While visiting with my best friend Priscilla, she mentioned she was thinking of creating a "chore chart" of sorts for her four year old son. Instead of chores, however, it would be more of a "routine" chart. For example, all of the steps needed to get ready for bed, such as brushing teeth, putting on pajamas, etc. Her idea was to take a cork board and use push pins that could be moved from one side of the board to the other to signify that her son had completed a task. Because he is four, all the tasks would be represented by pictures of him performing the task. Once he completed, say, brushing his teeth, he could move the pushpin from one side of the board to another, and visually see what else he still needed to complete.
My five year old munchkin and I have been having some head-butting lately over the simplest tasks. Actually, I just find myself repeating things over and over, such as "put your clothes in the laundry!" or "put your shoes on and get ready to go out the door!" So I told my friend I was stealing her idea. With school starting this week, now seemed like a good time to create the task board.
I used a $2.50 magnetic dry-erase board from Target, drew lines with sharpies, and created my own magnets using some "award" stickers and those cheap, freebie magnets you get in the mail and at every convention, etc. I used the same magnets to create the photo displays, since I will be using a morning set and a bedtime set. I took pictures of my son performing the tasks, from eating breakfast to finding his stuffed bear and water cup before bed (trust me, this is definitely a task every night!). He can move the magnet from the "in" box to the "out" box when the task is complete. He is so excited to try it for the first time tonight, and so am I.
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