The Task Chart

You asked me to elaborate on chores.  The task chart is simply a way to keep track of our pegs.  Every day, certain things are accomplished upon waking, after breakfast, after lunch, before sports, after dinner and before bed.  I've taken this somewhat cumbersome, way-too-expensive chart I bought (and an additional one a friend bought and discarded) and adapted it to suit our needs. I liberally used a very fine Sharpie to remake the disks that came with the kit.  Alternatively, you could build your own board using screw hooks and keytags.

The children's names go down the left side. The timing pegs go across the top. There are rising habits, after breakfast tasks (not really chores, we're talking hygiene here), room zone chores, and table time. Table time gets one disk (for space economy) but there are several habits built into that block of time. Then there is lunch. There are after-lunch chores, and unit/nature time (again, one disk but many habits within a day and within a week). Then there are "get ready" tasks--when we get ready for whatever afternoon activities lie ahead and clean up any messes of the day. Before launching into the afternoon whirlwind, there is tea time and then we disperse to varied activities. When we all come back, dinner is the peg.  After dinner, we need to do clean-up chores and to prepare for the next day.  And there is the bedtime routine. Each column holds what the children have to complete within a certain block. 

The Room Zone is FLYlady for their rooms.  Every day of the week has a bedroom-oriented different task assigned:  dresser tops, under beds, closets, etc.

The beauty of the peg system is that I can lay out what is planned and/or expected early in the morning and the chart becomes the objective tasmaster and the compass.  Children like to know what's next.  They like to know what's expected.  In every room, there is a laminated list of the tasks for that room, broken into steps.  For instance, on the refrigerator is a detailed list of what consititutes a clean kitchen, from "wipe the stove" to "throw all dirty rags in the hamper and turn off the lights." The children cover completed tasks with a green disk on the chore chart and we all can see at a glance what has been covered. The double edge is that I am held accountable as well.  Am I moving through the day or did I get sidelined by the computer?  Incidentally, the task chart is within easy sight of said computer.

The beauty of bucking the complicated reward/punishment system is that I can intervene with mercy and grace.  If something doesn't happen because something better happened or because someone struggled, I don't have weigh the "fairness" of a uniform punishment. ("I got a demerit yesterday and you're not giving him one today!")  There is such a wide variety of ages, abilities, and personalities in this house that I could go nuts parcelling out task-based, or even behavior-based punishments. Essentially, if your tasks aren't completed, you don't play.  We play after table time in the morning and after unit time in the afternoon and after tea time and often, well into the dusk after dinner (there aren't enough columns for all the play times and no one has trouble remembering). Since play is built in several times during the day (with soccer practice and ballet being the biggies in the afternoon), that's usually incentive enough to complete the work. Essentially. Usually.  We're a family, not a factory.

Frequently, someone will go above and beyond. They'll do more or they'll be especially cheerful.  I make an effort to note that with sincere appreciation and truly thoughtful praise. My kind words are more sincere and more fruitful in the long run, in my opinion, than a disk to be traded in for a treat. And if someone slacks off, it's easy to point out how he or she is integral to the plan and the whole family depends on his or her cheerful cooperation. The point of doing work isn't for the arbitrary reward/avoidance of punishment.  We work to serve each other.  We work because it's our duty and when everyone recognizes the necessity of fulfilling duties, it just plain makes sense to work.

Incidentally, we're working on a better picture.  The board is white and the disks are shiny so photography is proving a challenge for me.  I'll call in my 17-year-old resident expert today.

It has begun...

Even though I still feel rather like I'm in the first trimester, my growing belly and the handy dandy spinning wheel calendar are calling incessantly that "we're halfway there!"  My head is most certainly reminding me that it's time to feather my nest.  There is much to be accomplished and only twenty weeks left to do it, ten of which will be encumbered by a belly so large that I will only be able to point and beg that it be done.

So, we begin with the most physical tasks keeping me awake at night. 

• Our learning room needs to be ruthlessly purged and re-organized (again). 
• Our mudroom, which made a surprise appearance at Kitchen Comforts, must be tamed. 
• The craft room, which has somehow taken on the appearance of a dumping ground, must be restored to its former glory.
• Fifteen years of photos need to be scrapbooked (I'm beginning to resign myself to the fact that this is how I'll spend my golden years, but I keep putting it on the list).
• The freezer meals must be cooked and stored but first the freezer is to be defrosted in anticipation of a side of beef.
• The pantries must be stocked (why is it that I approach having a baby the same way I approach natural disasters: bottled water, batteries, fully stocked dry goods, plenty of books?).
• I need to make sure there is nothing under beds or couches.  Why?  I don't know; it just keeps me up at night.
• I've already enlisted my seven-year-old to wash walls and baseboards with me, a task which will be revisited several times before the stork comes.
• Window washing is another ongoing task.
• The spring gardens are nearly in, but fall bulbs must be purchased so that the children can plant during the babymoon.
• One of these weeks, I suppose we should clean out the garage.
• And then there is the fact that I had given up on ever being so blessed again:  I gave away all my baby things.

And on and on the list goes; I know that one key to a peaceful postpartum for me is to leave for the hospital with the house in very good order.  If the underpinnings of organization are in place, the rest will work much more smoothly.  I will share details as we go.

This time will have some unique challenges.  This baby is due days before his/her brother's eighteenth birthday.  This time, my biggest task is to pull together homeschooling transcripts/portfolios for college applications before September.  I don't want to be learning this new skill while sleep-deprived and nursing, so it must be nearly finished before I go into labor. That's where my computer time will go this summer.

That means it won't go into what I usually do before a baby comes:  lesson plan overdrive.  Usually, I write pages and pages of detailed plans to take us through the first few months.  And then we follow them, more or less (often less). It's been four years since the last baby, so I think I'll just recycle the old plans.  They are written for multiple levels and everyone can just move up a level. We'll study ancient Greece and then Colonial America with a heavy dose of fall nature study and nature books.  Yes, it's eclectic, but it's also proven and I'm looking for guaranteed successes this time around. This plan will make my dear husband very happy since that means there will be no pre-baby book buying binge. We have about nine linear feet of books on these topics. Some people buy layettes.  I buy living books. Many of them.

Since we are well-stocked in the living books department for the plans I will pursue, I'll just update the workbook stash, move the living books for the units I've chosen to the forefront, and see where that takes us.Of course, Catholic Mosaic is due to arrive in my mailbox in a couple of weeks.  I reserve the right to revise the plans and the budget.

But back to the household.  I've noticed during my can't-hold-my-head up stage, that this house doesn't really run very well without my direct involvement.  Could be a problem...

Before we hit the bullet points, I need to dust off and update the daily plan.  Yes indeed, it's time to re-establish the chore chart. 

The pegboard is from Family Tools, but I don't use it the way they intended.  I'm not into complicated reward/punishment systems.  We expect children to do chores cheerfully because that's how they serve God--just like we are expected to do our duties cheerfully and so fulfill the duties of our vocations. One of my duties is to clearly outline my expectations.  I've fallen short here in the last couple of years or so.  Slowly, I slipped into just doing it myself rather than requiring someone else to do it, teaching her to do it properly, and inspecting the job when finished.This became woefully apparent when I was out of commission.  We've begun an intensive training period in housekeeping.  Everyone needs the refresher course or they need to be taught for the first time. This is not your usual "curriculum."  But it is real. And it's oh-so-necessary, both now and later. My children will leave my home knowing everything they need to know to run their own homes. It will make their young adulthoods much more fruitful and harmonious. Their spouses will rise up and call me blessed.  At least that's the idea.

Praying for a Miracle

Please join us in praying for my friend Nicole, wife and mother of three young children, who really needs a miracle to live to raise them.

Don't miss...

Dawn's post on gardening books for children at Marigolds for Mama.  Lots of inspiration there--get out in the garden on these bright, beautiful days; stay inside and read about it on rainy spring days.

The Mary Month of May

There's been much hurrying and scurrying in the Catholic homeschooling blog world these days.  Under the tutelage of Alice in the Cottage, much crafting is happening to honor the Blessed Mother. The flurry of activity is amazing and much of it is being discussed on the 4Reallearning Boards .  There  is a Marian notebook project, a lively discussion of crafts, devotions, and gardens, some talk about the legends surrounding Mary's flowers, and a hunt for Marian images.

We're been off to a bit of a slow start here in our home (I've many ideas and not a whole lot of energy), so I was much relieved to read the following Mary Vitamin today, thanks to Helen at Castle of the Immaculate:

“The month of May, traditionally dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary, has just begun. From her, let us learn the Gospel simplicity of children who entrust themselves to their Mother. May Mary lead us to Christ in joy and in suffering, 'now, and at the hour of our death'. Amen!”--John Paul II, May 5. 1996

May 5th!  That's today! It is as if our dear Papa reached down, patted my head and said, "Take a deep breath, May is one of the long months.And it's just begun!"  Sigh.  A long month; we've plenty of time!

I couldn't find the small shelves Alice described, so we got one long shelf to create our Mary shelf. They cut up old Christmas cards and decoupaged the top of the shelf and then painted flowers on the face of it. On it, the children have hung rosaries and displayed the rosary books they've been working on. They collected all things Marian from around the house and made a small holy water font from Sculpey left over from our ornament project (photos of that to be posted some other day in this long month of May, after the ribbons are tied and I actually find a silk tree and many more images).

   

We enlivened the perpetual Mary altar with some new flowers and beneath it we placed a basket full of silk flowers.  One day very soon, we will make a salt dough wreath.  Then, the children will glue silk flowers on the wreath as they do good deeds. The wreath will be our centerpiece until Advent.  (Many thanks to Kim Fry for this idea.)

The Mary Garden is really taking shape.  Today, the girls planted Alyssum.  Mary Beth has posted some lovely pictures on our family's nature blog, Blossoms and Bees.  Dawn, of Marigolds for Mama, tells us that Alyssum is also known as "Blessed by Mary" or "Mary 's Little Cross."  They are such sweet flowers that I caved and broke my "no annuals" pledge.  We planted three flats of them!

It's a long month of celebration.  A month of glorious reflection on the young woman who said, "Yes!" to the will of God.  A month to draw ourselves closer to the Blessed Mother and--even as we bustle about our own households and we are the grownups who make things happen in our homes--to snuggle into the mantle of the Gentle Mother, inhale her sweetness, and be like little children safe in her arms.