Card Chart

In Jared's Kindergarten they use a card chart as a disciplinary tool. The color of each card has a set consequence with it, and they progress from one card to the next. Green means they were good all day. Yellow they were given a warning and had to sit in time out. Orange causes them to miss recess or centers. Red they are sent to the principle's office. Blue is a call to the parents. When they stay on green they get a superticket/sticker at the end of the day. If the whole class stays on green, they could fill a jar with marbles or some other thing. When the jar was actually filled they could watch a movie as a class. This system was very effective for Jared. So, we've wanted to use it at home too.

Matthew has been trying to figure out how we wanted to do our own card chart, and finally Sunday we did it. Here is the result:



I kind of winged it in the putting together, so I learned a lot as the project progressed. We had debated each person choosing a fabric for their pocket to individualize it, but we couldn't think of how to do it easily. By the end, I realized I could/should have used the bias tape to reinforce the pocket seems. In doing so, the edges of the individual fabrics would have been hidden. Oh well. Maybe there will be a next time.

We had a family vote on the fabric, and these pencils won.

Materials used:
fabric glue
fabric
clear plastic vinyl
bias tape (extra wide double hemmed)
grommets
matching thread

We measured the size of the fabric and vinyl and cut. We intended to just fold the vinyl up to create the pockets, but it was too challenging to get the bias tape over it, so I ended up cutting the pocket piece off so the vinyl would lay flat - much easier!! So, next time I would measure and cut the back piece and pocket piece separately. To help keep the fabric and vinyl lined up, I used the fabric glue to attach them together around the edges - just enough that the binding would hide it.

I did the pocket piece first. I attached the fabric to the vinyl with glue, then sewed binding only along the top. Next time, I would also add strips of the bias tape where I plan on sewing the pocket seams to create a more finished look as well as reinforce the seams. I'd probably glue them down so I could save the actual sewing to the end. Those strips would need to be done before attaching the top tape so that the ends would be hidden.

Once the pocket was prepared, I then attached it with pins to the back piece (which I'd already glued the fabric to the vinyl). Starting from the bottom, I pinned the bias tape along the outside of the whole chart. I put the edges all the way against the crease of the bias tape, but it didn't have to be that way if we needed more room on the pockets. After the binding was pinned, I sewed it on.

For the pockets, we used index cards as a guage for how big the pockets needed to be, marked it with a dry erase marker (since it's vinyl it would wipe right off with some water and a paper towel), and sewed a straight stitch from the bottom up to top of the pocket binding.

The final step was adding two grommets to the top of the chart - one on each corner. I played with hanging it up with ribbon. Stringing one piece of ribbon through both holes and hanging it from the middle did not work because the chart wasn't sturdy enough to lay flat. Two smaller ribbons tied on each grommet would have worked just fine, but we ended up just hanging it on our front door using clip magnets. For now, that will work well enough until we find a final spot for it.