Gearing up for Summer

This Summer I am not pregnant nor do I have a newborn so I am at 100%. This means we are not watching TV all day all summer long. I came up with a plan using a few different ideas I had seen here and there and combining them to make something that would work for our family. First I cut out colored paper and stenciled the letters M T on to each piece then laminated them. These our Media Tickets. They can be used to buy time on anything that uses a screen. Each kid got 5 of them and they are each worth 30 minutes. They can use them when they like (although mom and dad can say no) they each get a half hour a day Monday - Friday if they use them evenly. Of course, they can play or watch on their brothers tickets so they could average out an hour and half each day. (Although they may be watching wonder pets with the three year old)


They can lose media tickets for bad behavior but they can also earn bonus time for outstanding behavior. Bonus time gives them 10 minutes for each one earned.


Their tickets go in their bucket and when they want to use them they just transfer to Mom and Dad's bucket.


When the tickets run out or you need to conserve tickets you will need to find something else to do. If you can't think of anything we have a plan for that. We sat down with the boys and came up with almost 60 ideas of things they can do on their own at our house. So when they are struck with the "B" word, they draw three activities from the play jar and choose to do one. If they don't like those ideas we have a back up plan!





Yay!! If you really really can't find something to do you get to draw from the chore bucket. I have found that after a chore one usually gets distracted or quickly finds something else to do lest he gets another chore.


We came up with 20 chores that all take less than 5 minutes and generally could be done everyday or several times a day at our home.


We are into day 4 of this and it has been awesome! Of course, the boys used all their media tickets by the end of day 2 but I assume they will be more careful with their tickets next week. They have found lots if other things to do and everyone seems happier too.