A Worm and A Snail
The girls are so creative and come up with the most random ways to use the things we have to create something to play with. My favorite is when the girls used the long handled dustpans (like the ones you'd see at amusement parks to sweep up the streets) and attached a bag as either an IV bag or an oxygen tank and used a glow stick necklace that lost it's glow as their oxygen tube that went under their nose. They'd walk around the dorm hunched back calling out for "Grandma J" or "Grandma S." Hilarious what they could come up with using a few random items and their creativity.
Pots of Spaghetti
When the girls are here for the weekend the older girl's dorm parent cleans and I cook. This means I'm cooking for up to 21 people every meal. This weekend we had quite a few girls go home and we only had 16 people to prepare meals for this weekend. This still means two large pots of spaghetti for Sunday lunch. I'm VERY grateful for the second large pot my friend sent me within the first month of school. When I came I had a very small box of cooking items... my collection has grown considerably to accommodate the needs of dorm life. I think the best investment was the electric griddle. There are times I wish I got a larger griddle because 8 grilled cheese sandwiches at a time just isn't fast enough to fill these girls up in a timely manner. We make due and all the girls leave each meal with a full belly.
Sentences
One form of consequences we use at the school are sentences. I've learned my girls aren't as responsive to sentences as other consequences, but sentences are always an option. This weekend I gave the girls over an hour to clean the dorm being sure to pick up and put away their belongings. In fact, this past week they struggled to keep their things picked up. Saturday morning I told the girls they needed to pick up their things because I was coming around with the ransom box after breakfast.
The ransom box is a box I take things that have been left out for ransom. In the past they've had to do things like look up and read Bible verses to a friend, sing songs, crab walk down the hall, do extra chores and other various things I could think of that they could do on their own without my assistance. They didn't seem motivated to get their move on knowing the ransom box was coming out, so I decided to change things up a bit.
I took pieces of paper and wrote numbers on them. I typed out a page of sentences (I do this for two reasons, it's easier for me to hand the girls a page regardless of the number of sentences on it and two the girls can trace the dotted letters to practice their penmanship). I then went through and collected all the items not put away while the girls stood by their bedroom doors. I ended up with a pile at least 3 feet high. The girls didn't seem phased at the amount of items in the box (normally there is room to spare in the box). I then told the girls to sort out the box and keep a pile for dorm items (like Wii remotes, puzzle pieces, etc.) and told them to count each item. I then told the girls that for every 10 items they had to choose a slip of paper or ticket. The dorm pile had 21 items, so they each had to draw an extra 2 slips. We added the number on the slips and that was how many sentences pages the girls had to write. When I realized two of my girls had over 70 items in the ransom box I decided to cap the number of pages to 15 sentences pages.
I told the girls to put their stuff away while I printed their pages. I came back with packets of sentences and the colored pencil box for the girls to use. Needless to say this sentence writing consequence has been working considering the dorm is MUCH cleaner than it has been all week. My desk, however, is covered with sentences packets.
