Coupons for Kids

My kids would play video games all day if we let them, and that includes the two year old as well. With being well into summer, of course we have heard the standard, "I'm bored!" at lest one hundred times per child. If they are not busy being bored, (thinks on that one for a moment) they are fighting, constantly. Of course their solution to all this is more time on the computer or the Wii, and of course, trying to be the granola girl, I say no way. To which they moan and cry and want to know why did Santa even bring the Wii anyway? Hmm
So our solution to all this is the coupon. It eliminates most of the arguing, some of the I'm bored and all the fighting to do their chores in the morning. This is how it works. Each child has a chore board with their jobs for the week on it. This list is rotated each week between the three oldest kids, with the youngest helping his older brother. I do modify it a bit depending on which kid has which set, but here is this weeks list. After they finish their chores and one page in their workbooks that we picked up here, they are free to play whichever media they choose, but only for 32 minutes, this is their "coupon". Why such an odd time? We had it set for 30 but our oldest argued it takes two minutes for the system to boot and the game to start and we enjoyed this thinking so much we agreed to add the extra two. Chores, homeschool and no arguing for either! Works for me.