Ending the School Year Successfully!

 The start of the school year is a big deal and so is the end of the year! Our favorite tradition for end of the year fun is going through old papers and art projects. We have a filing cabinet where each school aged child has a folder. When they bring something home that they worked extra hard on or is extra cute, it goes in the folder. At the end of the year we look through the folder together. They pick 3 things to keep and I pick 3 things to keep. Then we put them in a binder with their last report card and their class picture, along with any special awards or certificates from the year. Each year we add a new binder divider and the new papers so it's all in one place. It's a fun and easy way to keep school mementos without taking up a lot of space. What are your favorite end of the year traditions?

Here is some great information to think about as your kids finish school from the people at Family Do Dots. 

For more information about the Family Do Dot system, feel free to visit their website at http://familydodots.com. They have created a "chore chart" to end all charts. It is an all in one system that they describe perfectly. Here is what they say: "Imagine taking your chore charts, behavior charts, goals charts, etc. and simplifying them into one easy-to-use Family System.  DoDots does all of this and more to teach responsibility, independence, and motivation to your children."

Grocery Shopping with Kids

I don't know about you, but grocery shopping is not my favorite time of the week. I am in love with those car carts that hold multiple children - greatest idea ever! However, the store we frequent doesn't have them. :( Hence, our shopping trip success greatly depends on what kind of mood my preschooler is in since she usually walks next to the cart while my toddler rides.

So, to make things a little more smooth, I hired my own personal shopper. She's really cute and is about 3 feet tall and she likes to call me mom. 

I made a list of what we are going to buy and then we looked in the weekly ad for our store to find pictures of some of the items. My personal shopper cut out the pictures and glued them onto a paper. While we were shopping, she looked for the items we needed. Then she crossed them off when we put them in the cart. 

It was a win - win. We talked about numbers and letters while we shopped. She had fun looking on the shelves for the things we needed. My preschooler was more engaged and I was able to take something mundane and turn it into a game where we were playing together and she was learning. Plus she was focused on the things on her list instead of asking for the hundred other things she usually wants and asks for during the trip. Instead, I just asked her if it was on the list. When it wasn't, she was okay with that.  So the next time you have to go shopping with your kids, just hire your own personal shopper to help get the job done!