Summer 2013 Recap

I feel somewhat remiss at the idea of posting recap of something that is not fully over yet, but I've been thinking about what went right (and wrong) this summer, and wanting to write it down so that I can build on it in future summers.

I was so nervous about this summer, last school year Duncan was in school from 8:30 - 11:30 and Jefferson was in school from 9:00 - 3:30. So it was just me and Karl in the morning (and he still napped in the morning), then Duncan joined us for lunch, and I only had all three from 3:30 to bedtime. I have to admit this was a very nice schedule, but even then I had a hard time keeping up with the housework all the time, and once Jefferson got home he was so hungry for my attention, and it was really hard to get anything done. So I was terrified to think what would happen when I had all three home all day, and knew I needed a plan and schedule to make it through.

Thanks to good ideas from friends and several different mom blogs, I put together a combination of ideas that I hoped would work for us. It ended up being a bit over-complicated, and I will definitely try and simplify things next summer, but here is the basis of what we've done.

The first week of summer we made little magnet boards with each boys daily tasks:

Duncan decided to re-apply his name, so it has a little extra personality :). Now this part is really way too complicated (so complicated I'm really embarrassed to even type it out...), but here it is. If you can see, there are 3 different styles of borders on the different magnets. So when the boys woke up they were supposed to do the group that had "Make Bed" "Get Dressed" and "Put Pajamas Away" before they came to breakfast. If they did those 3 things, they would get 2 technology tickets at breakfast, which could later be traded in for 30 minutes of technology time or saved and traded in for quarters at the end of the week. I just cut blue cardstock with their initials on it into a ticket shape, and then made some extra red ones for when I wanted to give extra for a reward or just needed them engaged for a while or something.

The next grouping is "Brush Teeth" "Read Scriptures" "Chore 1" "Chore 2""Summer Journal" and "FlyLady Challenge". Chore 1 and 2 change each day, they come to me and I tell them what they are for the day. Next year I think I will make a chart and rotate or something so I'm not always trying to come up with things on the spot. Ones they have ended up doing a lot are unload the dishwasher (Jeff does the main part and Duncan does the silverware tray), wash doorknobs and light switches, sweep the front porch, and help switch a load of laundry. Right before I was making these I saw that FlyLady had a daily challenge for kids, so I threw that on there, but I'm not sure I'll use it again. There is a lot of repeat, and some times it was too much, but I guess overall it's been good, so I don't know, the jury is still out on that one. Anyway, each time they complete something in that grouping they get 25 cents, so they can potentially earn $1.50 a day.

The last grouping is the purple border ones, they are "Piano" "Reading" "Room Time" and "Math". We didn't really have anything set up as an incentive for finishing those, but after a couple weeks Grant suggested doing a red technology ticket that can't be turned in for money, so if they finish everything on their chart, they get one of those. They have been wanting to save all their blue daily technology tickets to trade them in for quarters, so that has worked out for this summer, although that usually only happens once a week or so...

At the beginning of the summer we went to the Lego store, and they both chose a set they really wanted, and that is what they are saving up for. At first I was keeping track of what they were earning daily on paper, and then at the end of the week I would transfer the amount they had earned to a new sheet, but that was not very motivating or visual for the boys, so Grant had the idea of giving them actual quarters, and made this money chart for them to color in, and then we went and got a couple rolls of quarters and made money jars, and that has been much better.

You can see the chart is pretty crumpled and well loved, the boys love taking it down and counting how much they have earned and how much they have left. Each day after they have done one of their chores that earn money I give them a quarter and they put it in their jar, and then at the end of the week they turn in the quarters in their jar and we color how they earned in on the chart and we start over again. I will say I *slightly* overestimated how much they would earn each week, with all the guests and trips and everything we've had going on, more days then not they don't get everything done, so I'm not sure we are going to earn these sets by the end of summer... I'm trying to figure out what to do about that! 

The last thing we did is make a Summer Bucket List while Megan was here (Megan made it for me, I wish I could take credit for how cute it is)

The first week of summer we brainstormed a lot of ideas for things we thought would be fun to do at some point during the summer, then put them all on here. We are not going to finish all of them, but it has been fun to have a place to go for ideas when we need something to do. One thing I haven't figured out, I would like it low enough that the boys could look at it more and get ideas, but then Karl grabs it and takes it apart. So right now it's hung up really high so Karl can't reach it, but it also means the boys aren't looking at it all the time. 

Another thing I did at the beginning of the summer was print off blank calendars for June, July and August, and wrote in different free or inexpensive activities that I found that were happening in the area (like dollar movies and free museum days and such), and then I could look ahead and plan for those things when we wanted to. I didn't have a good place to keep those calendars, and I keep loosing them, so next summer I need to make a place for them and so they are more useful. 

I think that is pretty much all of it... I will say that while I have NOT been able to keep up with the house work this summer, overall the summer has been a lot of fun, and gone really well, and I am really grateful for good ideas from other moms that have helped me create a little more order and sanity in our home this summer!