Chore Sticks

It seems like every 6-9 months it's time to come up with a new chore chart/system. It helps get us all excited again to do chores, and it helps to create a new system as they get older and can handle a more complex system. I've been slacking the past few months so I knew it was time to come up with something new. I searched and searched for weeks looking at all the different chore charts on Pinterest and the ones I found through google. I saw the chore sticks and really liked how easy they were. After 3 weeks of planning and organizing how I wanted it, this is what I came up with:

The sticks were easy to paint. I just used a foam brush and painted about 1 1/2-2 inches on the end. The jars were empty plastic containers that had juice packets in them from Walmart. I used a razor blade to cute about 2 inches off of them. Then I modge podged paper onto them and added ribbon.

I don't like the idea of giving my kids money for each chore they do. I want my kids to learn that they are responsible to help out bc they live here and are a member of the family. I don't want them to feel entitled to getting money every time I ask them to do something. I also don't want to just give them money. They need to earn it by working and doing extra chores. So each of my 3 kids have their own color...blue, pink, or purple. Every day they have about 3 chores in their color that they have to do (bedroom, 2 rooms on the main floor, and one extra chore. The extra chores were specific to the day...Mon-empty garbages, Tues-gather dirty laundry, Wed-bathrooms, Thurs-empty garbages, Fri-mom's choice.)

After they do their colored chores, they can put them in their own "done jars"- the one's with their names on them. Then they can pick 2 yellow sticks. These ones they can do for .25 each. I walked around my house and wrote down any random thing that could be done 1-2 times a week. Some of our money chores include making mom's bed, cleaning the sliding door, vacuum under the couch cushions, mop kitchen floor, vacuum stairs, empty dishwasher, dust entry table, etc. and then there are a bunch of mom's choice sticks. That way they could do things that are needed to be done right then. The first 1-2 weeks I did most of these with them to help teach them how to do the chores. Now they know how to do all of them on their own. I'm surprised how much they are able to do on their own...even clean a bathroom! It's great and it's nice that I don't have to be doing everything. When they are done with each chore they put them in their "done jar."

When one of the kids is naughty, they pick a chore from the green naughty jar. These chores are the same ones as the yellow money chores, but they don't get paid for them. It's amazing the difference their attitude is depending on if they are doing a yellow or green chore. I love that they are happy while they are doing their money chores.

On Friday or Saturday we count up how much they earned during the week. I try to keep it around $2.50...which is 10 quarters. They put 1 quarter in their tithing jar, 4 in their spend jar, and 5 in their save jar. I'm running out of quarters so we'll start using dollar bills. I think $10 a month for a 2, 4, and 6 yr old is plenty. They love saving their money, and then I let them use their spending money on anything they want...even if it's a waste. They have learned that not everything they want is worth buying. I bought these money jars from the Dollar Tree.

So far the kids love it and they are doing great. Their rooms have never stayed clean this long, and we are getting things done that haven't been done in months...baseboards, cupboards, organizing drawers, etc.