The Small Person started back to school on Wednesday, and as I look out of the living room window, I see that the good old English weather has joined us now that I have the school bus stop wait to perform morning and afternoon again. Luckily my Grandad comes to sit with the Smaller Person so we don't have to take him out in bad weather.
Next Tuesday, we'll be back at toddler group, so Toddler Group Tuesday will be returning to the blog.
I had one very quick crafty make on Monday, the last day we were all at home. The Small Person is a bit of dreamer, and we have a few problems because of that. She forgets to do things that she has to do every day, things like close the baby gate and switch off lights. Other things, she does, but with ALOT of prompting and reminders, things like getting dressed in the morning and again at night, washing and then brushing your teeth and taking her dirty plates and things over to the sink. She also gets over excited easily which can lead to her forgetting her manners.
So I have made her a reward chart and notice board.
I used:
- 2 A4 clip frames (on offer 2 for £1 from Wilkinsons)
- some scrapbook paper (already had)
- some glue
- scissors
- black fineliner
- a pack of dry wipe pens (80p for 4 from Wilkinsons)
- a hardcover notebook
- star stickers (we already had loads left over from her birthday party).
The first A4 clip frame was turned into the notice board.
I cut a piece of scrapbook paper to A4 size. I used the fineliner to write her name in large letters at the bottom (ladscape orientation, but you could do it portrait too). I also cut 2 animals out of a second sheet of scrapbook paper and glued them as embellishments either side of her name. I finished by creating a dashed line border all the way around and putting it back in the frame.
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| Just write with the dry wipe markers.... |
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| ...The wipe clean. |
The second A4 clip frame became the reward chart.
Mr Bogert and I sat down and thought of a list of things we would like her to try hard to remember to do each day without prompting. I took some white paper and I cut it so that there would be a generous border around the edge when I fixed it into the frame. I lightly drew some lines with a pencil so that I had a straight edge to write on, then I wrote the items on our list, numbering each one. At the right hand side I drew a tick box. This was all inked in with the fineliner. I also drew 2 larger boxes at the bottom of the paper: one for a "star target" and the other for the "reward". The whole sheet was glued to a second matching piece of scrapbook paper also cut to A4 size, and another dashed line border was added around the edge of the white paper.
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| Her first goal is 10 stars, and the reward is for a friend to come over to our house to play. |
Now each day she is trying hard with all the items on her list. If she achieves one of the goals for that day, she gets a green tick, if she doesn't, she gets a red cross (using the dry wipe pens on the glass front of the frame). If she manages to get 7 ticks or more, she collects a star sticker for that day which we put in the little hardcover notebook. If she manages to get green ticks in ALL of the boxes, she collects 2 star stickers for the day. She can clearly see what it is she's supposed to do each day and learn to remind herself, and the bottom boxes remind her how many stars she is trying to collect and what she will get when she collects enough, so it keeps the goal in mind all the time and reminds her that her efforts will be worth it.
The notice board is being used to give her messages and let her know what day we're on (she still a bit vague with which days are which and what takes place on those days). For instance, on Tuesday her notice board read:
"Today is Tuesday. You go back to school tomorrow. You got 7 green ticks yesterday so you earned 1 star."
Then we just wipe them both clean ready for the next day!
I hope it helps her. It seems to be going well so far, although you can see we haven't had a great start today...
Today the Smaller Person actually brought his crayon pack to me, which I took to mean he wanted to use them, so I said "sit down then" and he took himself over to the little table, tried to sit in the little seat (but needed help, and then he actually sat there quietly for about 3/4 minutes examining the crayons and scribbling the best he could. This is an achievement. He doesn't do sitting and drawing/craft. In fact, any parent of a 15 month old will tell you, this is a rare moment to be truly treasured! and 3/4 minutes doesn't sound like a long time, but in toddler time, that equates to around an hour of adult time!
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| Making a masterpiece. |
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| Amazing scribbles (alright, the circle is mine!). |
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| Then he took to wandering around with them... |
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| ...then, as all things are eventually categorised, became food. |
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| His next adventure was to escape Mummy in the kitchen. |
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| Then he added to the many finger prints and smears with his little smoosh face :) |
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