Our kids need to feel a special ownership over their home school items. Kids who leave the house for school have special stuff (backpack, pencils, lunch box, etc.) why not home schoolers too?
Well, someone a long time ago on a blog shared with us a nice way to help our kids feel a sense of ownership and keep track of their items too. It involves colored electrical tape. Bizarre, I know - but it works.
(Again, sorry and thank-you to whoever came up with this. I'm going to start paying attention to who writes what in order to give credit on my blog.)
Each kid gets their own color tape (we bought ours at a home improvement store in the States). Every school item, pencil, tape, scissors, notebooks, etc. gets a strip of their colored tape. They learn their color and recognize their items around the house. They feel happy to see their color and know it belongs to them. It really helps with squabbles over whose is whose too.
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| Claire's color is purple - This is her pencil. |
For older kids, there's the possibility of building even more responsibility for their items when the items need to be monetarily redeemed from the Lost & Found basket. If an item is laying around, it gets picked up by a parent and put away in the the L&F basket. When the child finds he/she needs it, they have to pay a nickel to get it back. Our kids are not old enough for this yet, and we have not yet introduced ways for them to earn money, but when they are older we might try this. For now, we simply say, "It has your color, you are responsible to put it away".
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