School Bell: Let's go Fishing!

Try this trick for getting your reluctant child to do their homework or practice their spelling or math facts.

Let's Go Fishing!:  Buy a bag of goldfish type crackers. Make a construction paper fishing picture with a boat on water and an assortment of simple outline fish in the water.

You can put on peel and stick fish or draw your own using something like this coloring page of fish you can download and use as an idea starter. When they start their homework put a goldfish cracker on top of each fish on the paper. [You should have 8-15 fish depending on the project or the child's age.] For each question they answer, or each spelling word they get right, etc. they get to eat one of the goldfish crackers.

Let's Go on Safari! :
If goldfish aren't their style try using animal crackers.  Do a safari theme using a download like one of these!] and place the appropriate animal cracker on the pictures.  You can even just take a photo of the jungle and lay the crackers anywhere you want on the picture. Use your imagination. As with the fish, for each answer done they get to eat one of the animals.

The few crackers they eat make a relatively healthy after school snack and often motivate and reward the child for tackling that list of math problems or other dreaded work. Try it!

Image credit: qwickstep.com