Eat Your Rainbow!

I decided my oldest is ready to start having some chores around the house. Since I was raised by a a former teacher, we had charts and cards for everything. So I went to the store and bought a Chore Chart. It was pre-made, which I didn't really like, but it turned out to be a good thing (no Martha Stewart reference intended.) It was divided into 4 groups with lines below for me to be more detailed: Taking Care of Myself, Taking Care of My Room, Helping Around the House and Other Things I Need to Do. So I'm kind of locked into dividing my chores up into these groups. Helping around the house was easy since that's kind of what I was thinking when I got the idea for the chart. Other Things weren't hard either, Rat Care, "school work", etc. Taking Care of my Room was a little odd, since that seems to me pretty much just picking up toys, but this post really is mostly about the Taking Care of Myself part. I put shower and brush teeth, but then I decided to REALLY put some things that he should do to take care of himself. First, he needs to drink water. I'm always worried about the lack of fluids that kid consumes so in order to get his sticker for this one, he needs to drink a glass of water. Not the 8 that are recommended, but it's a start. Second, he needs to exercise. Most days this is something that he does anyway, but I want him to be aware that this is something important that he needs to make an effort to do each day. Lastly, he needs to eat a rainbow. This is something I found last summer when I was reading a lot of Dr Sears's books. He suggests telling kids that they need to eat a rainbow each day to have a healthy diet. So I've been working for the last year teaching my kids about "grow food" (which was FANTASTIC for going to the farm where we got our CSA veggies!) and healthy eating. So this summer my kids are going to be sure to eat at LEAST one Red, Orange, Yellow, Dark Green, Blue or purple food a day. Of course this is going to be mostly my responsibility to make sure these foods are available, but it's important to me to make sure my kids understand what it is to be a healthy eater and make good food choices now and for the rest of their lives. So now that all 3 of them are home with me all day and I'm going to the grocery store with my entourage I'm going to have them help me find foods that fit into these categories. Being that it's summer, we'll have lots to choose from. I really hope this goes well and my kids take an interest. Especially my daughter. If it were up to her, she'd eat cereal all day long!