They are allowed one warning because perfection is an impossible goal, but usually all I have to say is: “oh – I hope that isn’t a bad attitude I hear because you wouldn’t want to not get a star tonight!” and wa-la! All is calm again.
We also came up with some rewards if the girls meet their goals. My girls LOVE to sleep in the same room in their bunk beds. We stopped letting them do this on school nights because they can’t control themselves and they stay up WAY too late talking and playing. So during the school year sleeping in the same room is a weekend treat. Since it’s summer and the girls can stay up later and sleep in a bit I told them that if they get all of their stars each day, they can sleep in the same room that night. Works great because they have something that reinforces their good behavior instantly each night. If they get all of their stars for the whole week, they get to pick one of the other rewards we came up with together. Playdate with a friend, yogurt or cupcake (we love visiting two little shops for these fun treats), movie with popcorn (my girls watch movies all the time but if Kenny and I actually sit down and watch one with them and pop popcorn it’s suddenly a special treat), and dinner of choice (McDonald’s here we come). When I first made these charts one reward was a surprise at Target. DUMB idea. We were buying a new toy every weekend. Now I make sure the rewards are things that are easy to pull off. They are actually things we often do anyway – but it’s good for the kids to know they are special treats and not always just a given. Am I right or am I right? :)
The stars velcro on and my girls love putting on their own stars. They can’t wait to do it at the end of the day! Even though it took a little more time, I’m so glad I made a separate chart for each of my girls.
These charts have yet to let me down. Like with most things involving children, consistency is key! I’ve found that a little extra motivation can be a very powerful thing. :)
Anyone else doing something special to keep kiddos on track this summer? I’d love to hear about it!
p.s. You can see my original Star Behavior Chart post here (my girls look so little!). If you are in my current camp and have NO time to come up with a cute color coordinated system like this one, don’t fret! You can always re-create the three kids vs. two kids Star Behavior Charts I made after I had baby #3. Those worked like a charm as well. :)
And while we’re on the subject of having no time – do you love that we are over half way through June and I still have my Spring blog header up!? Nice. At this rate I might as well skip a Summer header and jump straight into Fall. Of course here in San Diego our seasons all feel the same anyway. Guess I’m not that behind afterall. ;)
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I LOVE the star chart idea. Kids love to be rewarded for good behavior.
I wait and count the days until summer gets her but it seems to fly by so fast.
I am looking forward to Christmas this year. I am throwing a Favorite things party that you posted about. I am looking forward to it. I plan ahead so I am trying to get things together in what little spare time I have. However, I don’t want to rush summer at all. It is my favorite season.
Enjoy your summer with the kids. :)
Those charts are so cute! How old are your girls again? I don’t know if my 10 year old boy would dig this. But maybe if the incentive is up his alley. (-: Also, I’m hoping that you will do a post about daily chores. I can think of big ones and they happily do them but daily ones are hard for me to think of. I think I’m too much of a control freak. But you wouldn’t know it by looking at my house. Thanks!
Hey, Erin!
Great idea! I actually was wondering if you did anything like this with potty training. We are getting ready to start potty training our son (he’s 2 and a half). Do you have any suggestions/recommendations? I have no idea where to start!
Hope you are enjoying summer!
Shannon in PA
Im going to make these charts. Where did you get the stars? And where did you get everything laminated? Thanks for a new quote, I collect helpful thought provoking quotes. You said, “perfection is an impossible goal”.
One of my favorite quotes is this:
Life is an opportunity, benefit from it.
Life is beauty, admire it.
Life is bliss, taste it.
Life is a dream, realize it.
Life is a challenge, meet it.
Life is a duty, complete it.
Life is a game, play it.
Life is a promise, fulfill it.
Life is sorrow, overcome it.
Life is a song, sing it.
Life is a struggle, accept it.
Life is a tragedy, confront it.
Life is an adventure, dare it.
Life is luck, make it.
Life is too precious, do not destroy it.
Life is life, fight for it.
-Mother Teresa
These charts are great, the former in teacher in me has a love affair with the laminator too!!
I recently made these charts for my kids
http://www.mommatotallyinlove.com/2012/05/new-reward-chart.html
But I think I might have to try out yours bc they are super pretty!!! Thanks once again Erin for inspiring me, I just love your blog! We are building a new house too and I cant wait to get into and use some of your organzing tips!
Jill @ Momma Totally in Love
Love your charts! I plan on making some of my own!! thank you for another great idea!! have a good day :)
I always have to pull somekind of daily checklist or something out each summer too otherwise I am constantly cleaning up or refereeing all the time!
Wow that’s a lot of therapy time. How does he last two hours?! Emery only has it 45 min every two weeks.
Thanks everyone! I’m so glad you like the charts. :)
Kristen – my girls are 6 & 8 (just finished Kindergarten and Second grade) and they are still totally into them. But I agree – it’s all about the incentive! I will write about my kids’ daily chores in the next Q & A! :)
Hi Shannon! I’ll also write what incentives I use for potty training in the next Q & A. I’m so NOT looking forward to potty training one more kiddo!
Anonymous – beautiful quote! Thank you for sharing it! I cut the stars out of a border I had from my teaching days and I bought it (and laminated the charts) at a teacher supply store in my area. I just love teacher supply stores! :)
Love your charts. My girls would love those. I was I was motivated to make them. For the past year we have been using the program at http://www.myjobcharts.com It is such a great site. So many great job ideas and you can make your own. My girls have so much fun being able to have their own sign in and marking off their jobs done. They also love it because you can send notes back and forth between each other. The points add up and then they choose how they are going to spend their points. It really works great for us.
Hi Erin,
I am your recent follower though I have read ALL of your post…..( I stayed up way late at night just to read your blogs:)) finally got time to write a comment. I know bad:( you are an amazing mom and lovely wife, I must say! my son is 3 years old and daughter is 1. Hence they both can’t read now. any idea to make a chart similar to you? I want to include no fighting, listen to mom and dad, toy sharing. I want to make a chart only for my son…..any idea?
just ignore my grammatical mistake…my kids were fighting in my background
Hi Dina!
No worries – I know all about kids fighting in the background. :)
My suggestion is to make a similar chart to mine, but instead of words just use pictures. Look on-line for some images – things like toys, maybe a picture of an ear for “listening to mom and dad,” etc. Then your son can put a star or sticker or whatever it is next to the picture each night if he has done those things. One thing with really little kids – they need the reinforcement right away. So maybe if you see him sharing his toys have him put on his sticker right then and make a great big fuss over it. Addison was three when we started using these charts and I just read the goals to her, but I think pictures would work even better for that age.
Hope that helps! And thanks for your sweet comment about my blog. Made my day. :)
These are great! I think my son (and maybe even my little one) would respond really well to this. We use to have a reward system set up, but somehow we stopped using it! Thank you for the reminder. :)
I love this! I remember when you posted about it last year. I’m hoping I can get around to making a couple of these to use. My older one is almost 4 and definitely needs something like this along with regular chores. It’s just been hard to find time to figure out what they are!!! With baby #3 on its’ way, I need to get this done!!! ~gina
Lovely chart! Two of my three kids have autism and we have a whole LOT of therapy going on at our house, often times two different programs at the same time. So my one without autism has the very tough job of trying to stay out of what seems like the “party zone” (to her!) except when she is needed to do sibling peer play or something like that. I am wondering if something like this would work for her just for that purpose. Thanks for the idea!!!
Your girls are so lucky to have such an awesome mom! You are great to do this, such a wonderful idea!
I love those! Certainly an idea I am putting in my back pocket for when my little ones are slightly older.
Hope you are having a good week Erin!
I love these charts!! I’m stopping at Staples on my way home to make these tonight. My oldest son is 3 and we’re having a tough time with him this summer. Today was a RED day at “school”, so I’m thinking a star chart might help get him back on track. :) We do a lot of fun things all the time…and like you said, I think he needs to realize that these aren’t just a given. These are definitely treats. Thanks!!
I love this idea! How did it exactly work? Did the kids have to get ALL stars every day in the week to get the reward? If so, what do you did you do if they didn’t on say Tuesday? Is the rest of the week shot or did you implement some way to earn them back?
How do you laminate such a large piece of paper? I’m going to make this for my boys, six and three, so I want it to last a long while. Thanks.
Thanks everyone!
LeAnn – Sorry I just saw your comment! I think I gave my girls one pass (if they missed a star one day that was ok and they would still get a reward).
I took the charts to a teacher supply store and paid to have them laminated. (Not expensive at all!)
I am totally in love with the stars you have on your charts. Would you mind sharing where you got them? All the stars I can find make the chart look so messy and ugly!
Thanks Chelsea! You know – I actually cut those out of a border for a bulletin board I had while I was teaching school! If you go into a teacher store or on a teacher website I’m sure you can find something similar. Look at the bulletin board borders and see if you can find one with stars. :) xo
Thank you so much! I will go look on some teacher websites!
Erin I think it is the sweetest thing ever that they “can’t control themselves” when they sleep in the same room-what an adorable relationship they have together! I can see them in 10 years and beyond staying up all night to talk-by that time it will be their own fault if they are exhausted the next day! Love the charts!
I love this idea! Thank you sooooooo much for sharing, Erin!
So happy you like it KMai! xo
My seven year old keeps getting in trouble at school. He is extremely kind, caring and thoughtful for his age. His main problems in first grade, over the last month or so, have been interrupting, speaking loudly and out of turn, standing in a chair in the middle of class while supposed to be doing an assignment (that was the hardest to hear about), and just over all wanting to be goofy and the “class clown.” I am looking for an incentive/reward chart during the school year. My ex-husband and I have been grounding him lately, A LOT! It is totally not working and I have read that rewarding him for good behavior is much more successful than the whole grounding deal. I want him to be disciplined for bad behavior but feel that focusing on the good behavior in a fun way makes more sense and just works much better than constantly taking everything away from him. If you could give me any ideas as far as making something similar to what you have done that is age appropriate and relates somehow to his behavior at school as well as at home, this would be very much appreciated. I need all the help I can get and you seem to be extremely creative, smart and just an over all amazing mother. Thank you so much.
Sincerely,
Brianna
Hi Brianna! So sorry I’m just now seeing this! I’m also so sorry to hear that you have been having problems with your son. It sounds like he just wants attention so I would do exactly what you are thinking and really focus on the positive things he does. A star chart like this would be perfect! Let him decide on the reward. Something fun he wants to do, etc. Then I would just change the tabs to specific things he needs to work on. For example: raising your hand during class, listening to the teacher, etc. You could talk to his teacher about it and she could e-mail you at the end of each day to let you know if he earned his stars for the day or not. (She could also help you come up with specific things he needs to work on.) When he does earn a star make it a BIG deal. Jump up and down.. lots of positive praise and attention. Hopefully he’ll see that he gets more attention (and the right kind) when he listens and follows directions. Hang in there and I hope this helps! xo
These charts are fantastic. I have a 4 and 5 year old both girls. I will be making these this week. Thank you for the inspiring idea!!!!!
So happy to hear that Misty! I made these charts so many years ago (my girls are 13 and 11 now!) but they still remember and love them! :) xo
Thank you!
Chore Charts is really work.
Great list! It’s so true that we need to implement responsibility into our children early on.
I am a single mother with three children all of them of preschool age so I know how important keeping organised. The eldest child I raised with a variety of printable charts. The stars chore chart works best. Printable cards and magnets are constantly lost. Now I use the Manini app for three children. These are the same printable cards but in the phone. In the app, you can mark the completion of tasks and children like it very much. And the app has a goal Board that lists all chores and self-care for kids under the age of 5. We mark together with the children the tasks that have already been mastered. Also they actually ask for tasks themselves to make a mark the task. I felt much better. And I’m not nervous and it’s easy for children to become independent. And I have time to take self-care.