chore charts...

I made these chore charts 3 years ago and they work great! You know it's a keeper idea when I use it multiple years in a row! 

Each year I usually do a bit of tweaking because they are all 1 year older.  I have a summer time version and a school time version.  This is a picture of our summer charts. Each kid gets their very own half sized clipboard with enough charts to last the summer.  1 paper lasts 1 week. Taped to the back of the clipboard is the cleaning chart of what I expect when they clean their bathroom and bedroom. And yes...for the "help Mom" chore I make them come up to me and say: "How can I help you today mom?" 

I have found that having a chart is extremely helpful for my kids.  Even my older kids sometimes need a reminder of what is expected each day.  In our house you don't get paid for chores.  You do your chores as part of our family to help our home stay nice and clean.  Also, no one can go play with friends (or hang out if your older than 11 yrs old lol) until after 10am and not until your chores are done.  If they dink around all morning and then their friend shows up at the door ready to play....sorry kiddo...not until your chores are done!

With 5 kids all trying to get chores done and me also trying to get my stuff done is another reason I love the charts.  I need the charts!  There is no way I can remember all of their stuff! If they say their chores are done I usually respond with: "okay, bring me your clipboard."  I run down their list of chores and ask if each thing has been done.  Lots of times there are a few things "forgotten" that need to be completed.

I have also found that most kids need structure and routines.  Summertime is the hardest because they go from the structure of school to nothing unless you provide it for them.  These chores take most my kids about an hour to complete.  That is just a drop in the bucket of a beautiful summer day!

Organization makes me happy!

bedtime routine...

Here is our family bedtime routine:

• "Wind Down" time. This involves getting into their jammies, brushing their teeth and then lying down watching a movie, or a kid show. This isn't a time to run around or be silly...it is a time to let your body slow down!
• if they haven't brushed their teeth we do it after wind down time.
• We read scriptures as a family. At this point it is only a few verses each night.
• We say a family prayer
• Then hugs and kisses and into bed.
• Our kids sleep in 2 different rooms so the Mr. and I take turns putting either the boys to bed or our daughter. Each of us has something we do with the kids once they are in bed. Sometimes we read books or sing songs.
• Next it is lights out, door closed, and time for bed.

Now just because we go through our routine doesn't mean that we have kids that all stay in their beds and go right to sleep...we do battle some nights! But I would rather fight the bed time battle earlier than later in the evening!

early to bed...

I am a FIRM believer in early bed times for kids. This wasn't a decision that I made...it just sort of happened. When my first baby was born I tried to pay attention to his natural sleep rhythm. I noticed after a few months that he got cranky and tired at around the same time each night. As the months went by he got cranky and ready for bed earlier and earlier. By 7 or 8 months old he was going to bed at 7pm and sleeping until 6am. Well...after 5 kids I can say that he was a really good sleeper to be sleeping through the night so early, but even with my babies that haven't slept through the night until much later they have all been ready for bed around 7pm.

I have heard many people say, "My kids just aren't ready for bed that early..." Well...I bet they would be if your bed time routine started earlier. During the fall and winter months where it is dark earlier we start our bedtime routine around 6:30pm. This helps them wind down at the end of the day. Their bodies start to slow down and the natural result is that they are sleepy and ready for bed. If your family is busy busy busy until later in the evening they will naturally be up longer. Sometimes starting our routine so early can be hard when my husband doesn't get home from work until 5:45 or 6pm.

Babies and kids need almost 12-14 hours of sleep each night. Especially once they start school.

Another reason that I LOVE the early bed time is that my husband and I then have a few hours at a decent time of night to spent together before we go to bed. I cherish this even more now that we have 5 little ones. We need time to connect and still get to bed at a decent hour ourselves.

keeping track of time...

Staying on time... I bought 3 generic egg timers at Wal-Mart and put each kids name on them. What does this do to help me stay "organized" you might ask...Well...in my house each kid has a zillion things that I need to keep timed! Like 20 minutes of reading, or 20 minutes of piano practice, or time out, or quiet time in the afternoons. I find it totally over whelming when my kids yell..."Mom how many more minutes do I have?" "I don't know!!" I found myself saying back. They would each start at different times, but close enough to each other that I would get confused as to who started when...Now they each have a timer to help keep track of all of the "minutes" of work they have to do.

Simple and easy, yet SO helpful!

summer schedule...

I just love summer! I love the warmth and sun. I love the popsicles and trips to the pool. I love it all! What I don't love is thinking of ways to keep my kids happy and busy the whole time! We have the rule that you can't play with friends until 10 am, but my kids get up so blasted early that 10am seems so far away! Last year I added some school work and chores to our summer morning routine, and it worked SO well that I am totally doing it again...and I thought I would share...

I found some awesome notebooks for the kids that look a lot like the papers that my boys were bringing home from school.



It has a place for them to write a few sentences and then draw a picture above. I got them at Target. I also picked up a few Math books. So here is a run down of our new schedule:

8:30am-Breakfast
9am-Write in journal or do 1 math page
9:15ish-20 minutes of reading
9:45ish-do chore

Chores with my kids has been hard for me to implement. I don't know why...I grew up doing chores, but coming up with age appropriate chores has been hard. Last summer I started the whole chore thing...it has worked great and once they were into the routine it wasn't hard to keep it going through the school year too! Here is what they do: my 8 year old cleans the kids bathroom and my 7 year old cleans the 1/2 bath down stairs. By clean I mean wipe down the counter and mirror and take out the garbage every day. On Saturdays, however, they will do the Saturday version of the chore by not only cleaning the counter and mirror and taking out the garbage, but cleaning the toilet and sweeping the floor too! Even before we started my boys were saying,"What about Bailey?" (my 5 year old) ...In her journal I have her come up with a sentence and I will write it for her and then she will draw a picture to go along with it. For reading time I will read to her instead and her chore will be to help keep the loft clean.

I have learned that more structure to our mornings helps with the boredom that seems to always set in an hour after they wake up!!

About 2 years ago I got a great idea from a neighbor of mine. We were talking about having things to do during the summer to keep our kids entertained. She said that she made of list of fun things to do and fun places to go. In the fun jar you place things that you could do everyday like eating Popsicles, playing in the backyard pool, going to a park, having a picnic lunch etc... the kids get to draw out a slip everyday. Then in the adventure jar you put places to go and you do once a week. We draw ours on Sunday and then plan a day that week that our adventure can take place! These are places like the zoo, the city pool, children's museum, planetarium, aquarium, splash park, having a sprinkler party with friends, getting ice cream from Arctic Circle etc... My kids had fun putting the lists together and then I just printed them out and cut them up. I got the jars at Walmart and used a rub on alphabet to put the titles on the jars. My kid love it and I can't wait to pull them out and do them again this year!

bedroom clock...

I have 5 kids...they all pretty much sleep though the night now. There is always the occasional bad dream or illness that disrupts this pattern, but they do sleep through the night.

Throw in a little daylight savings time change and my kids have been getting up at the crack of dawn. NO.... they get up at the cracks crack of dawn!

So this morning I thought to myself, "Time to pull out the clock again!" A few years ago when we were having a problem with the kiddlets getting out of bed to early I made this clock. At the time my two boys couldn't read a face clock too well so I used color and a little fun sticker to help them out.

Supplies:

• clock
• fun sticker
• colored pencils
• ruler
  

I bought a really cheap clock at Wal-Mart for $3. It has a plastic cover on the front that pops off. I took a ruler and drew out lines from the center to the hours that I wanted. In my case it was 5, 7 and 8! I colored red in between 5 and 7 to show them the times that were unacceptable to be out of bed. Then I colored green in between 7 and 8 to show them when it was okay to get out of bed. Place the sticker on the hour hand.

If the frog was in the red it was time to get back into bed. If it was in the green then they could get out of bed without awaking a crazy momma bear!

This worked wonders! If they started to wander out of bed I would ask, "Is the frog in the red or green?" Pretty soon they didn't even peek out of their room because they got the hang of reading the clock on their own. (we also set their clock about 10 minutes slower...hahaha...mean I know!)