house rules flower

lately we have been hitting the terrible 6's. ya know, when they are now a big-bad kindergartener and suddenly are all grown up and in charge of things. (yeah, right!) a refresher of the house rules was in store. we sat down all together to compile a list of the rules around this joint. things like: no whining, keep your hands to yourself, no sassy talk, no climbing on the furniture, etc.~ all pretty standard stuff. BUT we still needed a way to show accountability. the big bad 6 year old suggested we try something like they do in her classroom. a color coded system of warnings to know exactly how deep the doo-doo is that you are getting into. the little kid agreed that this was a good plan. so . . . . that leaves me to figure out a visual, color-coded warning system. i came up with this little diddy: an old flower pot (painted from an old project) filled with river rocks (from any craft store) and a "flower" for each kid. the "petals" are painted clothespins which are pinned onto a paint stir stick stem. i added the initials to differentiate the kids' flowers. now it's pretty cut and dry. you break a rule = you loose a petal. if ya loose them all . . . . big trouble! the start of each day starts with a full blooming flower. once a petal drops, it stays there. been using this method for a few weeks now and it seems to help.