With a lot of kids, comes a lot of responsibilities. Have you ever said something to your kids, and instantly thought, “oh my gosh, I sound like my mother!?” Sometimes I can’t help myself when my kids come to me complaining they are bored. My first reaction is to say, “you’re bored? I’ll give you something to do!”
What they find boring, I find overwhelming. In a desperate attempt to get more organized, I began searching the internet for inspiration on how to create a chore chart. I was surprised to find there aren’t many ideas that work for big families. There are plenty of suggestions and many options to buy for each individual kid, but I needed a better system.
Teamwork Makes the Dream Work
In our family, we value the importance of teamwork. We believe family teamwork helps build trust and maintains open lines of communication between us as parents, and our kids. In addition, family teamwork also encourages accountability to one another. I needed teamwork to be the focus of our daily habits.
Time Spent with Family is Time Well Spent
A few years ago, my sister recommended I read the book, “The 5 Love Languages of Children.” From that book, I learned my children feel most loved when they spend quality time with me. In a world, where so many distractions are at our finger tips, it is getting harder and harder for me to be intentional about my time with them. When I started thinking about how my children should be rewarded weekly for their efforts, I wanted to involve them in the process of choosing those activities that would be centered around quality time as a family.
The Perfect Chore Chart
So to sum it all up, what I was looking for was a board with enough space to give responsibilities to each member of our family while also giving me the option to track daily progress and customize weekly rewards. Am I being too particular? Maybe a little. But check out the solution I came up with!
Pretty cool, right? I found this large, galvanized metal board at Michaels but I don’t think they carry them in store anymore. A great alternative would be a magnetic white board or even a magnetic chalk board would look really cool!
You can find the color coordinated glass gems at any craft store. The dollar tree has quite a few colors to choose from. That’s where I started. But had to pick up a few extra colors at Joanns. Then, I used hot glue and .5” button magnets to make them magnetic. Make sure to grab enough different colored gems that each person has their own color!
For the reward magnets, it was easiest for me to use my Cricut machine to cut and write out the words on magnetic paper. I included my kids on this project by putting them in charge of coloring the pictures.
To keep the board clean and organized, I picked up small burlap bags and iron on vinyl to match each person’s name with their color coordinating circle.
My Chaos Coordinator
Don’t let this project intimidate you! It has many components to make it functional but it is fairly easy and quick to put together. We have been using it for the last few weeks. I wish you could see the difference it has made in my kids’ willingness to help and how independent they have become.
I will be adding new posts in the near future to share some of our quality time activities. So please don’t forget to sign up for emails to be notified on all of my newest posts!
2 Comments
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So how does the chore chart actually work like? What does the black rocks with the stars on them mean,? How do you divvy out the chores? How do you show the kids that it is done? How do you make sure each kid does the chores that they’re supposed to do like what’s the actual function of it it’s a great chart and it looks awesome but how does it work? I am a family of six and I would love to figure out how this works to see if it will work for my family.