Chores

Chores are an important training tool to help teach children responsibility, initiative, and respect for one's property. It helps me to remember that we are training future employees, husbands, wives, and parents. I don't want to see them turn out to be lazy citizens. Not only that, but I can use some help around here!!

I did a lot of research to see how other moms organize their chores. I bought a couple of children's chore charts. I spent many hours on FlyLady.com and over a year using her program. I'm sorry to say that I lost the link that helped me make the system that I have now. I combined that link with a FlyLady approach and this is what I came up with.

I have a magnetic hook that hangs on the refrigerator. There are 5 index cards hanging on this hook. Each index card one of the daily chore cards (above) taped to it with large packing tape. This way it is a little water resistant. Each week the children get a different color. They are in charge of doing their color chore each day. By changing colors each week, they don't get tired of doing the same chore over and over.

I found that my children enjoy their chores more when I'm in the same room they are. So, I made my own set of chore cards.

I divided my chores into what needs to be done weekly on the top of the card. The bottom has 4 weeks listed and one extra chore per week. This gets the spring cleaning done each month with little extra work involved!! I made an extra set of cards for me that have a different room on each card. I divided those cards into 6 months and wrote on the top of the card a month and the month that is 6 months from it. For example. Kitchen is February/August. Now, those projects are to be worked on during those months. If something doesn't get done, I know that in 6 months I can try again.

Some weeks when the days slip by and the work doesn't get done, we'll each take 1 room on Monday and spend 1-2 hours to do all that room's chores. The kids really like this for a change because the rest of the week is just keep it clean. I don't like to do this too often but it's really nice to have a completely clean house once in a while.

To make these cards, I took a sheet of paper into each room. I divided the sheet into 3 sections. Section 1: weekly chores. Section 2: monthly or bi-yearly chores. Section 3: Projects I'd like to have done in that room. Armed with a list for each room, I sat down at the computer and made a set of cards for each day of the week (one for Mom and one for the kids). I then made a second set of cards for projects by the month. covered these cards with packing tape for protection and hung them on a magnetic hook.

That's all there is to it.