About Me

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Indiana, United States
Updates on our homeschooling family with ten children, a handful of chickens, a couple horses, three bunnies, and six cats. Visit our website at PeacefulHome.net

Friends

Grocery Spending

Food Only

Oct 2010 - $231.39


Nov 2010 - $998.22


Dec 2010 - $340.29


Jan 2011 - $855.15


Feb 2011 - $203.17



Mar 2011 - $916.52



Monthly Average $590.79


Weekly Average $137.85
Our family's website, PeacefulHome.net, is in the process of changing hosting companies and is currently inactive. Our plan is to move this blog over once construction is complete. Please stay tuned for updates!

Wednesday, September 1, 2010

WFMW - "Sweet" Motivation

My use of M&Ms as a training tool is well-known, perhaps approaching legendary :-). Here are some more “sweet” ideas to motivate children to accomplish some of YOUR organizational and cleaning objectives!

In getting ready for school, I challenged the children to a “Battle of the Trash.” I gave the boys and girls each a big trash bag and told them to fill it with stuff from their rooms and closets. I think in the end, combined, they filled 5.

I got out my spring scale and weighed the results – boys vs. girls. The end result was 62 pounds of trash left my home. The girl team won and they were each rewarded with a mini candy bar. The boys received a few M&Ms as a conciliation prize (I just can’t get away from those M&Ms).

For two weeks I announced that we would be having school bin inspections at an undisclosed time. The objective was to remove anything from their totes that were not directly needed to accomplish schoolwork. Those that heeded my words received (in their now impeccable bins) a mini candy bar. I also threw in a few silly bands because I’m the coolest mom ever! They were as surprised and delighted as Christmas to wake one morning and see the treats.

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