Snow Day Bingo

My 3.5 year old loves to watch TV. I don’t blame him, I like it too. But it can make things tricky when we are stuck inside.  “Can I watch TV? No? WHEN can I watch TV?” Put that on repeat and you end up with frustrated parents AND kids. Since there is a potential “historic snowstorm” coming this weekend, we are going to try something new…..Snow Day Bingo

We brainstormed a list of activities, including some that we don’t do all the time. Everything from building a fort to playing with the kinetic sand and reading books. I made sure there were plenty of active/moving choices (obstacle course, playing outside) and “helper” options (cleaning up the playroom, reading to his baby sister). I also tried to mix things that we could do together and things that would encourage him to play on his own (for our benefit as much as encouraging skills in that area).

On a large piece of paper I drew up a 6×6 grid and filled in all the options. To “earn” some TV time (or a chance to play on the IPad…a real treat) he will have to fill in a whole row of activities. By putting the active and helper choices down the diagonal it makes sure that every row has at least one from those categories.

I’ll be interested to see if I need to add a time requirement to the activities. I could see him picking his smallest puzzle, racing through it and saying “done.” I’m not going to start out with that, but might add it in if necessary.

This could be a total bust, but he has responded well to reward charts in the past and this is a twist on that. Wish us luck! I’ll update you after the snow……