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Thursday Quick Tip

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I am joining Marcy at Ben and Me today to share a Quick Tip on this Thursday.


I have already posted about the Grumble-Meter, but I thought it was awesome enough to deserve it's own post.

Eli is a grumbler. It really doesn't matter what you announce that you are getting ready to do, good or bad. His initial response is a grumble. That makes for a LOOOOOONG homeschooling day! I knew that I did NOT want to listen to that all day every day.

Eli also does not respond well to losing privileges. That means, it really just doesn't affect him. But he THRIVES on EARNING things!

So that's where the idea of the Grumble-Meter and award system came into play.


The Grumble-Meter is a fancy contraption made from half of a paper plate colored in green, yellow, orange and red. It has a black construction paper arrow attached with a brad. I am currently selling these for $50. Just kidding!

It is attached with an ever-so-fancy clothespin to a sketch pad sitting on an easel. Each week (or every two weeks), I come up with a reward the kids can earn by NOT grumbling! The week you see in the pictures is CIRCUS. This week's is FORTS (we are going to go to a really cool fairy house and fort exhibit next weekend).

Each time Eli one of them grumbles, the arrow moves up. As long as it doesn't get into red, they earn a letter for that day. If they grumble more than two times, it goes into red and no letter is earned. Earning those letters is VERY important! (In fact, the week that the reward was the circus, they didn't even end up wanting to go to the circus. They chose to get ice cream at Dairy Queen and play on the school playground instead. See, it's all about earning the daily letters.)

As I sit here and look at the Grumble-Meter, I realize that it hasn't been moved off green in over a week. If Eli starts to grumble, Brynne says, "Eeeeeli!", and he stops.

This has been an amazing tool. I haven't copyrighted the idea yet, so go ahead and steal it! And have a happy, non-grumbling day!
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Comments

  1. EddieSeptember 13, 2012 at 1:51 PM

    Brilliant!

    Nicole, it's great to see you around again - you were so quiet the last little while!

    ReplyDelete

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