Chore Charts

My other project for our summer break has been to re-work our chore system and schedule.  I took the chore charts we already had in place and merged them with the chore-packs idea from the book, Managers of Their Chores by Steve and Terri Maxwell.

First, I just wanted to say how much we enjoyed reading this book. The premise behind teaching our children to embrace and enjoy work as a gift from the Lord is powerful.  I have been challenged to move beyond assigning chores as merely a way to keep up with housework to a tool I have to train and edify our children in their walk with the Lord.  He has created us to work. He equips and strengthens us to work. He  calls us to work. He uses our work to testify to His goodness and faithfulness in our lives. He receives glory because we work. If I fail to equip our children with a strong work ethic, I have missed one of my priorities as a parent. Without a love and commitment to diligent work, we cannot fulfill God's call on our lives. So, choring has taken on a new fervor in our home and we'd appreciate your prayers as we ALL work to reshape our thinking regarding the work we are called to do each day.

Here are our chore charts for each day/room. I have our Daily work zones linked on the sidebar of our blog. 

We begin our day with Morning Chores.

We then move on to Meal Time Chores, which, of course, take place 3 times daily.  This year I added the role of Kitchen Helper to our After Meal Time chores. This job alternates weekly and this person works with Mommy after their own clean-up chores are done. I made this change because I could see that everyone needed a little more training in the dishwashing department. I've also found that working on dishes together creates some nice one on one conversation time.

Once our clean up is finished, in the summer we move on to our Daily Chores, which should take us about 30 minutes.  In the colder seasons, we sometimes move this to late afternoons so we can get started on our lessons right away.  However, in the summer I like to get our inside work done right away and get us outside so we don't undo the work so readily. ;-)  It may be helpful for some of you to know the ages of the children doing the jobs listed. At the time of these charts being used the ages of our children are as follows:
E-13
J-12
B-9
R-7
S-5
V-3
and the baby is 16 months, but she didn't make the charts. Her daily chore is making us smile. :-D

Daily Chores:

Monday: General tidy up from the weekend/clean out the van (everyone helps as needed)

Tuesday:
Upstairs Bathroom Chores
Downstairs Bathroom Chores
(You'll notice that the boys are doing non-bathroom chores on Bathrooms day. That is for the purpose of keeping one busy outside of the bathroom while another works inside of the bathroom. The bathroom they clean isn't big enough for them both to work in their together. ;-) )

Wednesday:
Bedrooms Chores (this one is 3 pages long, so keep scrollin')

Thursday:
Living Room Chores

Friday:
Kitchen/Provision Room Chores (in case you don't remember, we named our new pantry/mudroom the Provision Room after our remodel last year. ;-) )

Our final block of choring comes in during that half-hour or so before Daddy gets home. We call it Daddy Clean Up time and use it to tidy things up so that Daddy can feel good about coming home to his castle. I also use it as a time to work with training the children in the kitchen some more when they are on "dinner" as a task.  This year we are alternating the jobs of House/Yard/Dinner weekly. Our children have buddy teams (2 children strategically paired together) so those teams work together on the Daddy Clean Up Chores for the week.

From these lists I printed out small cards to slide into clear name badge clips that the children wear until their tasks are done and inspected. We are currently working on training for the new chores and learning how to utilize the badges. I will say that they have been extremely helpful this week when I've been out of commission with a bad back. It was very helpful for the children to take their "clips" and head off to accomplish their chores even when Mommy couldn't go along to oversee it all.

Not everything gets done perfectly and we're working on building effective ways to correct and reward as we go. After another couple weeks of practice, though, we should be doing pretty well and ready to take on our next challenge: Revising the MOTH schedule for the new school year. Whew! Who called this time of year the Lazy Days of Summer?? Ha!!