Schedules and Creative Preschoolers

Chris left for a business trip to China yesterday, which we thought was really funny as we were studying China and Marco Polo's explorations to China. It also meant that our normal schedule was thrown off a little as we didn't have to wake up as early as usual and we found it hard to get going on our school work. So, I created a simple schedule for us to follow. Each day we write down all the things that each person needs to get done on the white board and then after they complete a task, they mark it off. It works because it can change from day to day and if someone finds themselves not knowing what to do, they just look for something on the chart. It is also adjustable, not tied down to any times so that if piano is next on your list, but someone else is already practicing, then you can work on spelling and do piano later. It's simple, but is working for us anyway.
Amber often gets creative with her free time while the rest of us are working on more structured school work. This creation is a birthday cake, the part that cracks me up is that we can never find pencils when we need them for school work, but she sure found plenty for her candles when she needed them.
She also decided to make herself some jewelry. The necklace is made from a shoelace and the pendant and earrings are paper. This creation started a couple days long project amongst all three girls of coloring, cutting, and designing jewelry. They even made a contest out of it and Chris has decided that we need to buy stock in Scotch tape or the girls need to get jobs.