Good Girl Jars

I read about the Good Good Jars on a favorite blog of mine and thought what a great way to teach the girls....through incentives.

I carefully chose the tasks that I would like each girl to work on and ordered the labels through their Etsy store.  I then went to Hobby Lobby and got stones, pompoms, jingle bells, etc (actually rewards themselves as the girls love playing with little objects).  Grace's tasks are staying in bed all night, brushing her teeth (by her own initiative), eating a well balanced dinner (not finishing a piece of pizza), showing kindness towards her sister, thumbs up (something above and beyond), and chores.  Claire's are the same except she is too small for chores so hers is her potty training instead.

We haven't exactly focused on the end reward of filling up the jar because I want to focus on the tasks and not the rewards.  And like I said, the girls love seeing the jewels and pompoms filling their jars.  However, after seeing a light-up unicorn pillow pet on TV, Grace has been bugging me for one.  This is now her reward for filling her jar. 

The things Grace will do to earn a pompom or stone is actually pretty funny.  One morning she comes out of her room, already dressed (thumbs up), with her bed made (chore) while brushing her teeth.  This made my life so much easier - I just had to feed her!

She sometimes takes things up a notch.  One evening after her bath, she jetted off and was busily working in her bathroom.  I went to check on her and discovered this!

These baby washcloths were thrown in here!  Now the whole drawer is perfectly organized!

Certainly worthy of a yellow pompom!

 

 The other thing that Grace did recently that had Steve and I scratching our heads, was put together a US map without the form behind it??  

Good girl!!

FIrst Day of School 2012

I'd love for this post to contain a great story about how wonderful the first day of school was for the girls and show pictures of them smiling beautifully for the camera.  Not so much.  Perfection when you are dealing with a 2 year old with a mind of her own is hard to come by.

Since the girls started school, I usually embroider them shirts with an apple or crayon on it.  I thought I would do something different this year and get a screen printed shirt with an apple on it from a vendor on Etsy.  For the first time in over 4 years of buying from there, I did not receive the items.  And I didn't have time to do anything else.

So the night before the first day, we carefully chose the first day of school clothes.  Nothing fancy because Mondays are their physical education days, but something nice and NOT STAINED WITH PAINT.   Claire woke up happy but things went south when I was brushing her hair.  She hates this and screams like I am ripping her head off.  During her tantrum, she ended up knocking over her smoothie that fell and splattered everywhere.  So we go to get dressed and she throws her clothes she was supposed to wear across the room.  I asked her to find something else and she pulls out her school tshirt that was Grace's school shirt 3 years ago.  Not only has it been worn over 3 years, but Claire got paint on it that I could not get out.  So I tried hiding it and this didn't work.  Tears all around.  Steve got involved and eventually got her to wear what we had laid out.  Then comes the shoes....and socks.  I just let her choose these, I was done with the battles.  She wanted socks like Grace had on but only one was to be found (of course).  Then she didn't like the way the socks felt and the shoes.  I was done.  Grace and I went to load up and Claire comes out crying pulling on her dress saying she wants to take it off.  I just swept her up and put her in the carseat and left.

So no great first day of school pics this year.  I am sure I'll be reminded of this over the course of the next few weeks as friends start posting pics on facebook of their kids.

Guess what Claire is wearing today?  The 3 year old shirt with paint stains.  Yes, I pick my battles.

Catch Up Post Part 3

This last month of summer has flown by.  The girls start school on Monday and are excited to be in class together.  Their Montessori class is ages 3-6.  Grace is starting her 3rd year in this specific class so can help Claire along.

Claire has spent a few hours in the class the last 3 days and has been so happy.  She is struggling with putting on her shoes independently but will soon catch up.

Her school sent me this of her working on her first day of orientation

 

Last day of orientation and all smiles in her new light-up kicks.

The girls have had nonstop fun the last month of summer.  Grace attended an art and music camp that was a huge hit.

Meanwhile, Claire was having fun with her class at summer camp.

This summer, the girls have spent tons of cruising around the lake in their truck,

Have spent lots of time at the beach and pool

Have spent lots of time with cousins

And spent some time just hanging around.

We look forward to a great school year and more fun times next summer!