Children's Routines and Chore Charts

Like almost every child, my older son, Ian, has a routine and chore chart to do every morning and night. His chores are his responsibility but he has a horrible time trying to remember them, even though he's done them every day for as long as I can remember!

In the past he had a routine chart similar to mine. I typed up his routine, printed it out and put it in a clear sheet protector. He'd then use a dry erase marker to mark items off. However, this didn't work really well for him. His list wasn't kept in a place where he could see it, he kept loosing the marker, and had a good dose of laziness thrown in there.

Recently, I was reading a book and there was a short section about chores and a couple pictures of different types of charts. I saw a chart that I thought would be perfect for my visual, tactile, scatter brained son!

I created this chart in a Word Document using the table tool. The top reads "Good Morning" or "Good Night", indicating which one he needs to look at for that time period. Below that are rows of smiley faces/thumbs up and rows of chores/routines listed. If you have a non-reader you can replace the words with images. I printed this out on colorful paper. On another colorful piece of paper I printed out check marks. All my images came from clip art. I cut out and laminated (clear contact paper) the chart and check marks individually then attached the check marks to the chore chart with brads. When it's time for Ian to do his chores he makes sure all the smiley faces/thumbs up are covered before he begins and as he completes a task he flips the check mark over revealing the 'reward'!

This is the perfect chore and routine chart for us! Instead of me constantly telling him what to do or reminding him a million times all he has to do is go look at his chart which are now conveniently sticky-tacked to his bedroom door. He can't miss them. And although I do still have to remind him to look at his charts everyday, I don't have to remember everything on there and I sure don't miss our morning and bedtime struggles!