Marble Mania / Mel the Artiste

While watching the Supernanny a few years ago, I noticed that she had, for some children, implemented a rewards system. For each chore completed or good deed, the child would receive one marble to put into a jar. Once the jar was filled, the child received some sort of a treat or prize. I always thought that it was a good idea, but the timing hadn't been right for Short Person and so I filed it away for future use.

Over the weekend, I visited the Dollar Tree and noticed that they had $1 bags of the decorative marbles and different bowls and vases and the memory crawled up and walla! Short Person now has a rewards program.

After discussing the idea with LJS, I purchased 3 bags of smaller marbles and 1 bag of the larger stones and a tall vase and sat down to discuss with him exactly how we would implement the marble program.

We started with the rewards. On the vase, approximately an inch and a half apart, I marked in permanent marker a line. It worked out that there were five lines to the top of the vase. The first line is a trip to the movie store, the second line is a prize from the prize box (which we plan to fill with little things we know she will enjoy-- an ice cream cone from Dairy Queen, trinkets, M & M's, etc.), then another movie line, another prize box line, until finally when it is filled a trip to Toy's R Us.

Then, we discussed what she could earn marbles for, starting small and reserving space to add things. She can earn marbles for:
1. Doing her chores-- each item is 1 marble
a. Brushing her teeth
b. Brushing her hair
c. Feeding her animals
d. Washing her face
e. Picking up her toys
f. Picking her clothes for the next day
2. Doing what we ask her to do without complaint. (In other words, listening.)
3. Trying bites of something new.

Equally, she can lose them too. She loses a marble if she throws a temper tantrum or doesn't do what we ask.

The big marbles we are reserving for days when she does something we think deserves one. For instance, I had to go to the DMV last weekend and she went with me. She did great even though I know she was bored. Big marble reward for that one.

So... last night we introduced the system. LOL, I think she has about 10 marbles already. She asked us how she got one and then went about doing everything she could to accumulate as many as she could.

We'll see how it goes.

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We finished Short Person's room. Below, I will post pictures of it so you can see how cute it turned out. We painted it pink as per request and then I went through and put glow-in-the-dark stars on every wall.

I had to use a star stamp to do it so part 1 was the stamp and part 2 was going back and hand-painting all of them because for best results it takes two coats. Me, and artiste, whodathunk?