Advent Calendar - Math game and positivity game for young kids.

Monthly positive projects for the year

I have been casting around for a way to combine a few crafty and parenting ideas I have seen on Pinterest in original ways. I was really inspired by the 'Harmony Jar' someone pinned. I have been finding that this past year the age difference has been making my oldest (6) less patient with her brother (3) and making him more persistent in his teasing of her. In our day-to-day lives we have been missing a team building kind of thing which takes us to a fun place where we are working together and being kind. So I came up with the idea of doing positive project from now until next year. This is my first project - and I will use this blog to track my progress - let's see if I can stick to it.

Christmas is just around the corner so craftiness is here...

Advent calendars...ah the chalky/waxy goodness of the rank chocolate that may or may not be more than a year out of date. Or the million dollar, Made in China knock off of that charming one you saw on the hand made page last year which is now on sale at Target or Pottery Barn. What to do? This year I thought I would do an inexpensive but handmade version with package for each day kind of a theme. Me being a graphic designer means I immediately thought of ways to print something for the packages. So the labels were extra fun and easy for me to make - different types of fonts on them and in festive colours! So down to the craft store I went to find some small brown paper bags to put my labels on. This is an easy craft to make if you own a computer and colour printer and depending on the size of goodies you are putting in the packages - you can forgo craft store bags for their cheaper friends from the grocery store. I did buy some of these but felt that their size committed me to filling them with larger size objects - which brought me away from the idea of something simple.

As I was working on them I realized that my kids are both in different stages of learning to read numbers and the oldest is being taught about odd and even numbers at school (teachable moments seized  = good parenting points in my book) so coloured the even numbers in red and the odd in blue.

Adding a twist

Getting back to the positivity thing at the top - whilst sitting at the table cutting out and sticking on 24 numbered labels for my advent bags it occurred to me that we have been having a lot of 'correcting bad behaviour' and 'refereeing fights' type of stuff going on of late. With all the lessons and activities where the kids are learning and being taught how to do things the right way, I think there is an underlying feeling that the scales are tipped in with them feeling corrected and wanting a lot of the time (which is ok because you have to learn and this is the time to do it - however, when they are also behaving like monkeys and getting in trouble a lot the feeling could be . Sometimes it feels like all you are doing is steering the ship away from the rocks (my son recently decided to take a ride to the sky on the automatic garage door - managing to get 2 feet up whilst my back was turned). It has been no fun for anyone. I got the brainwave to add a little fun, silly or loving activity in 14 of the 24 bags. This way it isn't every day that we get to do an activity and some days there are only two small pieces of candy - because part of the lesson is also to teach a bit about not being entitled to things ALL the time. The rules of the game are going to be important to how well this works.

So here are a few of the types of cards I put in the advent bags. Silly, loving, and fun!

The rule of the game

In the interest of team building the rules are as follows:

1) If the kids don't work as a team Mummy and Daddy get to eat and do whatever is in the bag
2) The numbers have to be found together and agreed upon
3) They can either take turns to open the bags (alternating days) or rip them open at the same, but if they argue they will forfeit the contents
4) The kids have to tell me if the number is odd or even
5) We ALL have to do the card in the bag - so that might mean that we get to do it twice if Daddy isn't home

I will update this blog to show how the kids get on with the game. Can't wait to see what their reaction will be!


UPDATE:

Well the kids really enjoyed this - not in the way that I thought they would - you know that Pinterest magical boasting way - but in their own way. They worked together - mostly - and my daughter was able to read the numbers really well. It is a project I would repeat with even more emphasis on the positive reinforcement side of things because the kids really liked those even more than the silly ones (which were the ones I would have guessed they liked more).