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Thursday, February 10, 2011

DING! Time's Up!

Hello again!  I am having a hard time finding time to blog.  If I have the time, I don't have the energy or I have a headache (which I probably will be making a trip to the dr soon for those).  But anyway, I WANT to blog and I WANT to share, so I'm going to try even harder to make the time to blog.  So, onto the post for today...

I want to share with you how the timer helps us.  When my kids were toddlers and they would need to pick their toys up, I would tell them that I was going to count to 10 or 20 and see how many toys they could put away.  I would sometimes challenge them to beat me.  For some reason, this always motivated them.  It was a fun way to get the job done.

Even now, everyday, we have chores that must be completed so we now set the timer. (Counting to 10 or 20 just won't work anymore.)  Sometimes, I will set it for 5 minutes and we will work together getting some things accomplished in one room.  Sometimes, 15 minutes is what is needed, depending on the room and the job.  I have charts for afternoon chores and the timer is set for 30 minutes.  For some reason, this still motivates my kids and myself.  I don't want chores to drag on forever and neither do they, so they look at that timer and know it will be accomplished before they hear the "ding".

I do the same thing for our homeschool.  I don't do this for every subject.  I don't time our Bible lessons or any of the subjects we all do together.  The main subject I time is MATH.  One of my children does not like Math, not because they aren't capable.  She just looks at 2 pages and gets discouraged and says, "I will never get this done!"  If I set the timer for 30 minutes, she has a goal then and she knows she can be finished in 30 minutes.  If not, she has to finish during her free time.  Yes, that's motivation!

Are your chores or homeschool days dragging, set that timer and see if it will help!  It works for us!  Thankful I can share with you!

Kristen

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