January 18 - 24 // Ice Wreaths, Chore Hacks, Sick Care Bundles, and more!

This is probably our prettiest newsletter yet.

Hello! This week, we’re going to go crazy with freezing water. (It’s way more fun than it sounds.) We’ll also give some tips and mindset shifts regarding chores as a family. Hopefully it’s helpful for you!

Activity: Frozen Ice Wreaths, Ornaments, and Domes!

Clear space in your freezer, because we’re going to have some fun! If you live in colder temperatures, you can simply leave things outside to watch the magic happen.

Bonus: these activities are particularly instagrammable, if you’re into that type of thing 😉

First, we’ll make ice wreaths and ornaments. You can use bundt pans, cookie sheets, plates. We found that plastic and nonstick containers work best for popping the ice out…glass and stainless steel caused a lot more frustration.

Simply freeze water with natural items you can gather such as old Christmas tree clippings, foraged red berries, sliced citrus, wilted flowers, etc. Freeze with yarn, ribbon, or a scarf, then pop them out and hang them up!
Even if you live in Florida, it’ll be pretty for a little while before it melts! Below are some of our ornaments:

You can also make ice bowls (inspiration: Sew Historically) by nesting a bowl within a bowl, then freezing water in the ring around it. It adds a classy touch and it’s obviously $0 to make.

We also tried making ice lanterns, but our multiple attempts just didn’t turn out as beautifully as those on other websites. If you make a beautiful ice luminary (maybe with the balloon method?) please send it in!

Here’s an idea from @raising_up_wild_things for when it’s dark.
1. Freeze a bowl of water.
2. Place a tray on the ground to catch melted water, then put a clear plastic container over that.
3. Inside the container, place a flashlight or lit phone.
4. Put the lid on, then drop the frozen dome onto it.
5. Turn off the lights and give your kids coarse salt and watercolors to paint it. It’s awesome how the colors flow down the channels created by the salt. This will keep your kids entertained for awhile.

Sure, there are science lessons you could teach the kids with this, but our approach was more like: “This is pretty! Oooh how cool!”

Older kids and teens might be more interested in amateur ice sculpting. There’s the chiseling-a-block-of-ice method, but there’s also the freeze-and-arrange balloons method. Both of these can be done in your freezer, but if you live somewhere with below-freezing temperatures, what you can accomplish will be way cooler. (We didn’t try this, but send us pictures if you do!)

Parenting Pep Talk: Chores

If keeping a home clean and managing household responsibilities is the bane of your existence, you’re in good company. We (the Family Scripts team) aren’t experts at this at all. At. ALL. But we have learned some tips along the way that do make the household run more smoothly.

• Mindset shift: chores are a gift to your kids. Personal responsibility is a way more important thing to learn than the difference between protons and electrons. Yes, you could do their chores for them, and probably better than they could…but it’s love for your kids that drives your expectations that they work hard. Give your kids the gift of feeling like a valuable part of the team.

• Encourage your kids to care more about the job than their job. For example, if they’re cleaning up after dinner, “the” job is resetting the dining room so you can eat there again tomorrow. If they said, “I loaded the dishwasher; I’m done with my job” but the table still needs to be wiped down and the floor needs to be swept, encourage them to help finish the job.

• Invite your kids to “set to zero”, “make it beautiful,” or whatever wording they need to make a space feel welcoming. Ask them what’s so appealing about coming to a hotel room; the lack of visual clutter and clean space even in a small area makes you feel inspired.

• A fantastic app for chores is Tody. It’s a $6-10 one-time purchase that has proven to be totally worth it. It helps you create tasks, room-by-room, and adjust the frequency with which they need to be done. You can assign tasks and even set it to automatically rotate them.
  Our family utilizes this for homeschool to-do’s and personal hygiene stuff, also. (Those tasks all fall under a “room” which is the child’s name.)
  This looks and sounds complicated, but it’s truly awesome how customizable and intuitive this app is.

  

• We’ll talk more about money next month, but we are of the opinion that it’s good to pay kids money for chores to teach them about money management. Money isn’t the key motivator, though; remember that everyone in the family helps out because they are a valuable part of the team. We don’t want to raise greedy, money-motivated kids. However, when they grow up, they will often be compensated for good work, and they’ll use that money to meet needs for themselves and others. We recommend paying kids the dollar amount of their age ($7 for a 7-year-old) if they’ve completed all their assigned tasks for the week with a good attitude.

• Chore Marathons are a great way to keep up on tasks that have fallen behind. Some ideas:

  • 25 minutes of super-focused cleaning together earns a 25-minute show you’re bingeing together. (The “together” part is important.) Repeat until you’re happy with what you’ve gotten done and/or you’ve all turned into screen zombies. (Recommended show: NBC’s Making It.)

  • Kids will do almost anything to stay up late. Create a chart for the kids to do chores to earn extra time past their normal bedtime. (Example: Wipe down bathroom mirrors for an extra +15 minutes.)

  • If your house is really messy, pay the kids by weight for garbage collected and/or donations gathered within a certain time period. Weight the child before they collect (example: 40 lbs.) Then, after they’ve gathered the items, weigh them while they’re holding the trash bags/donation bin (example: 46 lbs.) Subtract child’s weight from new total weight. We generally pay 50 cents a pound for garbage, so the kid would’ve earned $3! That’s enough for an ice cream or some new shirts at the thrift store!

  • Motivate kids with generosity. If you give them chances to earn money towards a goal such as “raise $25 to buy two egg-laying chickens for a hungry family,” you might be surprised by what your kids accomplish.

Hopefully some of those ideas helped!

Mini-Challenge: Figure Out a Chore System

If you already have one that works, awesome! You have completed this assignment.

If not, think about it. Have a family meeting. If your kids haven’t been doing chores or don’t like chores, here are two sample conversations you could have:

For older kids:
“One of my biggest goals is to help prepare you for the rest of your life. A huge part of life is doing things we don’t like to do. We are so blessed to have a home and a family who uses it. I would much rather have a messy home than an empty one.
But we all feel more peaceful when our home is clean, right? When everything is set to zero, we are freer to think clearly and creatively. I love what you do and the things you create.
I know that if we all work as a team to keep this home running smoothly, we will all be able to enjoy each other more.
I challenge you to not just think about what you have to do, but what you get to do to make this place beautiful for all of us and for those who come here. Instead of focusing just on your job, let’s look at it with a teamwork mindset and try to help each other complete the job.”

For younger kids:
"In our family, we work hard so we can help others! Doesn’t it feel good when we come home to a clean house? We can all work together to make that happen.
You are such a wonderful part of this family and I’m so glad you’re on our team. I’ll let you pick the music while we clean the dining room together.
Oh noooooo, the Encanto soundtrack? It’ll be stuck in our heads all day! Alright, here we go. We don’t talk about Bruno, no, no, no…”

Or you could say something like that, anyway 😉

Act of Thoughtfulness: Care Bundle for a Sick Person

Since sickness is going around, you likely know someone who could use some fresh joys from the outside world. Why not drop off some Vitamin C, chocolate, a good novel, and fresh flowers?

Grownup Book Club: The Lazy Genius Way

This week, we’re reading the chapters titled “Batch It,” “Essentialize,” and “Go In the Right Order” from The Lazy Genius Way by Kendra Adachi.

1. Kendra shared about her cookie business as an example of learning the efficiency of making things in big batches. What areas of your responsibilities would benefit from doing the same kind of task at once?

2. “Subtracting noise adds meaning to the life you already have” (pg 148.) Mental clutter and actual stuff really sneaks into our lives, doesn’t it? How can we subtract some noise to more fully enjoy the things that are most important to us?

Older Kid Book Club: The Hobbit, Chapters 13-15

We are working through The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien. Remember there’s a graphic novel version!
The following quote is from Chapter 12 but foreshadows what happens in chapters to come: “The dragon rolled over. ‘Look!’ he said. ‘What do you say to that?’ ‘Dazzlingly marvelous! Perfect! Flawless! Staggering!’ exclaimed Bilbo aloud, but what he thought inside was: ‘Old fool! Why, there is a large patch in the hollow of his left breast as bare as a snail out of its shell!’”

How was Smaug’s pride humbled in the chapters to come? How does this comfort you when you feel discouraged by the powerful people in the world who think they can do whatever they want and treat others wrongly?

This is a great time to remember what Martin Luther King, Jr. said at the National Cathedral in 1968: “We shall overcome because the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice.”

Picture Books

Little Oink is an adorable book by the legendary Amy Krause Rosenthal and illustrated by Jen Corace about cleaning your room.

Little Pea is in the same funny series and turns vegetable-eating fears on their head.

Little Hoot is a fun take on staying up late. Reading books like these help your kids see that you see their discomfort with things they don’t like to do, but sometimes we have to do things we don’t like…and we don’t have to do it alone.

Because by Mo Willems and illustrated by Amber Ren is a beautiful book about all the wonderful things that come together—even from centuries ago—to bring beautiful, life-changing things into the world. It’s full of optimism and wonder. Ask your kids what special gifts they have to share, like Franz and the girl in the story.

From Our Hearts

May you and your kids notice natural elements around you like never before and create beauty from something as simple as water.

May your neighbors and family be blessed by the beautiful things you create.

May you lead your family in dedication to hard work that flows from a heart of gratitude.

May your children genuinely see the purpose in working hard as a team, and may they choose from their own hearts to do their chores cheerfully.

May you figure out a chore system that serves your family and guests well.

May your family be an encouragement to the sick and tired.

We are praying these things for you.

I hope your week is wonderful.

Warmly,
Hope from Family Scripts

P.S. Here’s a phone wallpaper!