Minutes and Tickets

Well since we no longer have the TV you'd think that screen time would have been reduced right? Wrong. It just pushed my boys towards their Leapsters and "websites" (aka Disney.com). So I came up with a system for tracking the minutes Monkey spends on the computer.
Actually I got the idea from AshleyAnn. Her clipboard rocked. She is awesome and creative and a fabulous photographer.
My clipboard seems pretty vague compared to hers. But it works for us and that's what counts. The first morning Monkey said to me, "Thank you for making me special tickets, Mommy." This morning he said, "When are you going to make me more tickets, I never have enough!"

Every morning Monkey changes all of his tickets to the "Available" pocket. He's got 20 minutes to start with each morning. As he wants to use them throughout the day he can, but he has to move them to the used pocket. Solid blue tickets are worth two minutes. To help us keep track, I tucked in the small timer, either he or I set it when the first game begins.

And good behavior or some added specialness to the day, allows me to move tickets back to "Available."

Mr. Dunbar told one of his co-workers about my clipboard and their reaction was

"She's such a teacher."

Ha. Old habits are hard to break. I had clipboards for lots of things in my classroom. Bathroom. Computer time. Library checkout. Organization people, organization, it can be a learned behavior.