I’m often wondering why some mornings and afternoons feel so hectic when we’ve been in school for almost two months and have our routines in place. In the morning after breakfast it always seems like little glitches occur to throw us off schedule and make it hard to get out the door. In the afternoon, I find I’m still reinforcing where to put items like lunchboxes, water bottles, papers that come home, and homework that are extracted from the kids’ backpacks. I admit that it’s not a complete disaster. There are many things that we do right but it could feel more streamlined.
In order to recognize the positives in our home and not dwell on the negatives I set up jars using the Marble Jar app for each child. Marble Jar bridges education and fun by empowering families to meaningfully collaborate with their children. It breaks everyday tasks into small, achievable steps for families to track progress, instill confidence, and recognize a child’s accomplishment.
Parents work with their children to determine goals and a small reward for filling the jar. Each goal has a marble jar to which marbles are added every time the child practices a positive routine. Marbles are deposited into the jar every time the positive behavior occurs until the jar is full and the celebration is unlocked.
I love that I can set up separate jars for the tasks that Little Miss Techie and Captain Computer are working on at home and on the go. Since Marble Jar is portable, kids can get the instant gratification of adding a marble to the jar for positive behaviors that they are working on. I also like the ability to customize jars for each child, This is helpful because kids of different ages are often working on different goals.
While our morning and afternoon routines are familiar to the kids, I’d really like to stop nagging and recognize them for the things that they do well as they leave and come home from school.
Little Miss Techie, our second grader who is almost 8 years old, is great about organizing herself and her things in the morning before she goes to school. She never forgets her lunch or her library books on the day that they’re due but she will often come home and sit down to do her homework where it sits upon completion. Since second grade is working on increasing personal responsibility, I’d like her to work on making sure her homework gets put away after it is finished.
Captain Computer, our 5 year old kindergartner, isn’t new to the expected routines since they’re the same as preschool but today is the first day of homework. While his sister is working on her homework, I want to make sure that we are reading through his book club books that come home each day from reading group to ensure that his reading skills progress. Captain Computer also reports that on some days he doesn’t have a snack. Since he likes to pick out his own snack for the morning, I’m going to add that task to his morning routine so he’s never without.Will Marble Jar be helpful as we look to streamline parts of our day? I think it will be because the easy to use app and concept is simple to understand yet it serves as a way for us work together towards these goals.
This post is part of a Marble Jar sponsored post series.
This post is part of a Marble Jar sponsored post series.
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Original post by Tech Savvy Mama
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