Morning Routine!

So the bus situation has still not been fixed and I'm kind of over it. Thankfully the kids don't seem to mind riding on it in the morning for 25 minutes....in the afternoon they hated it so at least that got fixed. As for the safety issue it's not my kids and I can only do so much....the transportation department will just have to deal with it if some kid ends up getting hit by a car. I am going to try one last ditch effort of emailing the lady in charge to see if I get any sort of response. After that it's just out of my hands as I can't deal with the stress and the frustration anymore. 

Now that the bus leaves at 7:32 the kids have to just get a move on in the morning. I wake them up at 6:45 to start their day. This school thing isn't a new thing they have been doing it for years now, but the whole having to rush thing is new. In order to keep them on track in the morning I thought a picture chart was in order. 

I had remembered my friend Starr had made something similar, but she used magnets to hold up the flaps. I tried that since I had some magnet sheets handy, but they just weren't strong enough to go through two layers of cardstock. Enter the Mill Creek Garage sales and I found a brand new package of sticky velcro for $1!!! Yahoo! 

I found all the images on Google....I just typed in clip art toothbrush or lunch or breakfast and up came a ton of pictures. I copied them onto a word document, re-sized them and then printed them in color at the library for free. 

All the kids have the same clip art pictures except for the first picture for getting dressed and the thumbs up kid when you complete your task. 

At first I was just going to put a check mark on the outside, but then I saw a picture of a boy with his thumbs up and I thought that was more appropriate since that's something the kids use a lot at school when they agree with something or someone has done a good job. 

So far this has helped the kids to stay on task and know what they need to be doing. I also added in an incentive if they finish their chart by 7:20...5 minutes before we leave...they can add an extra piece of candy to their lunch. So far Jack and Owen have been able to make that happen, but my sweet Ella Beanie is such a slow poke!!! I guess that candy just isn't motivation enough!