Thursday, September 23, 2010

Chore Charts That Motivate

Found a great chore chart website with an online personalized customizable chore chart maker. It is great because you can fit it to your individual family's unique chore needs. There are plain ones, ones that you can use your own pictures, or a list of hundreds of themes. Start here with this link http://www.dltk-cards.com/chart/. While there browse around, there are great projects and craft ideas. You might be a while, but don't forget what you went there for ;).  We founded our "Snack Shack" out of desperation.  We had no motivation to do chores and hated math work. It was a true family effort and has snuck in math, economics, shopping frugality (there is a 10 dollar budget to buy snack items) and work gets done faster than when we offered 5 or 10 dollars to do the hard jobs around the home.  We have a lot of acreage to keep up on our homestead, so the work is never done. These charts have been great motivators. So, here's the how to:

After you print out your charts slip them in a plastic page protector and grab a dry erase marker to mark off each chore. You now have a reuseable chore chart.
 Our family uses our coins (to learn money value and work ethics) for our bank. Each chore gets a different amount that it is worth( for example: brush teeth = 2 cents.) We placed baggies under the chart and appointed  a banker to place the coins in each person's bag when the chores are done.
 At the end of the day each person goes to the snack shack where there is an eager store keeper ready to trade coins for snacks.
 The children put prices on each item in the snack shack according to how common it was and how much it was wanted by everyone. (Example: crackers were 10 cents, but fruit roll ups were 40 cents.)
After the coins add up and there are a 100 coins earned the children can choose a family movie night, ice cream out on the town, or  a park play day. It has taught responsibility as well as accountability.  We hope it gives others a spark for their family chores. If you have any other improvements let us know.

No comments: