More on Teaching Life Skills (Chores) in your Homeschool

My journey to find a solution began with scheduling our days and incorporating a chores chart.  We don’t have uniformity in our daily schedule, so, most charts were not flexible to meet our needs.

CHORES: Finding a solution that works !

We tried:

A regular lined chores chart…..not flexible enough

Next…
An erasable chores chart….still not flexible enough

Next…

Chores board with movable magnets…..still not flexible enough

Next…

A white board with a full days listings of what each child needs to do.

They LOVED this and really enjoyed erasing each item when finished.  The problem was that it was totally Mom-powered.  If Mom didn’t get it done the night before, it wasn’t ready the next day and threw the whole day off.

Next….

I incorporate the likable ideas I received from my brain-picking session with my Homeschool group and ‘BAM’  this is what I came up with.  It’s still Mom powered, but, can easily be put together in the morning if I don’t get to it the night before.  This method really helps with the flow of the day.

To keep our house ‘under control’, we do a daily Room Rescue where one room of the house is cleaned thoroughly.  Monday= kitchen, Tuesday = dining room, Wednesday = bathroom, Thursday = living room and Friday = bedrooms.

Each child gets 3 hooks.  The first hook holds all the cards that they need for a given day (for example:  Make Bed, Eat Breakfast, Brush Teeth, Get Dressed, Unload dishwasher, School, Lunch, School, Room Rescue, Free, Dinner, Clean Up, Shower).  When each card is completed, they move it to the second hook.  On the third hook is a ‘reward card’.  When each day is completed, the child gets a sticker.  25 stickers and they get to choose a special ‘date’ with Mom or Dad OR a day off from school.

While I don’t have a perfectly clean house all at once, I have peace of mind knowing that each room will get cleaned every 7 days  AND my children are being trained in the ways of keeping house.

We also give our children allowance and follow a Dave Ramsey like model. Whatever the child’s age is, we divide by 2. That’s their total pay. From that, half goes into long-term saving, 10% of the total goes to the tithe and the remainder is theirs to spend. So, in our house, a ten year old would earn a total of $5/week. $2.50 would go right into the bank, $.50 for the tithe, leaving $2.00 to spend.

Need more chores busting help?  Read my review of two of my favorite chore-help books  Beyond the Chore Chart and Large Family Logistics (and no, you don’t have to have a large family to be blessed by this book!)