Building A Happy Home

Love love love this idea!  As soon as I saw it, I had to use it in my home.  I found this AMAZING idea from Sugardoodle.  We LOVE Sugardoodle!  She found this idea on this really cute new site, Chicken Babies.  Just to be clear, the idea is from Chicken Babies but I found it via Sugardoodle! ;)  I like to make sure I give credit where it’s due!
The idea is that you build a small lego home.
 
Then, you take blocks off of it.  I thought taking off about half the house (over 60 blocks) was the perfect number for my family.  I’m storing the blocks in a cute Lego container, right next to the “Happy Home.”

I first showed my kids the nice pretty “Happy Home.”  Then, I took the blocks off. 
I told my kids that we want to make sure that we always have a “happy home.”  Every time I see them doing something sweet for someone in our home, we will add a brick back onto the home. 
When we build our “Happy Home” back up we will get a reward.  I always let my kids pick rewards like this.  We decided a trip to the movies was the perfect reward.
 
There is a catch.  When I see my kids doing things that tear down our happy home, then we will remove a brick!

I LOVE this idea because I’m always trying to work on our family (and home) being a place where everyone loves, respects, and has fun with one another.  I think this lesson will be so easy for my kids to understand and be such a fun way to focus on it.
My children are so excited about this activity that they asked if we can keep it going once we finish this house.  They want to then build something together, and it will be the new “Happy Home” to build back up!  I love that because I had initially thought about having them build this home in the first place (to help them understand that it takes all of us to make a happy home).  But I got too excited and couldn’t wait for them to get home from school! ;)
Rebecca
PS.  Make sure to check out Sugardoodle’s and Chicken Babies’ sites!