Peace Doves

The kids made Peace Doves from a craft idea from Enchanted Learning in honor of Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

Cookies

I got a big box of cookie cutters from Walmart and have been dying to try them out. I wanted to make shaped cookies other than sugar cookies. I attempted to make some shaped chocolate chip cookies. They came out ok, but not great. I might try again I don't know yet.

Remote Control Planes

My dad bought the boys a remote control helicopter and plane for Christmas. We tried flying
them in the yard 1 day. We have some trees in the yard but they are more on the edges so we thought it would be ok. Nope. They are some powerful planes. And they're just Air Hogs brand. So after about 20 minutes of lots of crashes and at least half in the trees we decided when the weather got warmed we would just take them to out local park and make a day out of it.

Duty Jar

On a homeschooling blog I was reading I saw where a mom was using a "Duty Jar". I really enjoyed her idea and decided to use it in our family. The boys each have their own jars and then theres the main "duty jar". Every week I "Auction" off extra chores, such as sweeping the driveway, or cleaning door frames in the house, stuff like that. One of the boys buys the extra chore for 1/3 or 1/2 of the maximum I'm willing to pay for it. Then when the chore is done they get paid the full amount I was willing to pay for them doing the chore. What they buy the chore for depends on how much they actually make on the chore. The boys also came up with an auction between themselves where they sell each other the mandatory chores I assign and pay each other for doing them. The kids seem to think this process is very exciting and are always asking me if I have any chores to auction off. LOL.
The kids jars are also used to pay a duty. If they use ugly words, yell, hit or anything like that they pay a "duty" for the offense to the duty jar. If they don't have the money they can "work off" the amount owed. If they are in debt for more than 2 weeks they have to do everyones chores for free for one day. But theres also an upside. If they have all good marks on chores, lessons, behavior, etc from their star chart for 4 weeks they can claim all the money in the main "duty jar". But that can be a risk cause they aren't allowed to know the amount in the jar. LOL. But it makes it fun.
*And we aren't using real money. We are using the fake money I printed for our "store".

Goals Board

The kids have goals they can earn from doing their lessons, chores, good behavior, etc. I made a "goals board" so the kids can see what they are working for and how close they are to achieveing it. They have goals such as staying up late, choosing a family movie to watch together, choosing a family activity or game, etc. The kids are enjoying the visual aids. :)

Star Charts

We use a "Star Chart" to keep track of the kids doing their lesson, chores, their behavior, personal hygiene gets done, etc. I have a copy in my binder and the kids have a laminated copy in the kitchen where they can see their progress or lack there of. When they complete their chores, lessons, etc they get a "good job" in that spot, but when they don't complete their chores or have undesirable behavior during the day they get a "Not a good job" in that spot.

They get what we call drops for not completing chores and such. 1 drop in chores equals half of allowance lost. 2 drops in chores equals loss of full allowance for

the week. Also if they have behavior issues they have consequences, such as loss of TV time, time out, etc. And they have to pay the duty jar for certain behaviors. Such as .50 for talking back, or hitting, etc.

This visual system is working well for us.

Mailboxes

While making the workboxes we discovered we could make mailboxes out of the small priority boxes. So the kids made mailboxes to sit outside their doors. They decorated them to suit their individual sytles. They came out real cute. Now we use them daily. I put their workbox and chore cards in them every night and when they get a magazine in the mail it gets delivered to their mailbox.