What we've been up to!!

Well we have been hard at work !

And we have been hard at play!

And we have also finished up this little project: A few weeks ago I was browsing all the homeschool post over on the Pioneer womans blog and I came across a post she had wrote about chores and the nifty little chore chart she used to help motivate her young'uns, So I decided that instead of buying one I would make one along the same lines, cause I really liked the way the chore chart she used clearly identified what she wanted each of children to do, sometimes I get a little to chore minded and before I know it I have told my children 500 things I want them to do and they are a little overwhelmed and extremely unhappy about having 500 hundred things to do, if you know what I mean Anyways here is our creations:

I stared out by letting them each make their own charts, we used file folders, both blue because my children love the color blue. My mother-in-law has this wonderful little die-cut thingy and cut us out some farm animals to use as our makers(places where we will velcro our chores that need doing). The littles had a great time coloring their farm animals, I on the other hand was having a hard time not interfering, because have you ever seen a red horse with a blue mane, but I didn't say a word, I just let him use his own creativity.

Yes that is the glue cap in his mouth but I removed it as soon as I got done with taking this picture, that little dude puts every thing in his mouth.

Here are the finished charts, I put a piece of velcro on or beside each animal, 5 in all, the number of chores they need to finish in one day. Come on 5 chores ain't nothing to the stuff I had to do as a child and I am of the firm belief that children need to be taught the responsibility of work, and that as a family we all work together to make things easier on everyone:) I also made a pocket and clued it to the file folder to store the chores as they finish each one and remove it from the chart.

For the chore cards, I along with the help of my m-i-l , printed off some really neat clip art of house hold chores. I cut them out and pasted them onto index cards and wrote what each chore was and what was expected to be done, I think I have 11 chore cards in all right now but I am still working on them and will be adding more so that they don't get bored with the same old chore. You know they will thank me when they are older for making them do all sorts for different things, but right now I believe they just think me crazy.

Now I ran these little buggers through the nifty little cold laminator (that my m-i-l also gave me), to make them last longer. My children appreciated that ya know! I also stuck velcro on the backs of the cards so that they would attach to the chart.

And after all was glued and stuck , this is what we have.

I will hang these nifty( I like that word can you tell) little guys on the wall in our school corner and every day as is the norm with chores I will put 5 chores on each child's chart and they will have time during our morning or afternoon clean up times to finish each chore, as it is completed they will remove that card and put it in the pocket. Pretty cool huh!

Now I know that not all moms have to use chore charts but for my children this is the best thing. My kids now know what they have to do and when it has to be done, that works well for them. I no longer have to nag at them or tell them 1000000000 times what chores they are responsible for on any given day. I also have a reward system that I use to go along with this. Now I don't agree with paying my kids money to do their chores, they should want to do them out of service and love for their family, and that is the attitude I try to get them to recognize, but I do think that a little incentive for getting them all done everyday is important.