Peace in the home.

I hate to nag, but I seem to do it a lot.  Lately, a ton of the nagging was about after dinner chores.  The children have had the same chores after meals for months, but seemed to always "forget" something or do a poor job even after being reminded over and over again.  I thought of Homeschooling with a Meek and Quiet Spirit and how Teri Maxwell talks about finding solutions to things that steal your peace.  This is my solution!!  After each meal, the children are responsible for doing their chores and marking off the box with a dry erase marker.  If they fail to do the job or mark it off after it's been done, they have to sit for 10 minutes that evening before playing.  I can't believe how much faster our chores get done after meals now!  And the best part is that I'm not chasing down kids nagging them.  AND...I made this chart for free with printer paper, a sharpie and contact paper :) 

Here's a couple of pictures of a fun activity the girls and I did this week.  I got the idea from the Imagination Tree Blog.  Because we already had a ton of foam it was a free activity!  I cut out lots of different shapes and pictures from the foam and the girls "painted" water onto the back of them and stuck them to the windows.  Thea made a really neat beach theme and had me cut her out a surf board.  Mareea made a cat and was quite serious about getting all her shapes up in a row.  The sun made taking pictures hard, but you can kind of get the idea from these. 

Poor Giddy had to be put in the kitchen to put his shapes up on the side of the stove.  His sisters did not appreciate his attempts at redecorating their shape pictures.  He worked at getting the water on them for a few minutes, then dumped the water out and had a great time playing in it.