Chores

It's time. These kids need to start helping out more around here! Since we started our home schooling year, I've been feeling pretty behind when it comes to house work. So I've been mulling over some chore chart ideas and it finally came to me this morning. Most of the ideas I have seen involve complicated spreadsheets, charts, envelope systems, or generally time-consuming and elaborate scrapbooking-style projects. I'm not into any of those things. I just needed something easy and the solution occurred to me when I found my baggie of large popsicle sticks behind a cabinet today.

Similar to our "Prayer Pail", I wrote chores on the sticks (with the kids' help) with a different color of Sharpie for each child's jobs. For example, they each have a stick in their own color that says "make bed", but only Natalie has one that says "help empty dishwasher". You get the idea. Then I used a 4th color for jobs that anyone can do whenever they need done, like tidy the TV room, and also several sticks that just say "extra". We put the sticks in a cute green pail. Whenever one of the kids complete a chore, they move the correct stick over to their Mom Bucks jar. At the end of the day, I exchange the sticks for Mom Bucks.  (You can read about both our Prayer Pail and the Mom Bucks Store in this post).

Since the kids were involved in the creation of the system, they were pretty excited to do their chores today. When school was over, my house got cleaned and I didn't do it--how nice!! I know the novelty will wear off and they will not always be so motivated, but their colored sticks will need done every day and chores done with bad attitudes will not earn Mom Bucks! They love Mom Bucks. Seriously, they love Mom Bucks. When they do the extra/optional chores, they can opt for a couple M&M's or candy corns (I usually keep some small treats on hand). So there's our simple new system!

Sewing has been minimal for several days, but I hope to have a few things to show you soon. I also have some fun homeschooling ideas to share this week! We've been studying Madeline in our Five in a Row curriculum, so France and England have been on our brains. Fun stuff!