Chore Charts/Laundry Schedule

This summer I decided to make chore charts for my kids.  It's good for them to have some structure to their days during our more relaxed summer, and they are getting older and able to do more things independently around the house to help out.

I cut some white vinyl with my silhouette machine and put it on a piece of sheet metal I had bought at Hobby Lobby.  I used tin snips to cut the metal.  I hammered the pieces of metal onto a tin board and attached it to our kitchen wall with command strips.  It has not fallen yet.  

I cut black vinyl for the chore icons and put them on little bottle cap decorations I found in the scrapbooking section at Hobby Lobby.  I used a glue dot to stick a magnet to the back.  

Maren likes to put "in progress" chores on the middle line

All the kids have a sun icon which represents morning jobs.  They are supposed to do the following first thing when they get up: make bed, get dressed, fix hair, brush teeth (after breakfast), read scriptures/write journal for 10 min, pray, check to make sure bathroom is tidy.  I have a laminated checklist in their rooms where they can check off these chores with a dry erase marker.

They also all have a music icon for their instrument practicing and a book icon for any summer school work I assign.  Once a week, Maren and Joshua also have a shirt icon to remind them to do their laundry.  The rotating icons which I change every 2 weeks are: breakfast dishes, lunch dishes, dinner dishes, sweeping, vacuuming, yard work, clean out car, and garbage/recycling.  I've been giving the person with breakfast dishes the lunch dishes also, since sometimes breakfast doesn't get cleaned up very well and then they can just do them all at lunchtime.  I have 2 yard workers to go out and do weeding or watering or whatever I need. 

We are 3 weeks in to using the charts and so far they are working great.  It's easy for me to see what people still need to do before they can play and who's in charge of what dishes, because I often forget.  And it helps remind the kids what they are supposed to be doing around the house.

Related to this, several months ago I made myself a laundry chart in the hope that it would help me not have 10 loads of laundry to do every saturday.  It has worked a little bit.  I have assigned Maren and Joshua days to do their own laundry, and when it's their day, I add the laundry icon to their chore board.  I'm apparently not as good at telling myself what to do as I am at bossing my kids around.  BUT, I am getting better at doing a bit of laundry each day and avoiding the saturday pile up. Now if only I could get it all put away . . .