I've been on Pinterest a lot lately and there are so many cute ideas for bored jars or chore jars. So I thought I'd use that idea to make something with ideas for things my kids can do when I'm teaching one or the other. Because we don't have a lot of horizontal space, I'll be putting this up on the exposed side of one of our bookshelves that they can reach so they're independent about it. I'm calling it a Quiet Time Box because it's a box where there are ideas of things they can do when I need them to be quiet :)
I've also started using a Behaviour Punch Card System I found on Pinterest;
here's the link. It's pretty simple, they do all the things they're supposed to do and they get one punch. I'm pretty tough about discipline so they have to get through the day with very few mistakes in order to get a punch, but you can modify that to fit your situation.
Now here's the box I made. I made it from a cereal box cut basically in half and I did it while I was helping my picky eater finish his supper, so it's not something that'll take a huge amount of time. I made a divider for the inside of the box because I want both kids to use this sytem so I'll decorate one side pink and one side green or blue, whichever colour my son decides on.
You start with a cereal box and just open it up neatly, don't squish it too much or tear it. Then, cut away all the little edges but keep the two halves together (see the picture).
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| Opened cereal box. |
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| Cereal box cut up. |
Your two halves should look like the picture at left. My box was 685g but I've used other 575g boxes (different brands) and they're exactly the same dimensions. The less wide side of this piece of cardboard on my box was about 3.25" wide, so I cut it down to be 3" wide. I then measured around the other edges of the box so that I ended up with something like the drawing below. I forgot to take the picture, sorry! :(
The arrows indicate where to cut; cut only to the first perpendicular fold. And the dots indicate where to add adhesive. Then you just basically fold in the four corners that you've cut away one side of, and glue them into the inside of the box. At that point you should have a neat little box that you made out of another bigger box :)
This is what your box will look like once it's been put together.
I also made a divider so the kids can each have a side. I mostly did this because my daughter is not reading yet but my son is and I would like them both to participate in this activity.
And here's the box put together with the divider inside it. I had originally decided to not glue down the divider in case I wanted to use the box for something else later on but it wasn't staying put very well, so I ended up gluing it down.
