Once you have determined that you do need the structure for your student that Independent Work Lists provide for your school, there are many questions to answer and decisions to make. And these decisions will be different according to ages.

Here are some tips for using Independent Work Lists With Elementary Children:

1. Either make it on a chart that the child uses wipe and write markers and mount it
somewhere–or make it in Excel (or your favorite record keeping program) and place it
on a thin clip boards.

Trust me: loose papers never make it back to mom at the end of the day. (Spoken from true
experiences–plural–you would think I would have learned this the first time or two! )

2. Put things in the order of importance on the chart–in the order that you want them
done.

3. And/or put things in sections.

I used to have mine in order and sections–the first so many items needed done before the child
met with Mom or before the child had a morning snack or before lunch chores, or whatever.

Never underestimate the value of teaching children time management, prioritizing, etc. via
these daily checklists.

4. For things that you are uncertain of/change-ables, put time or generic wording, such as
“30 minutes of uninterrupted CQLA work” or “All Meaningful Composition assignments
from previous meeting with Mom,” etc.

5. Be sure to include drill work, silent reading, etc.–all the extras that you want him to do
each day.

(I even put the things that they would often do as I read aloud on this list in the section marked
“During Read-Aloud”–such as coloring in educational coloring book, penmanship page, building
something with Legos, etc.)

6. Be sure there is a time in which it is turned in each day.

If your child’s independent list is on a clip board, he can simply put the clip board on your desk
at the end of the day–all checked off and ready for the next day.

7. The Independent Work Checklist is, in part, to help keep the child moving as you are working with other kids, walking your college kids through a difficulty on the phone, or helping Grandma with something.

In other words, you want to teach your student to get up and start on the list
right away–and to go back to the list any time he is not meeting with you or doing chores, etc. (I
even put things like “Read to Jonathan for 15 minutes” and “30 minutes of morning devotional
book and journaling” on the list–everything the child does (outside of chores) was listed on this
chart.

I would love to answer questions about these daily charts. Leave your questions below—or email me, and I will get you some answers!

LINKS

For a downloadable product with a dozen charts to use with various ages, check the store here!

Video: Independent Work Lists

Audio: Independent Work Lists

Audio: Using Your Planner to Get More Done

Audio: Overcoming Parenting Obstacles

Video: Using Consequence Pies

The post How to Use Independent Work Lists for Elementary Children appeared first on Character Ink.

In teaching children to become diligent workers, there is much training involved. However, there comes a point in the teaching of each new task where a job becomes that child’s job. The child has been taught, and he is ready to take the diligence to the next level—responsibility.

Throughout the chore-training process, there are times in which intense training is needed to ensure that the child knows how to do the tasks that are going to be assigned. This involves a lot of working with Mom or Dad. Their modeling, instruction, patience, and encouragement will go a long way in teaching the child to complete the task fully.

So when is time to let the child go solo? How much time is too much working together? What jobs are good for the child alone, and what jobs are best done together with parents and/or older siblings?

These are tough questions, but I will leave you with these thoughts on the matter:

a. Any job that is above the child’s small or large motor skills should never be assigned as an independent job. It might look cute that an eight-year-old can trim the hedges, but it is unwise. Never give a child a job that is above his skill level, decision-making level, wisdom level, or physical capabilities.

b. A job that is too dangerous or too difficult can still be done with the parent. This is how all internships and job training later in life will take place. The parent trims the hedges, and the child gathers the droppings and bags them. During this process, the child watches the parent work safely with dangerous equipment. He watches the parent make decisions about how far to pull the cord on an electric trimmer or how deeply to cut the branches. All of these insights will help the child in the future.

c. Do all training in increments. Never assume that simply showing the child how to load the dishwasher as full as possible without over-loading makes the skill learned. Let the child watch you on the job as you explain it. Then work together on it.

d. Continue working together on jobs that are discouraging to the child. Kids can get overwhelmed with too large of messes. Stacks of dishes can be disheartening for a little dish doer. Five fold up loads instead of the normal two in one day might just seem like more of the same to us—but to a child, the mountain can feel insurmountable. These are instances in which jumping in teaches the child many additional skills—prioritizing large work loads, organization, thoroughness, and more. It also encourages the child not to give up—and that you have his back.

e. Daily jobs are good jobs to teach and then give to kids. They are repetitive. The opportunities to get better and better at them are plenty. They are predictable. The child starts to know just how long certain jobs take. They become second nature to the child. Dishes, daily laundry, trash, picking up, wiping down bathrooms, sweeping, and other daily tasks can be put into the daily chore schedule and completed without much effort when the work is divided among family members, and each child is fully equipped to complete their jobs.

f. Be sure to always work together on new tasks. This includes seasonal things and other jobs that the child might not have opportunity to do often enough to get really good at them. Gardening, yard work, spring cleaning, freezer cooking, monthly cleaning and organizing tasks are all good “work together” jobs. We did these on what we called our “big work days.” Everybody knew what that meant (and at the end of the day, we did fun family activities together!).

g. Never give a child jobs with harmful chemicals (or again, dangerous tools). Use a spray bottle with dish soap and water to teach young children to spray and wipe down surfaces. Start a child’s potato and apple peeling instruction with children’s safety knives. Another nice thing about starting with daily work for kids’ assignments is that they often just involve regular things that are less dangerous—dish soap, laundry soap, broom, spray bottle and cleaning rags, toilet brush (often no cleaner is needed for daily toilet maintenance), etc.

Balance the jobs you do together and the ones that are assigned. Always be teaching and training. And work together as a family to help build family unity. Chores are the foundation for diligence, resourcefulness, responsibility, thoroughness, and more later in life! Balance of independent work vs. working with you.

The post Children & Chores: Creating A Balance of Independent Work Vs. Working With You appeared first on Character Ink.

This post is a continuation of the “Age Appropriate Chores Series”. You can read previous posts by clicking here.

Speaking of a sense of accomplishment and pride, we found it much more effective to actually give a child a certain chore, certain area, a certain jurisdiction rather than passing out chores each day, using a job jar, etc. What I mean by this is that we taught a child to do a chore completely, and that naturally became that child’s job.

So when a child learned to unload the dishwasher, unloading the dishwasher became their job. It wasn’t something he helped with. It wasn’t something he did on occasion. It wasn’t something that he did if Mom wasn’t there to do it. It became his.

This doesn’t mean you do not change jobs and pass them out differently after a while. It simply means for whatever period of time you designated this task, whether it is washing, drying, folding, and putting away a load of laundry every day or unloading the dishwasher and setting the table for dinner every day, it is yours.

As your children grow in age and developmentally, you teach them more and more skills, and they are able to add more and more chore. I can remember my children anticipating each new season as they got to move up into “harder” chores—and their “lesser” chore moved down to a younger one. It was a rite of passage to move up into laundry and out of dishes or into assistant chef for dinner and out of laundry. When it comes to chores, keep in mind the biblical admonitions that “to whom much is given, much is expected” and “to add a little at a time, precept upon precept.”

As an aside to this point, I can remember when our youngest was about seven or eight, and he learned laundry. It was so excited to move up to a bigger chore—and relished the thought that his dish days might soon be behind him. When the day came for him to take over two loads of fold up laundry from start to finish each day, he wanted to know who was going to take his dishwasher unloading and reloading twice a day.

When we explained that nobody was—he was keeping that and adding the fold up laundry, his little face was priceless. “You mean there’s nobody taking my dishes now?”

I told him that Daddy did dishes every day for the past twenty-five years, and he was much pretty doomed to dishes for fifty or sixty years if he was a good husband some day!

Of course, in addition to building skills and character in your children, this is a real boost to the family. Imagine, if you are not currently operating in this protocol of chores, that you have four children, ages six, eight, ten, and twelve. And tomorrow morning when you get up, and you are doing phonics and oral reading with your six-year-old, that day’s laundry, dishes, trash, and breakfast preparations are all being done – completely, thoroughly, and consistently. What freedom this provides for a busy mother! And what family unity it builds when the family works together in this way.

Then, breakfast is over, and when you have a language arts meeting with the two older children, the eight-year-old and six year-old children clean the kitchen, load the dishwasher and run it, wipe the kitchen down, and sweep the floor. All that happened because the appropriate training took place, and chore sessions were implemented.

I really feel that giving full responsibility of certain chores to children is paramount in helping children become independent workers and responsible. It is easy to do something when you are asked to do it, but it is character building and life-skill-giving to be responsible for something solely.

*For a complete list of all ages and appropriate chores (including Working With Someone Else lists), see our Age-Appropriate Chores Poster Pack.

The post Chores: “Give” Kids Entire Responsibility When Possible appeared first on Character Ink.

Donna Reish, author of fifty language arts and writing books and the Raising Kids With Character seminar and blog, brings you this “chore” episode of Wondering Wednesday. This week Donna answers readers’ questions about age-appropriate chores. Donna introduces some keys to teaching children chores at all ages, including the importance of a set chore time, thorough training, and the difference between working with the child vs. the child working independently. Then she delves into various age groups and what are appropriate expectations for each one—with thorough, consistent training and follow up.

Download the podcast notes here.

Listen to previous podcasts here.

The post Podcast: Age Appropriate Chores appeared first on Character Ink.

My world has changed so much in the past few years, but especially in the past two years. I went from homeschooling mom to full time self-employed mom.

I have worked at least half time for fifteen years. We put in the super (and I mean super) hard work of doing practically nothing but parenting for fifteen years. Then I was able to start writing curriculum for one publisher, speaking, etc., some while we finished homeschooling/raising our seven children. (Squeezed it in here and there like all working homeschooling mamas do!)

But the past two years (including this, my last official year of homeschooling), I only had one in school—and he was either taught by his brother, sister, or dad or taking college classes. (This year it is all college classes except for Geometry on his own.)

But that isn’t all that has changed. With full time working, my to do list has drastically changed as well. So weird. So different. Some days I just say out loud (over and over), “My life is weird.”

It was somewhat of a seamless change since I had been writing, speaking, etc., part time for over a dozen years, but occasionally, I will look around and realize just how different my life is now. It is fun (most of the time!). But I still long for the days of six kids in school…seriously….long for those days.

Back to my to do list. We always had what we “affectionately” called BIG WORK DAYS. They were days (often Saturdays) that we would set aside for a household project that everybody would work on—planting garden, harvesting produce, mega cooking, garage cleaning. Things we all do all the time.

But now my BIG WORK DAYS are based on my writing, speaking, and curriculum projects. And it sometimes isn’t quite so clear as to what do to first, which things to put off til the next work time, etc.

For these reasons, I go back to my block scheduling that I used with homeschooling. (I never did the 8:15-8:45 math approach. I broke the day into blocks of time (early morning, late morning, noon hours, early afternoon, late afternoon, dinner hours, evening), and I planned what would go into each block.)

It also works for any big work day that you might be having (school-related or work-related). Here is how I set mine up.

When I get a *big* work day (as in nobody needs anything; non teaching day; just get to work), I like to divide my day into blocks (based on how much time I have–two hour blocks, three hours blocks, etc.).

1. Decide on the number of different blocks I am going to have (three four-hour ones for a twelve hour; four three-hour ones for a twelve; three three-hour ones for a nine, etc.) based on the number of areas I want to work in. Today I chose four three-hour blocks: (1) Blog posts/blog in general; (2) Podcasts/podcast handouts; (3) Meaningful Composition re-writes/new lessons; (4) Recipe sorting and typing for the blog (of recipes I have been trying and tweaking.

2. Make my “sure would love to get all of this done” list for each block. (It can be totally nutso, unrealistic, etc., at this point…which mine always is!).

3. Place an A, B, or C before each task. A means I really want to do this/need to do this today, and I will do these things first. B is I would like to, but A’s come first. C’s will go on another work day’s list! 🙂  (See my article “As Easy As ABC’s, 123, Do-Re-Mi.”)

4. Set timer for first block of work time. (Three hours for me today.) And start on the A’s from that block’s list.

5. When timer goes off, give myself five to ten minutes to wrap up and move on to the next block. (I will transfer undone things to my other lists later…otherwise I get bogged down in list making rather than doing.)

That’s it!

How do you handle big work days? Or even work periods…to be the most efficient/effective? I would love some tips! )

The post Using a Block Time Approach to Big Work Days appeared first on Character Ink.

Listen to the podcast here.

I get asked a lot about getting kids on board. Helping them not to see chores as a means to an end (i.e. do chores, get computer time) but rather as something that builds the family up, that we do because we are unified in our love for our family, etc.

GOALS

1. Spread housework and other tasks around so that they are shared work, not “mom’s.”
2. Have children see that working at home is not something they “have” to do but rather something that we do for our family—so that we can succeed in our family goals.
3. Teach children to “see a need and meet it.” Maximum efforts and help rather than minimal needed to get by.
4. Teach children to take full responsibility for tasks—not just when asked or not just partial responsibility.
5. Have a working family who gets things done so that we can all pursue our other things—and so that we have more time together.

General Starting Point Tips

1. Change your vocabulary. Unless you are a full time homemaker with no small children, no outside job at all, and no children at home to homeschool (in which case you would be the unheard of full-time homemaker, and you probably should do the bulk of the housework since that is your “job”), the work at home is not yours. It is everybody’s.

a. Not Mom’s work
b. Not adult work
c. Not paid work (more on that later)

2. Consider how much household help the adults/parents will do and how much needs to be done by children (for completion sake, not necessarily for character training sake).

3. Have a plan before presenting it to children. (More later in post…) 

Older Kids/Kids Not Used to Much Work Around Home Right Now

1. Apologize!

a. If you have let them down by not emphasizing family unity through working together.
b. If you have let them down by not expecting anything of them, thus, not character training in diligence, responsibility, thoroughness, etc.
c. If you have let them down by not preparing them for their future (both skill-wise and character training-wise)

2. Brainstorm with them—what do they think is appropriate work for teens with jobs, homeschooling, sports, etc.? How would they like to divide work?

3. Have a tentative plan in place (don’t go into family meeting unprepared!).

a. Start with personal spaces—that each person, without pay or reward, is responsible for their own spaces and belongings.
b. Move to daily, regular, measurable, must-be-done to function on a day-by-day basis type of chores.
c. Plan for time to work together

i. Finding joy in working together
ii. Work times that are convenient for everybody
iii. Harder projects together (teaching opportunities, skill building, etc.)

4. Appeal to them in love

a. New Living Translation: “But because of our love, I prefer simply to ask you.”
b. New American Standard Version: “Yet for love’s sake I rather appeal to you.”
c. King James: “Yet for love’s sake I rather beseech thee,”

5. It might be a little late for them to see the full benefit of this new approach (and see their work as part of a great family thing). If that is the case, for their character training and your sanity, put SOMETHING in place, get unified as parents, implement a visible plan, and do it anyway.

Younger Kids (the Younger, the Better)

1. Start out with a family mentality—we have the best family, our family works together, we love to help and support each other

2. Start out with a positive mentality about work

a. Work gets things done
b. Getting work done gives us more time together and more time for other things
c. Working hard is a good trait to have; it is sought after; praise hard work

3. Start out with the concept that work at home is everybody’s work—we all dirty the dishes, we all soil the clothes, we all eat the food: While Mom and Dad are in charge, we all need to do our part to to keep the home running.

4. Have work sessions together with the reward at the end of the family doing something fun together

5. Model how fast something can be done

6. Show them the math on how “many hands make light the work”

7. Have daily work spread out and show how it helps the entire family function

8. Expectation Explanations—CLEAR—chore chart, etc.

9. Talk about/approach chores from a family unity standpoint and not from a “must do” or “nagging” view

10. Make everybody’s work a part of your life just like their grooming, etc.

11. Make work fun—museum trips, ice cream….reward family work with family things

12. Help children see that they are gaining skills—praise their skill building and diligence

13. Bible/character training—diligence, responsibility, resourcefulness, thoroughness, etc.:
a. Great family devo/character training site (also good for Sunday school, children’s church, etc.) 
b. Twenty-four character qualities with their definitions, verses to study, Bible characters who demonstrated it, animals, etc., to use for family character studies…click here.

14. Praise for skill building and character in work

15. Home improvement, kitchen, and cleaning purchases as a family when appropriate

16. Time management

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Click here to download the printable handout.

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