routines

This has been a long week. After 5 weeks of strep throat reoccurring in our house we finally put the whole family on antibiotics and am thankful for what seems to be wellness! Needless to say my boys have been watching WAY too many cartoons this winter. Being a former teacher I asked myself why I din't have more structure built into our days with predictable routines??? Why was I letting our days fall to the "mommy I'm bored...mommy what can I do"...demise? I snapped out of my laziness and finally created a routine chart for the little guys. I always said I'd do that when they got older and recently realised they ARE older! Where has time gone? With this management system there is no reason to be bored or wonder what's coming next. We used it for the first time today, and let me say that they LOVED it! Especially my 4 year old N. He craves structure and the ability to be in control of his day. He took the routine chart in his hands with full force and was so engaged and pleasant all day. With his reward stickers in hand he literally walked around telling me what he just accomplished and what he was going to do next. Here's the chart I created for our mornings.

and one for the afternoon. (Two stickers denote that Little L also did the routine along with his big brother)I slid these back-to-back in a 3-ring binder plastic sleeve. The chart is attached to the refridgerator with a magnet. The stickers will be peeled off at the end of each week and ready to begin a new week. I wonder if N's enthusiasm will diminish? Will he be just as excited next week as he was this week? Little L was just his happy- go- lucky self, pleased as pie to be doing whatever his big brother thought was so much fun! I also found out at the end of the day that while I was busy helping N with his routines Little L had a blast sticking reward stickers all over my kitchen chairs! Email me if you'd like the charts for your own personalization. I'm still new to this and am trying to figure out how .pdf links are done on Blogger??? Anyone, anyone??? :-)