In my home a traditional chore chart just does not work. My kids ages are too spread out for most versions of the chore chart to work for us. The oldest is 17 and therefore I do not remind him to Brush his teeth, or Comb his hair very often. And there hasn't been a day in years when I have had to remind him to get dressed, LOL! Of course there is a small amount of reminding going on, on the set chores that he has, garbage and feed the horse. But for the most part he is pretty self sufficient. The little guy is 17 months old and while soon I will needing to star chart of something for his "potty training progress" he doesn't really have much of a to-do list yet. The eight year old however, well he needs lots of reminders, over and over and over and well you get the idea! He is the sweetest little boy in the world, however, he would happily stay in his pajamas all day with nary a thought as to whether or not the cat has been fed. or if the hampster is dying of thirst, or even if he, himself has eaten breakfast. He has the attention span of a gnat and while I dearly love him I do not love telling him over and over and over again the things he needs to do every morning and every evening. Traditional charts are fine and I know they work well for most kids, plus they would have been simpler to make. (Even though my version wasn't very hard.) But I like mine better for the following reasons:
1. It is just plain ol' more fun to drop the sticks into the "Done" can versus checking them off a chart!
2. The pictures reenforce what he is supposed to be doing, and he knows what to do even if his 'blossoming but not quite great' reading skills can't make out the words.
3. Yellow circles means morning to-do's and blue means nighttime to-do's. Easy to remember what to do when!
4. Every morning he gets a fresh start, so if the previous day wasn't perfect than he doesn't get reminded of those oops the rest of the week.
5. It is a pretty accent for the bookcase, versus a chart I would want to keep somewhere out of sight and therefore out of mind!
6. I can edit this at any time, either by adding or removing tasks - jobs that need to be done. I really love this feature. I also cut out extra cardstock circles so I won't have to go digging around for the right color when I need them. And I just store them in one of the cans!
6. So simple to make!
Step 1 is gathering your supplies of course! Let's see, I used a paper trimmer, hot glue gun, black spray paint, brown spray paint, Large Wooden Craft Sticks, a black Sharpie, 2 empty aluminum cans, 10 of the aluminum can tops, cardstock for the colored circles and to print my chore circles on, Fancy Pantz Patterned Paper, Fancy Pantz Rub-Ons, Matching Fancy Pantz Ribbon.
First I spray painted the top and bottom rim of the cans black, and I spray painted the large wooden craft sticks brown.
Then I cut my paper just wide enought to fit between the rims, applied some rub-ons and added the words, To-Do to one and All Done to the other.
Using my computer and free graphics I made up 6 morning reminders, Brush Teeth, Eat Breakfast, Get Dressed, Read for 15 minutes, Handwriting for 10 minutes, and Feed Cats. I snuck a couple of school related tasks that he does daily in there as well. That way he gets started schooling even if Mom is busy with the baby or something else in the morning.
I also made up 5 Nighttime Reminders, Brush Teeth, Read for 15 minutes, Pajamas, Feed Cats, and Feed Jack Jack (his hampster). He now knows that he has to start all this by 9:00 pm and then he goes to bed. So nice to not be the one doing the nagging anymore, I let the cans do that!
I just cut those out in a circle, glued them to either yellow or blue paper and then glued two corresponding circles together with the large craft stick sandwiched in between.
Glued the ribbon around the can using hotglue.
Oh yeah and you might be wondering what I used the aluminum can tops for, well I found out my sticks didn't stand up tall enough to look right so I glued 5 of them together and dropped them into the inside of each can. Makes my sticks stand up taller and look nicer!
And I was "All Done"
