Bishop Family Culture

Just a couple of images from our last homeschool field trip. We went to the Family History Library and learned how to do Genealogy work. The kids actually thought this was pretty cool. Especially Celeste. After that, we went over to the Church History Museum. They found this to be pretty interesting. I'm looking forward to next months field trip being able to do something outdoors with Spring coming.
A couple of months ago we started a new system in the house. I don't post this to try and show off or push my style of things on to people. You probably all do it better anyhow. *Had to add that little disclaimer.* I post this because we've had trouble with this kind of thing in our family historically. We have been doing Family Fun Days for 6 and a half years now. We started doing FFD's because we were noticing that Family Home Evening on Monday nights was great for spiritual instruction, but not great for real fun together. There just wasn't enough time for Gospel learning and fun activities on a Monday night. We needed FHE and FFD. We are pretty good about having fun together as a family. But we haven't been as good at teaching our kids to work. Lots of other families seem to have this down to a science and we were a mess! I was realizing that our kids were just down-right lazy. We needed a better system. Actually we needed a system, period.
I typed up some schedules and such, and pasted them on this poster board. (Don't zoom in on it because it will only show you just how bad our predicament was prior to this. The things on these lists are pretty basic stuff.)

First we've got the "Bishop Family Schedule". Not everything is on it. But a lot of it is. And we don't stick to it 100%. We probably stick to it about 80% of the time. I think schedules are pretty important. It's a way to figure out how to logically fit everything in that you need to accomplish. On the other hand, you need to have a reasonable amount of flexibility and not be a slave to the schedule. This is certainly easier said than done and it's something I'm still trying to get the perfect balance of... I also find that there are things on here that have needed to be adjusted or have already been adjusted but haven't been changed on the posted document yet.
Next is the Homeschool Schedule. Same idea as the above. Just making sure that most of the important stuff gets all scheduled in there. On Fridays we try to make homeschooling a bit of a fun atmosphere and learn in more hands-on unconventional ways. I've planned on taking them on field trips one Friday a month.
Homeschooling is still going quite well and our system of learning seems to be working pretty well. I was thinking that their education at home was as good, if not better than what they were getting at public school--except for math. I was concerned their math was not going anywhere. I finally hired a young mother and former teacher who got her teaching degree from BYU to come in 3 times a week and teach the kids math. I'm so glad I did because she really is better at it than me! I feel confident now that their quality of education is better at home than it was at public school. I'm excited as I watch them progress and learn! However, I still have some mixed feelings about the homeschool/public school issue and am wondering how long we will continue this. We're waiting until the Summer to decide.
Next is the "Chore Chart". Again, don't zoom. It's embarrassing how basic I had to make this for my kids. Like I said- laziness was a big issue in our home. But having it so simplified has made it a lot less overwhelming to them. They know exactly what is expected of them each day and it is consistent and geared to their age and abilities. I am responsible for the cleaning of the upstairs mostly. The kids are in charge of the basement. So the basement is usually not very clean. But they are doing it and it's done in a quality that I think is good for a child their age.
Finally, we've got the "Weekly Progress Chart". This is last week's chart. There was no school on Monday and no homework so that spot has no star for each of the kids, but it was our first week of 100% gold stars! It was quite the thrill! In this photo here, you are seeing last weeks chart posted on the wall next to the poster. All of our former charts are there behind it. We keep them all for record keeping purposes.
Now the stars are a whole other system in and of themselves. We give the kids a star for completing each of their responsibilities. They get a gold star if the quality of their work is good. If it was sloppy or they whined or complained about doing their jobs, they get a red star. If there was an excessive amount of whining or complaining, or the work quality was pretty bad, they get a blue star.
Getting stars is important because we made a rule that in order for a child to go on our Family Fun Day activity, they had to earn a minimum of 10 stars for the week.
But they have motivation to get a lot of stars because the child that earns the most stars gets to actually choose what the Family Fun Day Activity will be.
The colored stars have been important because we've had several weeks where they get the same amount of stars. At that point, we look at the color of the stars to choose a winner.
Last week when all the kids got 100% gold stars, it was a first for us. We were pretty excited so we had a meeting to decide a special FFD that all of them would really enjoy. They all decided they wanted to have a slumber party with some of their Bishop cousins.
So we invited them over and we had treats, movies and popcorn. They came to church with us the next day too.
There you have it. A big time glimpse into our Bishop Family Culture. Weird, I know.