Their daily responsibilities "to-do" list
Their Chore Cards pages, Monday through Saturday
Family Home Evening assignments page (Once a week we have a family night)
Calendar (for our monthly planning meeting)
Independence List
and Personal Interview page.
Not only does this teach my children personal accountability, but also about the importance of personal planning and organization.
And FYI - my oldest is 7 and even my 3 year old has one! So don't think that your child is too young for something like this!
(Oh... and FYI I have a master binder that holds all the cards.)
Each child has Monday through Saturday separate chore pages and each page holds 3-5 chores depending on the age of the child and the difficulty of the chore.
Once a chore has been completed, and I pass it off, they turn it over.
After they complete their Saturday chores, they get paid. We call Saturday "Pay Day". I pay my children .25 cents a chore. This usually accumulates to $5-$7 a week.
Here is the catch. I like the things that I teach my kids to apply to the real world. Soooooo,
**Chores are not mandatory in our household!!** You're probably thinking, "WHAT??!!!!?!?!"
Here's why:
In the real world, if you go to work, you get paid. And once you're at work, you don't get to pick and choose what you get to do, you do what you're assigned and what needs to get done. So, if my kids decide that they don't want to do their chores that day, they don't get paid. Simple as that. HOWEVER, If they decide to "go to work" and do their chores, they don't get to pick and choose which ones they do that day and which ones they don't. They do what they were assigned.
Yes this system means that there are days when chores don't get done. But come pay day, when one child get's $7 and the other only gets $3 it's a real bite in the butt! And more often than not, the $3 kid works way harder the next week due to that poor pay day.
Now one thing that IS mandatory is their Personal Responsibilities.
(Making their bed, keeping their room clean, picking up after themselves, doing their homework, getting up and ready for the day and putting themselves to sleep responsibly by brushing their teeth and getting their backpacks and lunches ready for the next day.)
In the real world, you have responsibilities. And in the real world, you don't get paid to fulfill your responsibilities.
Granted, when you grow up, chores become responsibilities, but when kids are young, chores are the closest thing to "work".
Now I know that this won't work for everyone. Every family has a different system. So, I'm sure you could use these cards in a million different ways.
*Put them on Popsicle sticks
*Attach a key chain and sort the chores by day with 5 or 6 separate key chains, and then hang it on a chore board.
*Attach magnets and put them on your fridge....
If you decide to do something else with these cards let me know! I'd love to see them and showcase it!
Here are the rest of the chore cards:
Winter Summer Chores (Chores that need to be done on a biannual basis centered around the Winter/Summer seasons
Spring Fall Chores
Daily Chore Cards 1 (Chores that need to be done on a daily basis)
Daily Chores 1
Daily Chore Cards 2
Daily Chores 2
Daily Chore Cards 3
Daily Chores 3 Weekly Chores 1
Weekly Chores 2
Holiday "Chores" My kids LOVE getting assigned these "chores". They are more of a lifeskill teaching tool than a chore.
Holiday Chores
Reminders (Reminder cards)
Reminders
Days of the Week Cards (I put these in the top left of the baseball card page protector aka "Chore page/section of their binders" I left some space under the day of the week so I can write them a note with a wet erase marker. Such as; Your room is the Living Room today." Or, "Love you!"
Days of the Week
Happy Parenting!
