Lighting the Fire: Summer chore charts

Our life in books

This is our eigth year of homeschooling and I finally got around to blogging about our adventures a few years ago.

I love the path that God has us on.

We get to enjoy the lightbulb moments in educating our children and have quite a few of them ourselves.

We are starting Exploration to 1850's this school year, 2012-2013 using My Father's World curriculum.

In the past, we have enjoyed the 'MFW Adventures' and 'Exploring Countries and Cultures', and 'Creation to the Greeks',

Rome to the Reformation,

Exploration to the 1850's and NOW.........

1850's to MODERN TIMES !!

Below is the week by week of lessons for this year if you'd like to start at the beginning.

There is also a handy LABELS area that you can peek through to find a specific lesson.

Monday, August 12, 2013

Summer chore charts

I had to brainstorm a bit to come up with a plan for the fabulous foursome this summer. We have plenty of travel visiting family, beach days, a few camps and overnights to keep us busy. However, for some reason, my four are particularly susceptible to down time ( read screen time) when we are home relaxing for a few hours in between all the going, going, going. I have a problem with this when there are four of them to play with each other, we have countless toys, games and books, a pool in the backyard, bikes in the garage, and a basketball court across the street. I know!!!

So, back to my plan. I just couldn't battle the question, " Mom, can I play on the computer? " for the whole summer.

I made these instead:

My thoughts were that if the children had these minimal items performed each day, it would create healthy habits, get them to be conscience of how long chores actually take, have control over their earnings and give them choices on how to spend their tickets.

I got a roll of carnival tickets are Party City!

A total of 3 tickets ( one per colored section on the chart) can be earned daily

unless you choose to offer one of the BONUS chores for an additional ticket or $$.

3 tickets are worth 30 minutes of screen time.

15 tickets and you get to choose a special date with mom or dad

20 tickets and you can choose an activity of your choice for fun (movies, bowling, sleepover)

40 tickets and you can cash in for a $20 gift card!

Tickets are labeled and given out the day after the chore is complete.

Tickets can also be taken away for poor behavior, fighting, disobedience, disrespectful attitudes and the like. There is a list for this too! I haven't had to take away many tickets this summer thus far.

It's been freeing for me to not have to monitor the free screens and they are responding beautifully to the lesson of time management and choices. It's a real dilemma to them to have to choose to pay for the screen time ( a temporary fix) or save for the bigger reward.

My sweet Everett has already cashed in a precious 15 tickets for a reward:

a date with mom and dad to Shogun! Kibru is saving for the gift card - go figure!

We compromise too- they are all seeing a movie tomorrow for 5 tickets each.

This is a keeper for us.