Simple Chore Charts

Hi friends! I mentioned it on Instagram the other day, but I took a little break from social media for a couple of weeks. It wasn’t really intentional. We were on vacation {more on that later! one of our very favorite trips of all time!} and then we jumped right into back-to-school time. I also needed to get a new computer so I’m still learning the new technology of everything and I had a hard time getting back into the swing of things and blog posts and social media posts fell by the wayside.

I thought this week I would take a little break from sharing design projects and share some of my recent “Living Solutions” that are working for me, our home and our family as we transition out of summer and into the school year. Back to school time always feels like a new beginning to me {Fall is my very favorite season}, even more so than January 1st, and I’m working on getting some routines, time management, and organization dialed in around here!

These little chore charts helped us a lot this summer get into the groove of teaching my kids about helping around the house and working on responsibility. As most of you reading may know, I have a boy that just turned 7, a 4 year old boy and a 2 year old little girl. We’ve tried many different chore charts, sticker charts, behavior charts, job charts, you-name -it charts, trying to get the concept of chores, earning money or rewards. Some have done the job for the time being and some haven’t. And sometimes mom and dad forget that they made this whole chart thing up and then nothing really gets accomplished!

But this summer, we had extra time and the older two wanted to play on the Kindle, so the only way they got their 30 minutes of Kindle was to get their jobs completed. I checked out some ideas on Pinterest. I wanted something simple and visual for the little ones. I found the idea of this type of chore chart here, but adapted it a bit and found images that worked for us. You can see some other ideas I pinned on my “Parenting” board.

I ordered some of these clipboards, one for each kid, some medium clear Command Hooks {I love these things, by the way. I have them all over the place!} and got my laminator out!

I can’t find the actual images I used for these chore cards! I changed a few and then printed them out and laminated them. I just cut little pieces of Velcro and laid it all out for spacing and added some extra ones at the bottom for those extra jobs they don’t do everyday. The Velcro I used didn’t stick too great. If I were to do it again, I would get some of this industrial strength stuff. I ended up hot gluing them on the laminated chore cards and that worked but I may need to switch them out for some stronger Velcro.

This is my oldest’s clipboard. Brushing teeth, getting dressed, practicing guitar, doing his “learning time” during the summer, homework during the school year, reading, making his bed {which didn’t make this picture} and helping to pick up toys and dirty clothes and putting clean folded laundry away are his jobs.

This is the 4 year old’s chart. He feeds the dog and he also needs to learn to keep track of his shoes!! He may or may not head out in our backyard with shoes on, but 99% of the time if he does, he’s losing one of them in the backyard. Or in the house. Or the car. I seriously don’t know how he does it since he only has like 2 pairs of shoes, but he does. So that is one of his jobs!

Once they do the job, they move it over. I have to say they were very motivated and this summer would take their clipboards around the house completing their chores and moving their cards to the other side.

This is my little one’s clipboard. She can’t make her bed yet, she’s still in her crib, but it’s ready for when she can. She doesn’t have as many chores, but she loves helping with laundry! And she doesn’t pick up the dog poop, but I was out of space on the boys’ charts so it’s just living here for when I move it over to their boards!

I decided on the clear Command Hooks so they would visually disappear and they work really well with the weight of these clipboards.

I decided to hang them in our laundry room so they were out of the way, but still easily in sight for the kids. They can reach their boards and can put them back easily.

I’d love to figure out an “extra job” system for earning money doing jobs, but I haven’t ever gotten around to making cards or popsicle sticks labeled with jobs or creative “job boards” with money attached {have you seen those awesome ideas out there?!?!} So for now, we’re good with pictures and velcro tabs!

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