My Latest Creation - Chore Chart

When I was shopping for back-to-school supplies in teacher catalogs, I kept running across hanging chore charts for kids. My favorite is the one from One Step Ahead, but here are some more options.

I thought this would be a fun idea for Katie Anne. She loves to help with chores like cleaning, unloading the dishwasher, putting away groceries, or helping with laundry. So, I thought it would be fun to get organized with this type of thing and set up a reward system as well.

Also, pooping in the potty is still very hit or miss (no pun intended). She's been 100% trained on peeing for months, but pooping is another story. She'll go for several days with no accidents, including at school, and we'll think we're totally in the clear ... and then go for several days where every poop means a complete clothing change. We've tried positive reinforcement for the desired outcome such as rewards like lollipops or extra playtime on her Dora video game ... negative reinforcements such as timeouts, spankings, making her wash out her panties, or Dora watching restriction ... emotional ploys like being "so sad and disappointed" when she poops in her panties ... basically ignoring the negative aspect of it and just saying "Oh, well -accidents happen!". No change in behavior - Pavlov's dogs she ain't. So, I thought the chore chart might serve as an additional potty training tool as well.

I didn't want to pay $29.95 plus shipping, so I thought I'd make the chore chart myself. I used posterboard, construction paper (which I diecut at the Teacher Resource Center), and sparkly pink paper from Hobby Lobby. I created the background for the chart, including three pockets to hold the rewards, stars, and chores.

I made up a bunch of chore cards (some which she can already do easily, like brushing her teeth or helping with laundry, and others we'd like to work towards, like making her bed or setting the table) and reward cards on Excel. I printed them out and laminated them at the TRC as well. Then, I used little Velcro dots that I found on sale for $1 a package at Big Lots to create the actual chart.

Estimated project cost:
Posterboard: $0.49
Construction Paper: free at TRC
Sparkly paper: $0.50 per sheet x 3 sheets = $1.50
Velcro dots: $1.00 x 3 packs = $3.00

Total: $4.99, plus tax

So, that's not too bad for a chore chart!
Here's the finished product!

(She hasn't really earned that many stars yet... I just wanted to show it with some stars on there.)

We put it to use this morning. I let Katie Anne pick the first four chores she wanted to work on...

Notice that pooping in the potty is not on her list. Sigh. Well, that's okay, because I want her to get the concept of the chart, and that probably will be easier to do if she's successful the first go round.

Every time she completes the "chore", she'll put one star in that row. Once she's earned five stars for that chore, she's done earning stars for that one and will have to concentrate on the others. Once she's filled the entire chart (20 stars), she can have her reward! (This isn't our original idea... at first, we just thought any time that she completed the chore, she'd get a star, and we wouldn't worry about rows. However, upon reflection, we realized that she could brush her teeth 20 times and fill the chart, easily circumventing the "poop in potty" card. So, we changed our idea to mean that you have to do each of the chores five times each to fill the chart.) We are not worrying about days of the week or anything. So, she should fill her "brush my teeth" row in 2.5 days, and then the others might take a little longer based on opportunity to do the chores and, of course, her willingness to do them.

She got her first star this morning for brushing her teeth. She was very excited to put the star on the chart herself! She's already thinking long and hard about what her first reward will be ... so far, she's alternating between going out for icecream or going to the playground.

Here's hoping that we get lots of chores done - and potty success - from our new chore chart!

Let's Get This Potty Started!

Hopefully, I bought my last box of these at Costco yesterday...

because we'll be buying these from now on!

Katie Anne officially started potty training last Monday, and it has gone very, very well. I didn't blog about it then because I wanted to give it a few days and see if she was ready. We tried over Spring Break, and I don't think either of us was ready then. She loved wearing the panties, and she went in the potty a lot. However, she didn't really seem to "get it" when the urge was coming on, and she had many accidents. I didn't do a very good job of taking her on any sort of schedule. Also, I wasn't willing to sit around all week long, taking her to the potty all the time. So, we tabled that little activity for the summer. Since then, she's periodically worn panties when she wanted to, and she has gone on her potty every night before bath time (and a few times at her request).

So, last Monday, we went gung-ho with wearing underwear. Mostly, she's wearing Gerber training panties... they're a little thicker, and absorb more in case of an accident, but they still feel like panties. But, when she wants to, she does wear the little princess ones she picked out.

She loves wearing underwear. So, she's kind of potty training herself... she hates to mess up her panties. Also, I'm having her clean up her own messes in the floor with paper towels (of course, I go behind her and redo), and that seems to drive the point home that I don't want pee in my floor. So far, she's only had three accidents in 10 days. Two were peeing accidents, but I think they served the purpose of helping her realize the "urge feeling" and also how to stop once she started. The second time, she stopped herself and said, "I need to go potty!" Then, she finished up in the potty - none even got in the floor that time. Both of these were last week. The third time, which was yesterday, she pooped in the panties. (One other "accident" I don't count... she said she needed to go pee in the potty, and I foolishly said, "One minute and we will." Yeah, right!)

She's also had one "accident" that wasn't an accident. She thought it would be funny on Monday of this week to pee on my rug, and she told me "Mommy, I so funny... I tee tee on your rug now!" She quickly found out how not funny that was.

So, the pooping has been the final frontier. I hadn't been doing any rewards, other than praise, for going in the potty, but I thought this morning that I would bust out Dum Dum lollipops (her favorite) for any poops in the potty. That was just the motivation she needed, and tonight she told us she needed to go... and she did! She was SO happy with herself, and with her mango Dum Dum!

She is SUCH a big girl! We are SO proud of her! So far, it has been much easier than I anticipated, and I hope our good times keep rolling!

Potty Time!

Its a potty success!

A few weekends ago, we bought Katie Anne a little potty to have at home. We really aren't interested in starting potty training right now. It will be much easier to wait until this summer when I'm home and can be more consistent, and she'll be much older. However, at Katie Anne's school in the morning, her class is combined with the Two's class, and several of those children are potty trained. Her teacher, Ms. Amanda, told me that Katie Anne's been asking to use the bathroom when those kids do, and they're letting her try. When she started asking to potty at home a few weeks ago, we thought we should get her a potty so we're not having to turn her down if she's interested.

We haven't made a big deal out of it at all... we do encourage her to try to use it before she gets into the bathtub at night, but that's it. She often asks to use it- when she wakes up in the morning or while she's playing- but she has never really had a "production". We thought she just liked to sit on it, and she loves to get big handfuls of toilet paper when she's "done"!

Well, tonight was another story! Katie Anne and Saunders were wrestling on the floor after dinner, and she said, "Poop- potty". We asked her if she needed to go to the potty, and she shook her head yes. We took her back there, and she did poop in the potty! We were so thrilled with her! She started clapping and saying, "Yay! Yay!" It was so funny, so of course I ran for the camera to document her first real potty experience. No, I didn't take any pictures of the "product". :)

She got into the bath after that, and we talked about it. She kept saying, "Big girl potty. Big girl potty." I told her to tell me if she needs to go potty, and she kept shaking her head and saying "Yes, yes." So, maybe she's got a better grip on the idea!

We're still going to take it easy and not make any drastic moves or put any pressure on her, because she's still young for it. However, I hope this positive potty trend continues!