Chore Tree

Come to my house any time and you'll find mess everywhere... mostly toys and possibly some craft of mine, and generally me telling someone to do something in a not so nice voice, which I really don't like doing. I have said for weeks now that I am tired of repeating myself and getting worked up over it so decided to make a chore chart... well, tree, in our case. Like most little ones, my kids love hands on visual aids for anything I am trying to teach them so what better than a tree to hang their daily chores on and save my yelling voice. I found my tree at my local scrapbook shop, but I'm sure there are others out there, and you could make your own type of chore tree with cardboard if needed I was lazy and also have been eyeing this tree for some time as I love the design so this was simply an excuse to have it in my home :). I got the kids involved by letting them paint the tree and talking about what we would use it for. Mr6 then helped me think up some daily chore "apples" and we were off :). It took a while to complete but I swear it was worth every second! Tonight there was no yelling and instead I had two super willing children ready to co-operate and go turn over their "apples"...  ALL "apples" have to be "eaten" at the end of the day to be rewarded.... rewards come in EXTRA flowers remember their behaviour charts? which equal extra money at the end of the week. Red apples are Miss 3's, green apples are Mr 6's.

it was my tree so I inked the edges on it ok :)

with our chore apples hung on (they hang on little hooks)

some "eaten" apples (other side of apple)

ABC's

Today I bought a laminator (don't know why it's taken me so long!) and made some quick homework pages for my kids. I am always printing them off and really, I hate to say it, but we WASTE alot of paper in this house!! So with the laminator today we made our alphabet pages, using the QLD Beginners Handwriting Font which I purchased a couple of years ago before Mr6 started school. It's around $10 to download, but I thought it was money well spent, as I have got endless use out of it. Just print, laminate and grab some whiteboard markers (medium point are best I find) and you have re-useable homework sheets :) Great for Miss3 as she is still practising her name and numbers and I plan on making a mini book to pop in my handbag to keep her busy during appointment and long drives :) and of course for her to learn

Before laminating, I marked the 'start' points for Miss3, as she sometimes get confused.

VERY proud of herself :)

Hair Clips

I really need to find some thing to make for boys huh?! BUT girls hair things are just so easy :) I have a thing for ribbon, but these laces were so cheap and I liked the bright colours and patterns so thought I'd test them out... I liked the funky end result.

my shoelace find :)

make a loop and glue ends together (or sew)

make a smaller loop

press in the centre and glue down to make "bows"

glue the smaller one on top of the larger one

wrap a piece around the centre and glue to create a finished bow

glue to the top of your clip

done :)

find a doll to model it on because Miss3 won't cooperate!!