Chores, Chores, Chores!

There is this great web site where you can make up charts for free. It is www.dltk-cards.com/chart/
I use this web site all the time to make charts, cards or for activities. I hope this helps

I really liked what theideadoor.com has. I was able to print a list of jobs done by ages and they have a variety of charts to track progress or choose for each day.

There is a great website that is free!
www.dltk-cards.com

You can do cards, bingo boards, and alot of other
stuff too.

http://www.dltk-cards.com/chart/chart2.asp
My kids loved these ones.

http://www.payjr.com/choreandallowance.html is what we use now. It's awesome to teach them about money and get them excited to do their chores as well!

www.childrensmiraclemusic.com this is a very fun way! They send you a chart & marker with stickers and CD's with fun music. The kids set a goal for a private date after they earn 100pts. My 5year old and 3 yr old LOVE it!

Sometimes it is more fun to have them help make their own. We don't do allowance, as I think kids should help automatically. We have a reward chart that they earn happy faces for following rules, listening, going to bed nicely, picking up after themselves and after so many happy faces earned (they can get frowny faces for not doing what they are suppose to which cancels out smileys sometimes) then they can go pick out something special and even earn a day at Chuck E Cheese. Like 30 smileys they get a $10 gift card at Target, or 40 smileys Chuck E Cheese. Catch is that they lose smileys for every 15 frownies. My thought process is they should help as being part of the family not to earn money but it is encouraging to reward the behavior if they do it without being asked, so it just becomes something they just do and then get rewarded for helping the family out at the end of the month. Just a thought or what is working for us. My rule here too is if you get it out you put it away, both of my kids put their own clothes away after I have folded them and they are to put their dishes in the sink after meals.

We are doing the same thing with our 5 year old! What we did is figure out what chores are a must, such as: feeding the cats, making her bed in the morning, putting her dirty clothes in the laundry and taking her dishes to the sink. For 'must do' chores she earns 10 cents (we're cheap, lol!). Then we came up with "extra's", things she doesn't have to do, but it is nice if she does, such as: helping me sort the laundry, helping me clean the rest of the table off after meals, extra help with her little brother and/or sister, dusting. For the "extra's" she earns 25 cents.
I know a lot of people don't want to do allowance, we chose to do it mainly because we want to start instilling a good sense of money managment in her at a young age. You could chose any other reward system you wanted, if any. (stickers for example)
I just bought a white piece of poster board and took a picture of her doing each thing. Then I pasted the picture onto the poster board, when she does a chore she goes and puts a little 'x' next to the picture, under the right day (helps learn days of the week too!) Then at the end of the day we see how many x's she's gotten and give her the correct amount of money. Then she divides her money up, she has a spending jar, a saving jar, and a charity jar.

Hi! We just barely starting using a computer chore chart and it is great. My daughter loves it and it has been effective. Check it out at myrewardboard.com It costs just $20 to buy the program that you register directly to your computer.

Just Google the words FREE CHORE CHARTS and there are so many websites to choose from...

Our favorite site for chore charts is www.dltk-card.com. You can customize it and the kids can select different pictures and colors which makes it fun for them.

I just looked it up and at www.handipoints.com you can customize them and print them out. You have to sign up, but it says it is free. I am not ready for chore chart yet so I have not used this site before, but it is worth a shot. It seems like a great website. Let me know if it works!

J. S

I made my own chart in Excel & marked X or check mark for each chore, for each day of the week - when they did them. I added bonus chore, "help with 2 chores (vacuum, dust, put away laundry) in the week". If they got 2 X's in a day, no TV or PC games. If less than 4 X's all week then they got prize at the end of the week.

Another idea we used was a sticker chart. We used large stock card & divided in half for each child. I made a map of 14 or so squares, circles, etc. They earned or didn't earn a sticker at the end of the day based on overall behavior. Reward was only at the end but something bigger like toy from Target that they got to pick out.

Good luck, M.

Children need to do chores without getting paid for it... An allowance should be your my wonderful child, you have acted well and I love you,... You should not pay your child to make beds, sweep, brush teeth, everyday around the house duties... However more laboring task you can set a price to like mowing the lawn... Raising your child to expect money for all the task he/she preforms could cause your child to have expectations of you later in life that may back fire.

Allowance can be taken away if your child is misbehaving or not completing his tasks.... If he misbehaves and does all his chores it takes away a parent option.

On the chore chart web sites... I actually found an awesome magnetic chore chart at target. It hangs on the wall and you have a huge selection of chores to choose from and reward magnets to mark each chore off with. It really wasn't that expensive.

Children need to learn to serve without expectations connected to the service.

A reward system with marble is kinda fun with chores though... Two Jars and fill one with marbles... They can be cool special marbles or plain ones. Every time your child does chores or good tasks that deserve a reward let him move a marble to the other Jar, when his jar is full he gets to choose a fun family activity... Chucky cheese, an extra park trip, a night at the movies, try to keep it simple and cost efficient so that crazy expectations are not a choice. This is also where the allowance comes into play, If he chooses chucky cheese you have to remember you are paying for the meal-you may give him a certain amount of tokens but explain that if he wants anymore he will have to use his own allowance money.Same with the movies, you are paying for the movies and maybe popcorn, but anything else must be his money...

Remember what you do for one child you generally have to follow suit with the next children... if there are plans for more.

I love www.dltk-kids.com (www.dltk-card.com/chart/)

Just type in free chore charts in your browser to find what suits you.

If you have worksheet software on you computer, you can design on by yourself. If you have Word, you can make on too, it just is a little harder. If you have print shop you can do it too.

My Dad made us "Atari (sp) Bucks" that we could earn for doing chores around the house. We had our normal chores (like making the bed) that we had to do, but any additional work around the house would pay us the Atari Bucks that we could cash in for game time (I think one buck was worth 15 min of game time). Also, if we had friends over we would have to use our Atari Bucks to pay for them to play too.
This was great b/c it taught us a little about money and it really limited the time that we spent playing video games.

Hi A.,

I have a 4 year old and a 2 year old and I found I magnet board at Target for about $10. It is wounderful it has all the days of the week, magnets to put on each day of the week when they have accomplished a certain chore, and several magnets of different chores and blank one's to write in your own chores. I think it is great because you can adjust it for age appropriate chores.

I heard a great way of going about chores and allowances from John C. Maxwell. He said that they had chores because they were part of the family. They earned their allowance by reading books. I tought that was very good. Hope that helps you.

When our oldest was 5, we made up our own basic chore chart. We started him with a few simple tasks a day and he was paid according to which jobs he accomplished each day. To keep track, we made the chart with a check box next to each job that he could check off when he completed that task for the day. We still use this method with all 4 of our children.

Handipoints.com seems to have a lot of good things there is also housefairy.org but it isn't free.

Good luck.

find the books or cds on love and logic. amazing

I have a great website for a virtual chore world with a chart. You can have your child check off the chore she/she does and then earn pointsw to play in this virtual cartoon world. A mom of 7 owns this site and there is not violence, etc. www.handipoints.com

I would also think about not attaching jobs to money. The experts go both ways. We give our 2 oldest kids a monthly allowance. When our other 2 turn 5, they will get 1/2 their age. They actually have quite a bit saved up in their bank accounts and we show them often so they can see how their money is growing. We take money out for them to spend too. Our 4 yr old has $ too from birthdays, etc. My husband got this idea from a financial book he read and it works well.

Good luck!

http://www.dltk-cards.com/chart/

this site you can build your own chart, color or not and with common characters! hope this helps

I love handipoints.com - it might be a bit old for your kids to do by them selves... My son is 7 and he LOVES it! It's amazing how many chores he can do with a good attitude with this site:)

http://dltk-cards.com/