You are a star! – My Star Reward Chart from Jaques of London
AD – This post is in collaboration with Jaques London
Like many children across the UK, both my girls have recently returned to school after spending a significant amount of time at home. For my youngest in particular, re-adjusting to an educational setting within nursery has been a huge step emotionally. Whilst I knew she would cope without me *sob* and was super keen to be back playing with her friends and having fun, I was a little worried about how she would cope with the return of the daily routine, the structured learning and of course, the change of physical environment.
I decided that a positive way to encourage good behaviour and proactively support the school’s approach to learning was to use a reward chart, something that would help build responsibility and accountability and encourage her to complete a number of tasks at home. The Jaques reward chart for kids is ideal! Having previously used a tatty home made paper chart with stickers – this time it was great to go for something a bit more official!
How reward charts can help encourage good behaviour
In many educational settings, reward charts or behaviour scales are used to encourage good behaviour and reinforce positive responses in children. Even when I was a little girl (longer ago than I care to mention!) house points were used as a way of getting us excited about the good things that can happen when you try hard, use your manners and focus on reaching your goals.
We have used reward charts as a family on a number of occasions – including when potty training the girls and encouraging them to stay in their own beds, so we’ve seen first hand just how effective they can be. Every time the girls showed desired behaviours or completed a set task they would earn a sticker, with every sticker getting them one step closer to achieving their goal and earning a predetermined reward. We very quickly established that a lot of their behaviours were based on habit and as such, encouraging new habits with the incentive and motivation of a small prize really helped focus their behaviour.
Our Experience of the Jaques of London My Star Reward Chart
To help our reward chart experience, we ordered the Jaques of London My Star Reward Chart which is aimed at children aged 3 years and above. If you haven’t heard of Jaques London before, then simply, where have you been?! A family run business passed down through 8 generations, Jaques have been inventing and making educational toys and games since 1795, so it’s fair to say they know their stuff when it comes to the power of play! Jaques sell a huge range of wooden and sustainable Montessori toys which are handmade with care, encouraging imagination, creativity, communication and educational concepts.
The girls were very excited when the Jaques of London Reward Chart arrived. Not only is it bright, colourful and easy to hang and display, but it comes with space for two siblings to track their achievements together, making it perfect reward chart for Erin & Neve to share.
The My Star Reward Chart is magnetic and comes with a huge range of pre written tasks to choose from – from simple things such as making the bed or brushing their teeth, through to harder chores or tasks such as tidying their room, eating healthy or doing their homework.
As a parent, I love the fact you can allocate different tasks to each child and that they each get their own unique symbol to mark their achievements. With the days of the week across the chart, children can then add their own magnetic token symbol every time they complete a task. I’d have loved to see a little pocket or pouch to store all the spare tokens, but we use a little pot to keep ours safe instead.
Once discussed and confirmed by parents, children can write their own reward clearly on the board as well as the number of tokens required to earn it, which works great as a visual reminder of how close they are to achieving their prize.
The reusable My Star Reward Chart comes with two clip on whiteboard style pens (blue and black) with a foam eraser on the end so that rewards can be wiped away and updated regularly as required. The tasks can also easily be switched and updated, or your own tasks written in the spaces by hand.
As expected, we’ve found the reward chart to be a huge motivator for Neve. She gets really excited about the potential of earning another thumbs up token. If ever she starts to mess around at bedtime, a gentle reminder about the chart is enough to guide her – reinforcing the message that if she goes to bed on time she will be one step closer to earning her prize!
Whilst Neve in particular has really enjoyed using the Reward Chart, it’s also worked as a great incentive for Erin too, who is often a little reluctant to do her homework at the weekend! We give lots of praise throughout to recognise their achievements and Neve’s happy little face when she counts up how many thumbs up she has earned is really cute to see.
Choosing the reward…
We decided to purposely leave Neve’s reward a little vague, by opting for “a new game’ as her prize. Neve was happy with that (the element of surprise is something she has always loved) and it meant that we had a little more control over the type of toy we selected.
Jaques came up trumps again with an educational and fun toy that supports Neve’s learning at school. With a huge range of toddler toys and preschool options to choose from, the Jaques toys that come beautifully packaged and as such make the ideal gift.
For Neve’s prize we opted for the Shape Matching Board pictured below.
The vibrant, brightly coloured Let’s Learn Shapes Matching Board is made from 100% FSC Approved wood and non toxic paint and is a fantastic educational toy. A solid puzzle board featuring nine shapes divided into two equal halves, the Shape Matching Board helps Neve recognise different shapes by counting the number of sides and corners as well as teaching basic geometry. It can also help reinforce her knowledge of colours and exercise her fine motor skills by trying to figure out which pieces fit into each slot.
The Jaques Shape Matching Board prize was a big hit with Neve and being hard wearing and durable, it’s a gift that is sure to last the test of time.
If you are planning on using a reward chart yourself with the kids at home, here are some tips that you may find useful!
How best to use a reward chart…
- Keep it simple – Select just a few tasks to start with, Whilst it may be tempting to put lots of things for them to achieve on the board, letting the children select the things they need to do and choosing a range of ‘simple’ quick wins as well as larger more involved tasks is a good place to start. If as time goes on, the tasks starts to feel too easy, you can always add more at a later date.
- Be specific – Explain to your children what each task involves and what it should looks like when that task has been achieved. For example – tidying their room doesn’t just mean shoving all their toys in the wardrobe and shutting the door. Ensure they know what success looks like so that they try hard to do it well.
- Choose the prize wisely – The prize has to be big enough to excite them and need to understand exactly how many stickers they need to achieve to earn it and roughly how long that may take.
- Think Small – Whilst the prize has to be ‘worth’ it in a child’s eyes, you also need to think carefully about budget. Rather than working towards a super large item which requires hundreds of stickers, focus on smaller rewards that they could earn after a week or month maximum. Frequent reinforcement for younger children is key and stops them becoming disheartened, so items such as a small toy, game or day out with the family are ideal.
- Make it positive – When your child completes a task, congratulate them! Go with them to add their sticker / symbol to the chart, giving lots of positive praise and recognition as you do so.
- Keep it fun! – Whilst it’s ok for the child not to get a sticker / token each day, try not to use it for punishment – once a sticker has been given – don’t take it away for bad behaviour. The aim is to reinforce the good behaviours rather than punishing the bad.
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