DIY Reward Chart

 

In addition to finding a need for a chore chart for Emily, I also that she was ready for a reward chart. I wasn't quite sure how I wanted to go about doing this...so off to Pinterest I went. I found an amazing post from, "Life Sprinkled With Glitter" on a great reward system that I followed with just a couple of adjustments to match our chore chart. The post goes into great detail on how this works, but I'll just give you a brief summary. Basically, Emily starts each day with all of her "coins" (on our chart they are princesses) no matter how many "coins" were lost the day before, you start fresh each and every day. When Emily displays poor choices/behavior she has to give me a princess. I let her choose which princess she wants to give me (at the age of three she already has her favorites that are always the last to go...one word...Cinderella). When she makes good choices she can earn a "coin" back. The goal is to have ALL of her princesses by the end of the day. If she has all of them, then she earns a sticker. If she doesn't have all seven princesses then she doesn't get a sticker. Once she earns 10 stickers then we can go to the store and she can pick out a $10 toy. NOW, if she is really having an off day and happens to lose all of her coins before the end of the day then she can not earn her coins back. She will have to wait until the next day to get her princesses back. 

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DIY Chore Chart

Now that I am staying home full time, the need for these charts quickly presented itself. I'll begin with the chore chart. Honestly, this chart is more for me than it is for Emily. There are so many things that Emily can now do on her own but I kept doing them for her out of habit. I'm simply going through the house grabbing things as I go and constantly picking up...which is doing Emily a disservice. For example, Emily is absolutely capable of taking her dirty dishes to the sink all by herself. She is able to pick up all of her toys when she is done playing with them. She can get dressed and (for the most part) she can brush her teeth all by herself. These are all things that I was doing for her because I just get in that mindset of "do...do...do", I want to clean up, put things away, get her dressed and ready, etc.

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Preschool At Home

Emily's Preschool Board/Center

Now that I am a stay at home mom now, I wanted to try and provide Emily with some sort of a preschool education a few days a week. Since I teach middle school, I really have no clue as to what is appropriate for my 3 year old to learn...so Pinterest to the rescue. 

In the corner of our dining room, we already had an IKEA table set up where Emily does her art: playdo, finger painting, coloring, etc. The thing I love about this table is the drop leaf. It is easy to extend when Emily works on her art, and easy to close up when she's done. 

I decided to spice the corner up a little bit so that it could evolve into her little school corner. I added two drawer sets from Michaels to organize her art supplies, school supplies, writing aids, etc. I found the perfect link to great preschool board, along with free printables at, "A Day In The Life of a Classroom Teacher". It's no secret that I like things to look pretty, so I immediately fell in love with her preschool board and I was on cloud 9 when I saw she included free printables for the days of the week and the months of the year. I already had a classroom calendar, and I found the counting straws piece at JoAnn Fabrics. 

The board quickly came to together. I laminated the free printables, cut them out and used puffy stickers to attach them to the board...to give it a little fun dimension. On the bottom left side, I attached flash cards that can rotate as we learn them: Letters, Numbers, and Colors. I also found a set of cards that focuses on 3-Letter words, which is what you see at the far bottom of the board. The fourth set of cards (that you don't see on the board yet, but I plan on putting them below the calendar portion) focuses on sequencing. They are sets of three cards with pictures on them and Emily has to figure out the correct sequence that they are supposed to go in. For example, a set of cards would have a picture of a girl planting seeds, then watering the seeds, and then watching the flowers grow.

So far, Emily LOVES playing school. I found some great songs to help her learn the days of the week and the months of the year from: ABCTV123. Emily learned the days of the week super fast and she won't stop singing the song...even late in the night when she is in bed alone. (Craig and I randomly hear her singing this song from our video monitor. It's hilarious).

Days of the Week Song

Months of the Year Song

Now, just because Emily can sing the days of the week, does not mean she knows what any of it means. At her bedtime, we always talk about all of the things that we did "today" and she talks about things from previous days..."No, Emily...we did that yesterday." "Emily, we didn't do that today." So there are three labels on the board for the days of the week: "Yesterday was", "Today is", and "Tomorrow will be". It is finally starting to make sense to her. To attach the labels, and be able to move them each day, I stuck them to the front of cloth pins. It works perfectly.

 I found some personal white boards for Emily to practice her letters and numbers. Right now, she starts off trying to trace my letters and write her own, but after about 30 seconds (if that) it turns into writing a ton of circles. A new product that I just found are the new crayola white board crayons. I started with her using white board markers, but that just turned into a disaster with her pushing way too hard, but these crayons are great. They even have a crayon sharpener on the back of the box! PERFECT!!

It is so fun watching her learn. She loves going over the board, singing our new songs, and practicing her writing.

Emily's A Pro!!!

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Craft Room Closet

FINALLY...my traveling craft room has found a permanent home. Ever since we moved into this house...my craft room has moved to multiple locations. Before Emily was here, I started to set up shop in one of the bedrooms on the main floor. I found a desk on Craigslist and purchased a number of organizing boxes from Michaels and then waited patiently for Craig to hang up my shelves so that I could place my pretty IKEA boxes on them. The shelves didn't get hung until a number of years later...which was my excuse for not "crafting". For the most part, I did all of my crafting at my mom's house. She has the craft room of all craft rooms set up in, what used to be my own bedroom.

Now, as my craft room began piling up "stuff" on it...I began to try and convince Craig to let me turn the front closet into my "new" craft room. My reasoning was because we would eventually need to move Emily into the room where my crafts currently resided...in hopes that we would still need to use our nursery for another child (fingers crossed...lots of prayers). This convincing was not easy to do. Because I didn't really use my current craft room, Craig didn't see why I needed a craft room at all. He didn't want to go through all of the work of painting and hanging shelves again after he had already done it in the previous room and I did nothing with it. So...after some sweet and loving "husband and wife" discussion, we finally came to a mutual agreement. I would paint the room and move all of my crafts myself, and Craig agreed to hang shelves for me...once again.

So, this last summer, I did my part of the agreement and Craig attempted his part, however, it isn't very easy to hang shelves on walls made of plaster and lathe. After several attempts, and many holes in the wall, the progress came to a stop and my walls were bare.

Fast forward four months. This last weekend, Craig and I started talking about Christmas lists and what we wanted to buy for others and what we wanted on our own lists. I was "kidding" around (kind of...but not really), and I said that I wanted shelves to be hung in my craft room. I don't know what got into Craig, but he made it his mission that very weekend to get shelves hung for me...and POOF...shelves were hung, and I couldn't wait to organize my crafts and find a that perfect spot for everything.

So, without further adieu...here is  my new craft room.