Keeping My Summer Sane!

This year, I vowed to keep an organized and scheduled summer.  This is what I say EVERY year and it never gets done.  Except, this year, it actually did get done!  I was proactive and created chore charts, daily responsibility charts, bought workbooks for the kids and created a Consequence jar, a Get Along jar, and a Rewards jar.

The boys daily responsibility/chore chart is a blank template I pulled from this website, then altered to add more lines for the older two boys. It includes things the kids need to do all the time, every day.  Things that they will not get paid for, but just do because they live in the house. These things include: brushing teeth, bathing, brushing hair (you would think that those first three are just a given, but not with my boys..I have to remind them every day or it won't get done, hence putting it in their chart), making their beds, putting dirty clothes in the hamper, picking up their toys, picking up their bedrooms, putting away clean laundry (I fold and they put away), putting dirty dishes in sink, wiping table down after every meal, sweeping kitchen at the end of the day, and picking up the backyard.    

DAILY RESPONSIBILITY/CHORE CHART

             

Their paid chores are chores that they get to pick one of, every day.  Things like vacuuming upstairs/downstairs (they can pick which level), dusting their room plus one,

dusting baseboards upstairs/downstairs (they can pick which level), taking bathroom trash out, cleaning the bathroom, dusting the blinds (I stick an old sock on their hand and they dust that way), mop the tile, mop the hardwood.  My littlest bean doesn't do a lot of these, I give him just a couple of age appropriate options from this list. Our house is always neat and orderly now!  I love it!!!

DAILY RESPONSIBILITY/CHORE CHART

For behavior, we have behavior cards. a Consequence jar, and a Get Along jar.  The behavior cards are green, yellow and red.  I cut these out of cardstock I had lying around. These cards are just like the ones they use in school.  Green mean their good, yellow is a warning and red is grounds for pulling a stick out of the Consequence jar.  This has been pretty effective.  They definitely don't like changing their card to yellow or red. As soon as they do something nice or do the thing they were supposed to do, they get to change their card back to green.

THE JARS (minus the REWARDS JAR)

The Consequence jar is only used if their card is turned to RED.  They pull a stick and have to perform the task on the stick.  The only exception is my little Bean.  Some of the things he can't do yet, so he'll get to pick something else that he can actually finish.  I got this idea from this site.  I added a few things that were more applicable to our family. Here's what I have for our jar: 

CONSEQUENCE JAR

The stick that has 'Write 25 times, "I will not leave my things out", I'll change up a bit for whatever the crime that's been committed.  My middle Turkey hit his younger brother and had to write, "I will not hit." 25 times.  

The Get Along jar is another brilliant idea that I got from this site and it's used when the boys are fighting and can't resolve their differences on their own.  I give them one warning and try to help them out with a resolution.  I don't tell them directly what to do, I try to guide them to do something else.  If they can't get along and they are still fighting, they have to choose a stick from the Get Along jar.  Here's a pic of what I did:

GET ALONG JAR

The Rewards jar is a good behavior jar.  They get to pick a stick out of this jar when I see them doing something nice without being told.  It's little things that can be redeemed quickly. 

REWARDS JAR

I also tried to incorporate journal time and reading time in our day.  Here's our daily schedule.  It's not set in stone, but we do most things every day.

WORKBOOKS AND PRINTING/CURSIVE PRACTICE

DAILY SCHEDULE
Get up

brush teeth

make bed

get dressed

put dirty clothes in hamper

breakfast

put away dirty dishes

wipe table

2 worksheets and handwriting practice/sight word practice

1 chore (can't be the same as brothers choosing or the one they did the previous day)

free time

lunch

put away dirty dishes

wipe table

free time

reading for 20 minutes (usually when I'm making dinner)

dinner

put away dirty dishes

wipe table

sweep kitchen

pick up toys/backyard/bedroom

bath

put dirty clothes in hamper

journal time (10 year old writes 5 sentences on his day, 6 year old writes 2 sentences on his day and 4 year old draws a picture of his day)

free time

bed

If the boys have plans and are at a friends house, they do their worksheet and journal writing when they get home or the next morning.

It's been 2 weeks of us doing this and so far, it's been great!  Our house is picked up, the boys are {{s l o w l y}} figuring out what things they need to do every day and I'm not getting too upset with them for their behavior.  It's a win/win!

I'm hoping this lasts the whole summer and throughout the school year...I'll keep you updated!