Ok, I’m not taking responsibility for the sticker chart idea itself, but I just didn’t want to 1) waste a sheet of paper every week, 2) go through a pack of stickers every week and 3) get stuck with all those pages of stickers that I know Megan wouldn’t let me through away.

My idea:

• I got one of those flexible magnetic sheets from the craft store.
• Drew a grid on it with a sharpie
• Cut off a strip of the unused part and stuck stickers on it
• Cut out the stickers with an exacto knife (I cut around all of the contours of the stickers, but if I had to do it again, I’d just cut out squares)
• Last I wrote chores (‘make bed’, ‘set the table’ … ) or good behavior (‘no tantrums’, ‘quiet for nap’ … ) with a dry-erase marker.

She gets a ‘sticker’ on the chart for every item she does. She’s allowed to miss one each day (that’s 35 out of 42). Every Sunday morning she counts up her stickers and if she has enough, she gets to have some kind of prize. Usually a $1 craft from Joanne’s or Michael’s, something from the dollar store or two extra TV dollars for the week.

Usually when she doesn’t get her prize it’s because she’ll miss ‘quiet for nap’ AND ‘no tantrums’ which tend to go hand-in-hand, but she gets her prize most weeks and even if she gets it every week, that’s only $52 worth of prizes per year… WELL worth the peace it brings!