Making the World Cuter: Cleaning the House is Fun to Do! Part 1: Chore Chart Tutorial

Okay, so last week I showed you my kids cute wallets that I made them with a promise to show you how we handle jobs here at the Making the World Cuter house.

Now let me just start out by saying that we have tried a LOT of things in this house to get the job done.

Almost every summer I would make a new fun chore chart with incentives and 'punishments' to go along with them and nothing worked. They would last for anywhere from a week to a month with varied enthusiasm.

We took a break from this to try the online job chart for a bit...but it annoyed me that my kids always wanted to get on the computer to mark off a job...that may work better for older kids, or those who have their own computers. But for me...not so much.

This works.

At least for us.

I would love to hear what works for you in the comments, so that other parents looking for other options to get their kids to pitch in can find those ideas!

Today I am just going to show you how to make the initial job chart.

I took regular printer paper, markers, contact paper and some adhesive magnet strips oh and some construction paper in my kids favorite colors that I didn't take a picture of.

I used to have each of the kids have ten jobs each...but I found that one; I was giving them silly jobs just to make it to ten, and two; the kids got bored with it on some days.

I condensed it down to five more general jobs rather than specific jobs.

Let me explain.

Rather than giving them;

-Shower

-Get Dressed

-Eat Breakfast-

-Brush your teeth

I now just give them a basic "Get Ready" job that encompasses all of that.

For the jobs, I drew easy little pictures on the piece of paper in about an inch and 1/2 square.

I gave all 3 kids the same 4 jobs and then they each get one more that is fitting to their abilities.

I only drew them out once in pencil and then made a couple copies of them. I cut them out and glued them to squares of their favorite colors and colored them with markers.

I then made a simple envelope with a piece of heavier double sided card stock and stapled it together.

I covered the jobs in contact paper to laminate them and then cut the magnet strips into little pieces and attached them to the back. Easy.

I put them all on a magnetic dry erase board and hung it at their eye level in the hall by their bathroom. It's not in a place that most people will see, but it's in a spot that they will see throughout the day.

It would also work to put the whole thing on the fridge or any other magnetic surface.

As a job gets done they just take it off and stick it into the envelope.

We have been doing this pretty consistently for over a year and it is still working.

I have had to make some changes to the jobs like I said, but the concept has remained the same.

Tomorrow I will share a little bit more about what their jobs entail, I don't want to overwhelm you with a novel sized post! :)

What are your favorite job charts? Do you have an online source? Let us know what kind of job charts have worked for you...or what hasn't worked for you...