The other day I shared my command board with you. Well at least what we used during the last school year. Now that summer is here its time for a change. Since I will be having a baby a little after this next year school starts, I decided we would take 7 weeks for a summer break then we will start back to school. Which is a few weeks earlier than the girls friends and the public school, but I figure that I will have to slow down when the baby comes. So we will start early and hopefully not be to far behind at the end of the year. I want to take the time to enjoy and learn about our new family member and for us to enjoy our time together with her. The newborn stage goes by so fast. Sorry I am rambling on, ok back to summer.
So here is a link back to my old Command Center, just in case you missed it.
I didn't change to much in the way of design just in the function. Here is an overview.
Now the break down of each one.
1 Is my pretty part, again not to much has changed.
2 and 3
These are our summer plans. In the first frame I have our summer morning routine. This includes breakfast, chores, (I talked about my view on chores here) and daily reading(which happens everyday, more on that in a little bit). The other frame lists our themes for each day of the week.
I decided to do light stuff on Monday, Wednesday and Friday so that we can do a little bit of learning. This is primarily a review of what they have learned during the year through worksheets and games. I just want to keep their brains engaged so they don't dump what they have learned. On Tuesday and Thursday are our big days, we do all day events here, after their morning routines are done of course.
So I did the days themes this way:
Monday-Make it Monday, we do a new craft or sometimes mom sneaks in science projects, messy ones of course.
Tuesday-Take a trip Tuesday, since we are in Japan and most places are crowded on weekends this works out great. I have also found that most Japanese amusement parks offer discounts during the week.
Wednesday- Water Wednesday, we do some sort of water play this day. Some times its a trip to the pool, or just playing outside with squirt guns and water balloons. Lately its been water crafts or art crafts involving water. We are in the rainy season here so outside play is not always possible.
Thursday- Thankful Thursday, on this day we bake something special to give to a friend with a little note thanking them for being our friend. Savannah wants to do a bake sale to raise money for the food shelter, and this gives us an opportunity to see what we can come up with to sell. Plus its good for the girls to learn their way around the kitchen.
Friday- Friend Friday, this is when we either go hang out with some of our friends like on a play date or we invite some friends over for some play time. It really depends on how mommy is feeling.
Saturday is our free day, just to hang out or do what ever we decide to do.
Most of my ideas that I have gotten are from Pinterest, you can check out my board and see what I have planned. I have a special board just for summer time.
Moving on, the next 2 board are the girls new "chore" chart.
4 and 5
As I have talked about before I don't pay them for normal everyday things, I expect them to do these because they are part of this household and we all work together. Besides this is stuff that needs to become second nature to them, like making their beds and brushing their teeth after breakfast, things like that. Now if they go above and beyond those and do
extra" chores then I am willing to pay.
Sundays are paydays in our house. After getting paid they are expected to divide it up into, their offering for church, some for their piggy banks, and the rest can go into their wallets for spending. This is something else that I want to become second nature to them. I did not have a chore chart for Sara but she likes to check things off as she does them like big sissy so I made her one and she loves it. More importantly she uses it everyday.
Let me explain a little more about what each one has on it. I pulled these off line and then edited them to fit our needs.
Big sister has the most responsibility, of course she is the oldest. I have listed the things that she needs to do everyday as a member of the family. Then she has "extras" that she can earn money for, when she does these extras and mom has approved her work. She can then mark how many she has done that day at the bottom of her chart so I know how much to pay on Sunday.
Lil sis has the same thing except she does not have extras yet. She learns/helps big sissy when sissy does her extra chores. She has her normal things that she needs to do like get dressed, make her bed, and brush her teeth. Then she can help big sis, of course learning how to do it along the way.
Lil sis only gets $3 a week, one for church, one for her piggy bank and one to save in her wallet. The requirement is she has to help and have the right attitude while she is helping in order to get paid.
I have found this to be a great lesson for both girls. Big sis learns how to teach and gently guide her lil sis along. Then lil sis by the end of the summer can take over big sissys chores and big sis can take on bigger chores so she can learn more about caring for a household. The ultimate goal of course is that by the time she is a teen these things will be second nature and she will be ready to run her own household. After college of course.
On to 6 and 7
6
Is just a magnetic, cork, white board that I use to pin notes and write messages on. Its kind of a catch all for all the "other" stuff.
7 Is our reading log.
I actually decided to do a chain instead of a log. That way it is a lil more visual. Every time that Savannah finishes a book she gets a chain. Sara gets a chain for every 30 minutes that she reads. Reading for her is looking through her books or listening to me or sissy read to her. We are doing this along with the summer reading program at our library on base. They get special prizes for each reading block they do or activity at the library. Between the two I think we will be reading a lot this summer. I have offered a ice cream party for when their chains reach the floor, which had both of them scrambling to get a book. Time will tell if they can earn it.
So now that we have gone through the summer command board I will tell you I already am working on changes for the start of school next year. I plan on completely redoing it so that it is more family usable. Since I will have a newborn around at that time it will be up to the rest of them to keep it up. This will include new chore charts for both girls, they will be more age appropriate fr this next year.
Plus I have had this design for a while so its time to change.
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