Chore Chart

This is the second installment of the making of Family HQ! The first step was redoing the bulletin board. Keeping to my goals, the chore chart is essential to teaching them responsibility and lightening the load on me. We have done many chore charts in the past, but I've found they only do the chores when they want and for money! 

I came across Coupon Cookin’s genius approach to chores. She gives the children responsibilities to complete before extra chores can be earned for allowance. For more tips and a free chore chart printable visit Coupon Cookin!

To get started, I wrote a list of responsibilities I felt the kiddos should complete without compensation.

• Make bed
• Feed dog
• Put away toys
• Set/ clear table
• Put away clean clothes (this will be a life saver for me)

Next, I made another list of chores that I would be willing to compensate for- AFTER MY RESPONSIBILITIES ARE COMPLETED.

• Vacuum
• Empty bathroom trashes
• Outside trash pick up
• Wipe sinks
• Dust
• Windows

As for compensation, each chore will be worth a quarter, 15 minutes of video game, 15 minutes of computer time, or 15 minutes of T.V. I painted wooden shapes to be the Media Tokens to give to the kids. I opted not to label them for flexibility.

The actual chore chart is 2 charts- one for responsibilities and one for chores. Each chart has the written words and a picture for each responsibility and chore.

On the written side, my 7 year old (K)will check off her duties and the picture side is for my 5 year old(R). My kids seem to like using stickers to signify they did the job. To accommodate daily stickers, I attached strips of paper streamers. Each day a fresh streamer can go up!

Of course, I chose the Cricut to style this project. Each individual letter placement was reminiscent of the Heart Typography project. Like the heart project, my muffin tin method came in handy. And look from my craft and stash stealth mode, I have dried letters and glue still in it. It POPPED right out! Wahoo! Too bad it’s not that easy with paintbrushes with dried glue…

Old glue popped right out!

The Set up

laying it all out

Mod Podged as I did each letter

Using the other end of the paintbrush to position

Here’s the rundown with the Cricut

• Cricut Lite Chore Chart for the pictures cut at 2 inches
• Alphalicious- cut at 1 inch for lettering. Braces cut at 2.25 inches. (Might too big)
• For the chart headers, letters cut 1.75 inches with the ‘O’ and ‘P’ cut to 1.25 inches to save room on RESPONSIBILITIES.
• Home Décor- label layer cut at 6 inches each to frame out headers.

After I got everything in place, I noticed the headers were washed out against the yellow scrapbook paper. I should have used the shadow feature in the maroon polka dotted paper-BUT it was all glued and I was running out of paper. I just took a marker and traced around the header letters for definition. It’s not perfect…

I really had to let go of perfectionism and just get this done. If I hadn’t let letters be a little wonky and outlines a little uneven THIS WOULD NOT OF GOT DONE AT ALL! The chart is supposed to help everyone and not become a problem itself.

Hooray for character!

Some details shots:

Update! I've changed the headers to match the rest of Family HQ