With back to school time looming, utter chaos in every room of the house, piles of homework still to be done, and a mutiny from the over-tired over-entertained kiddy troops, today I fell back on one of my favourite family activities... the 'Earn an Awesome Movie Night' Day.
This is literally my best parenting tip ever, and has so far worked for me EVERY SINGLE TIME, so draw up a chair, and listen closely...
The concept: You give your kids a series of chances to win enough points to get themselves an amazing movie night with extra treats - the more points they get, the more special the movie night. They pick point-winning tasks randomly from a hat...
The rules: You decide how strict you're going to be. For me, this depends on their mood - sometimes, I let them put slips back in for later, or to 'pass' now and again. But today, I was super strict and there were no 'passes' allowed, they had to do anything and everything they picked - because they knew there were some really good treats in the hat as well as the treats they were winning their points for...
Health warning: This is not for the faint-hearted. You will be busy busy busy, playing and tidying alongside them throughout, but you do get to do tasks that you would otherwise struggle to get done with the kids at home AND you get to benefit from all the treats and put your feet up for a movie at the end...
Pre-planning:
Get a DVD that all the kids really want to see (we got ours at the library - Kung Fu Panda 3). Maybe you are more cool and tech-savvy than we are and you can watch anything you want directly from your TV or computer, in which case, bonus points to you - all you need to do is identify the film (sometimes that is a challenge in itself!)
Prepare the slips
Cut out some strips of paper. On these, you can list a mixture of the following types of activities, and add a 'score' for each. (If it's something they won't want to do, give it a lot of points. And if it's a treat? Nil points...)
How many slips should I make?
How much time do you have? Each activity will probably take about 5 - 20 minutes. Do you really need them to do every single task that you put in the hat (i.e. that homework needs to happen) - if so, only add as many as you have time to do! If you're happy to be more random, you can have more items, and leave it to the luck of the draw... As an example, today we had all day to play, so we put 23 slips in the hat, and picked 16 of them.
You also want a good balance - about half 'tasks/challenges', and the other half made up of brain teasers, fun stuff and treats.
What tasks shall I put on the slips?
To encourage you to give it a go, I've added the list I made today as a download to give you some ideas. If you'd like to make your own, you want a mix of the following things:
TASKS/CHALLENGES: These are household chores you'd like to attempt together (like picking up 10 things from the floor and put them where they should live, or doing the washing up, or clearing the stairs...), or homework in 5, 10 or 15 minute slots, or a music practice. The key thing is to find a way to turn them into more of a 'challenge' than a chore, by adding a fun twist of some sort.
That might be a musical time limit (i.e. do this activity before the end of 'Let it Go' or 3 repeats of 'Everything is Awesome), or adding a physical challenge (like do this using just one arm, or only walking backwards) or an acting challenge (like hoovering in the style of a princess or an alien...).
BRAIN EXERCISE: Add in some brain challenges that you know they will enjoy being good at (like attempting to have a conversation in Spanish that an adult can understand, or getting 3 questions right in a random quiz about Harry Potter...).
FAMILY FUN: Mix in some genuine fun stuff that you know your kids love to do with you, which also has an element of challenge. For us, that might be put on a show including a song, a joke, a unique dance move and some gymnastics, or having a front room disco to see who has the most awesome moves - to be honest, the disco is really something that I love to do, but the kids go along with it...!
REWARDS: Make sure you add some lucky treats and tea breaks that you know they'll be keen to pull out of the hat - like doing a 10 minute Pokemon hunt, a 5 minutes play on a computer game, a tea break with special biscuits, an ice cream with sprinkles...
How to play
All you have to do is put all your slips in a hat and take turns picking one out. Then do whatever it says together.
Each activity (unless it's a treat already) earns a certain number of points, and they can score and add them up as they go along.
At the end, they get to cash in all their points for their home movie night, and choose from all sorts of lovely things that will make it extra special.
My son wrote the points 'menu' for the home movie night this time and it was:
- 1 point for a movie 'ticket' to get into the front room
- 3 points for each floor cushion or a place on the sofa
- 5 points for a blanket
- 2 points for a small sweet
- 3 points for small popcorn
- 4 points for medium popcorn
- 5 points for large popcorn
- 4 points for special gnocchi for tea or 2 points for a sandwich
- 4 points for leftover birthday cake
- 2 points for a sweet
So there's even a bit of maths in there!
Mission: successful
Today, the 8 year old embraced it all and did everything, the 5 year old had the occasional bout of 'fatigue' and definitely preferred hoovering to tidying. But there was precious family time, laughter, and no major arguments (which is a success in itself at this stage in the holiday!), and lots of learning about how to make boring activities fun and work as a team.
It's a perfect activity for a rainy day and a messy house and children in need of distraction and end of holiday homework panics.
And of course you get to have treats when the kids do, it ends in blissful peace and quiet, and a well deserved chance to put your feet up. What more could you want?
Let us know how you get on!
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