curious  as to what goes on in our crazy house.

Typically, the boys get up around 6:30.  Maren sleeps longer. I used to try and wake her up early and make her practice her piano and violin before we started school, but I’ve realized she’s just happier if she sleeps until 7:30 so I might as well let her.  We get dressed, eat breakfast, and play during this time before school.  Sometimes Joshua will want to get a head start on his schoolwork so he’ll go ahead and practice or do his math workbook.  Maren drags her feet and will try to read a book in her room instead of getting dressed.  I try to focus on the little boys at this time since they don’t get a lot of attention during schooltime.  

We start school at 8:30 with our “homeroom”, which involves reading the scriptures together, singing our hymn of the week, saying a prayer, reciting our scripture of the week, and calendar things.  We also talk about our value of the month and a couple of times a week I’ll read a value story out loud while the kids work on their handwriting papers.  I generally print my own handwriting papers off of my computer using a lined and dotted font  I have.  I have also used the books “Draw Write Now” which my kids really liked.  Once we got to a certain point though, my son started getting really upset that he couldn’t draw the pictures as well as he wanted, so he would shut down and throw a fit.  It was best to switch back to tracing for a time, and we’ll try the “Draw Write Now” books again in a little while.  Maybe once or twice a week I’ll have the kids write in a journal and they can count it as handwriting if they write neatly enough.  

Each day I write a list on the white board hanging in our school room of what each child needs to finish to be done with school. This helps avoid resistance and melt downs from my son.  Joshua’s list will usually look something like this:

Piano

Scriptures

Homeroom

Handwriting

Computer

Mommy time (read books, play games together)

Math – flashcards/puzzles

 -  workbook

Read by self - 20 min. 

Science

Maren’s schedule usually looks something like this:

Piano 

Violin

Scriptures

Homeroom

Handwriting

Punctuation sheet (a couple times a week)

Typing or email

Math – Timed test

 -  Logic

 -  Workbook

Music theory (a couple times a week)

Science/History

Computer/non-fiction reading

Grammar/Language Arts

Mommy time

Maren gets mommy time as a reward for getting all her other work done, and we will do something she chooses.  A lot of times she just likes to cuddle and talk.

While they are working independently, I work with Christopher on his alphabet and counting. Maren and Joshua can pretty much do their work in whatever order they like unless it’s something they have to do with me, in which case they do other work until I’m ready, or if it’s all done they can read or do puzzles.  They like checking off their work on the white board as they go.  

For typing, we use Type to Learn 3.  Joshua does this sometimes, but mostly Maren.  We use the Singapore Math books, supplemented with various math games and activities.  Maren’s working on her multiplication tables so she does timed tests occasionally to try and pass off tables and earn prizes.  We have a computer program called Music Ace Deluxe that Maren and Joshua do music theory practice with.  I bought a workbook of logic puzzles called “Perplexors” by Mindware and Maren really likes to do these. We use the “Story of the World” for history, and for science I have been just picking subjects and checking books out of the library.  We’ve studied forms of matter, simple machines, magnets, electricity, and are currently learning about habitats.  For our language arts, I bought the Grammar Island/sentence Island etc. . . curriculum from Royal Fireworks Press.  So far, Maren and I are liking it.  

I try not to stress too much about their curriculum right now.  I think it’s most important at this point for them to love reading and learn how to think and puzzle things out.  Once they can do those things, they can learn most things they need to know from books.  So if we only get through practicing instruments, homeroom, math, and do some reading, I call it a good day.  If everything is going smoothly and we’re able to get through everything, great!  If not, oh well.  I’m not going to stress about it.  They’re young. They’ll be fine.  They learn a lot from reading.  

We take a quick snack break around 10, and then are usually able to finish our school day by lunch - about 11:30.  Joshua is usually done before that and Maren sometimes has to work a bit after lunch if she’s been dilly-dallying.  After lunch we do quiet/free time, and then we can do crafts or other activities after I’ve had a chance to recharge. After about 3, when they baby’s up from his second nap, we go out to either our afternoon activities or to play at the park or go for a walk.  If it’s too rainy we’ll have a movie day or just more free time.  We eat dinner around 5 and then it’s clean up, get ready for bed, and reading time.  If we’re all cleaned up by the time daddy gets home, and if daddy gets home before bedtime, we play the wii together, which the kids love.  

We use myjobchart.com for the kids to check off their chores each day and earn points.  Once they’ve done all their morning chores, they can use their points to do various activities, like video games, computer, TV, etc . . . or they can save up their points and turn them in for bigger prizes or money.   I also take points away for behavior that is not acceptable in our family, like hitting, saying no to mommy, pushing over desks while throwing tantrums, etc . . .  Since we have discussed such consequences ahead of time, it makes disciplining easier.  I also give them extra points for finishing books and doing extra work around the house.  The kids like earning points and it has been a good motivator for them. 

Whew.  That’s how the days go in our house.  Sometimes.  

Scrapbooking and Journaling Made Easy

I have been scrapbooking since 1993. SCARY! I was in college, living in UT, and this new craft of scrapbooking was just taking hold. The local scrapbook store, "Pebbles In My Pocket," was located in a converted small house. They only had paper, simple die cuts, decorative scissors and lots of stickers. My old scrapbooks are so dated and ugly! I have LOTS of scrapbooks. It was a fun hobby and I got quite good at it. But since all these kids came along, I just don't have the time to make elaborate scrapbooks any more.

A few years ago I saw an idea in a scrapbooking magazine and have been doing it ever since. I call it my "Year In Review" scrapbook.

At the beginning of the year I purchase a blank 12 x 12 calendar from Amazon. I bought this one for the last two years.

I write down one sentence about each day in a date square. I keep the blank calendar on my office desk and finish the whole year before making the "Year in Review" scrapbook.

At the end of the year, I order 4-6 photos from each month to go on the page opposite the journaling. I make one month's page and then use that as the template for the rest of the months. The scrapbooking goes very quickly this way.
Lastly, I make a title page with a collage of photos from the entire year.

Although I would love to have dozens of adorable scrapbooks showcasing my children for every event in their lives, it's just not going to happen. I feel better knowing that we have a general history being recorded for us to all look back on.

But even with this simple scrapbook formula I can get behind. I am only done through August with 2009, and I need to order the photos and get going on 2010. I look forward to doing it though, I just have to find some time...

Nickel Clean Up

HI! I'm supposed to be a contributor to this blog, but Erin has been doing a great job all by herself, and she has so many good ideas. But I now have something to share and a few minutes to jot it down for you.

When every flat surface in the house looks like this:

(This photo barely gives a hint at the disaster that we call home.)

Then it's time for nickel clean up. We write each child's name at the top of a piece of paper. We work very quickly and I call out jobs for each child to do. "Andrew- socks, hamper." "Jack- crayons, drawer." There's no time for extra words. They are working quickly to get to the next job. Each job means a nickel for them. They put a tick mark under their name for each job they complete. Each tick mark means a nickel for them when I pay out after the house is clean.

(They were using code names today)

What would have taken me two hours to accomplish alone, takes us 15 minutes, and only costs me a few dollars. Today, they each earned $1.25. It is worth every penny.

I save nickel clean up for days when the house is really bad. For day to day picking up and cleaning, it's the usual nagging. A variation on nickel clean up is jelly bean clean up. We just replace the reward with some little treat. They like that too.

(Ah, a clean house. For a few minutes at least...)