Chores are a big struggle in our family. We have 6 people living in a pretty cramped space, and the brunt of the housework has been left to Mom and Dad. I've never understood how it is fair for four kids to TRASH a place, just to turn around and expect the two people who work all day to make sure that they have food to eat and a roof over their heads to also pick up after them. No way kiddos!
We've tried a variety of chore charts in the past, sometimes they work for a bit, sometimes they don't work at all. Boredom seems to be the biggest culprit for the ones that work for awhile and then stop working, so I devised this plan for a chore chart that rotates the tasks so that each person in the family has responsibilities in ONE room for ONE week and the next week they move onto something different.
Obviously, you may need to tweak this to suit your own family's needs, but it's highly flexible.
I started by creating colored slips of paper with the names of each family member on them (I cut an index card into 5 slips because only 5 of our family members are big enough to participate in actual chores right now - Colored them with a light colored marker and wrote names in black)
Then I worked on cutting the lists in half (they print two lists per page, landscape format)
After cutting the lists apart, I positioned them on an old cork board that we had laying around unused, I attached them with some push pins and then randomly assigned everyone to a room, as seen below:
I didn't add my youngest to the chore chart, though after speaking with hubby this evening, agreed that she should be added as a "helper" to someone else. These lists are formatted so that there are three DAILY tasks, to be done... every day... and then one task for each day of the week that is a "weekly" task. Each person's name will rotate clockwise to a different list on Sunday evening/Monday Morning to the next room list and they will work on that list through the week. The youngest, when she's added will go with someone else and her name will more COUNTER-clockwise, that way she is working in a different room and with a different person each week, to help her learn how to do the tasks as she get's older.
As the house gets bigger and SHE gets bigger, other rooms/areas will be added to the list and she will get her own list to do.
For families that are bigger, you could double up people in rooms (perhaps highlight jobs in different colors so one person does half and the other does half?) or if your family is smaller, double up the lists, so each person does two rooms or something similar.
This works well for our family!
Just print the lists (takes 3 sheets of printer paper) and cut them in half. Then create your name markers and set your board up!
Click here to purchase your copy of the printable lists for just $0.99!
