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A Few Creative Ways to Motivate Children:

* Pick up 30!: Each child must pick up 30 items and put them away in there proper place before doing the next fun activity.

* Chore Board Chart: Once I made one of these pegged dreams, my life changed. Gone were the days of telling my kids to do the same chores each and every day.

* Sour Grapes for Sour Words: This form of motivation actually alerted me a medical condition my son has, called hyperactivity (see article called "How God Used Sugar to Answer my Prayers") The bases for this is, "If nothing SWEET comes out of your mouth, nothing SWEET will go in!" Cut off sweets of any kind for a day for unkind words.

* You Be the Teacher!: One day a week, let your children choose their own school work assigments. Inform them that it has to be something they will really learn from. You will be surprised to find that they will probably work on their "own" work for hours an they will love every minute of it.

* Beat the Buzzer Clean Up: This is especially fun when you have lots of kids involved (try it when the cousins are over!). When the house is really messy, which is a given if there are many children together, have a clean up race against the clock (or buzzer). Tell them if they get it clean before it goes off, there will be a treat afterwards. My sister and I found this method most effective when we are together with our 8 children. It is amazing how fast they can work and they have fun doing it too.

*Disappearing Smiley Face : This is a good way to visually show younger pre-school children consequences for those little bits of disobedience that usually go unpunished. You will need a magnet sheet with a peel off stick back and a picture of a smiley face drawn on a peice of paper. Simply peel off the back and stick the smiley face to it. Then, cut the excess magnet away around the face so you have a nice circle. Next, make 4 triangle cuts (like how you cut into a pie) so that you end up with a face that is actually a puzzle of 4 triangles. Assemble the magnet face on the refrigerator so that the face is back together. Inform your little one that each "small infractions" (you know, the ones that are too small for any real punishment but need to be dealt with) such as an unkind word, or a whiney voice, will result in a piece of the smiley face being taken away. If the smiley face completely disappears (meaning; all 4 pieces have been taken out) before the end of the day, THEY WILL BE GROUNDED from a privilege the next day, (such as videos, a special outing, etc).

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Acronyms, an Excellent Tool for Memorization!

The use of acronyms is an excellent mnemonic method of memorization. It is especially effective when trying to remember groups of things. How many times have you heard from your kids, "I forgot!" when told to do something? Here is a fun exercise to teach them to remember so that they won't have any excuse for "forgetting" again. All you have to do is turn the first letter of your memory list into a cute or funny saying....the sillier the better. For example; Instead of having keys, our postal box had an letter combination for the lock. My son was the mail-getter and couldn't remember the groups of letters. We turned the letters GIHRG into a saying, "Gary is having rotten grapes." Now, that's easy to remember.
Fun Mnemonic Exercise to try with your kids:
Before you venture out to the local grocery store, challenge your children to remember part of the list. Break the list into groups of 5 or 6 items for each child to remember. Tell them to make up a memorable sentence using the acronyms of the items. Once at the store, see if they remember their list of items. Challenge them to make use of this tool regularly.

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