Wednesday, June 23, 2010

day 99 - summer rewards

it's hard to believe the boys have been home for 99 days. it has been everything i could have ever imagined and so much more. the summer has been the hardest part so far. i'm usually home with all 4 boys most of the day and it gets hard being in our small house 24 hours a day. at the beginning of the summer we instituted a "summer rewards" program. now, at first i really struggled with this because i don't think it's a good idea to reward kids for good behavior when they should be good anyways. well i realized that my situation is different. my kids are still learning what "good" behavior is and i need to help encourage them to make those good decisions. so we are just doing this for the summer.
i did lots of research on summer rewards and found the marble game was the best for us. i went to michael's and got 3 bags of marbles for about $1 a piece. each one a different color. i actually got our boy's colors: orange, blue, and green. this way they can't steal each others without someone knowing. each boy can earn up to 5 marbles a day. they earn marbles by doing something out-of-the-way good. for example helping clean without being asked, playing with little K while i cook dinner, reading with each other, and picking up the sticks and rocks in the yard. those are only a few examples.
sometimes the boys earn all 5 marbles and sometimes they don't earn any. marbles that have already been earned in previous days cannot be taken away but until the day is over the 5 marbles can be removed.

marbles can then be redeemed for various prizes. we didn't do any material prizes but more fun things to do. some of our boys spend their marbles every chance they get. but our oldest is saving up his marbles for one of the big prizes. here is a list of our prizes:

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