Chore Buckets

Chores....
This is something I've been meaning to address with my daughter for a while. But life gets busy, parents get tired and in the end taking the easy way out and doing it myself was just, well,  easier.
But then I ran across this article on Facebook. I asked for input from my friends on what they have their kids doing for chores. And to my surprise, kids that are younger than Sophia are doing way more than I could ever dream for Sophia to do.

A friend showed me this pic below

(website), and I knew that this summer would be the summer of Chores! Time for a change. No excuses. Time for this mom to be consistent.

I wanted to keep it simple. So I started with 2 black labels and 2 buckets. One bucket for daily chores (to be done everyday). One for weekly chores (to be done once a week). The weekly ones can be done at any time during the week.

Then I added the popsicle sticks with the chores. Our daily ones are: feed the cats, feed the dogs, scoop the cat litter, pick up your room, and pick out clothes for the next day (this last one is more for during the school year). Our weekly ones are: vacuum the living room, sweep the kitchen, mop the kitchen (I might take this one out of the jar...might be a little unrealistic), fold laundry, put away laundry, dust living room, and load dishwasher.

As she does them, she takes the stick out and sets it beside the bucket.

The only difference is that I didn't put screen time minutes on the sticks like my inspiration. I feel like these are things that should be expected to contribute to the family.

After talking to Sophia about it and explaining the concept, she asked if she could get paid to scoop the litter and feed the cats "because it's really gross". So I decided she could get $1 a week for doing 3 of the chores all week long, everyday: scooping the cat litter, feeding the cats and keeping her room clean (she is the messiest little girl). So that would a total of $3 a week if she does those all week.

Here are pics of the original Chore Chart I created for her when she was around 3. I had good intentions and a good plan. But the consistency wasn't there.

I updated the Chore Chart to make it look cuter. Cause that's really important. :)

So we'll see how this new system works. I think the biggest factor will be the consistency part. Wish me luck!


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