Christmas Countdown

Thursday, November 17, 2011

Mom first .... our new chore "chart"

I've gone through many ways to get the kids to do chores and all have failed.  I've had this going for a few months now, yay!!!  That's longer than any other method of getting the kids to do chores.

Here's what we're doing.  I purchased this little glass "marbles", not sure what to call them, the kind you would put in a vase or an aquarium for that little extra pretty.  (Of course, we started with pony beads, so we call these beads instead of marbles - it takes like a million pony beads to fill those little pint sized mason jars, so we upgraded to the marbles)  There's also a jar for each child (we have 5, 1 jar is off to the side), their names are taped to the jar.


Each time the child does some cleaning: taking out the trash, cleaning the rooms (this includes vacuuming the floor), putting dishes away, doing a load of laundry, or whatever else I deem worthy of a bead, they get one.  Yesterday I told the boys if they picked up the trash in the backyard they'd get a bead for each grocery bag they fill, my oldest got 3 beads in about 10 minutes (between the kids, the dog and the strong winds there was plenty to pick up).


In the bottom of the jar I put a $5 bill, it could be whatever amount you wish, I'm starting with $5.  Their beads get put in the jar and will cover the $5, but when the jar is full, we dump out the marbles and they have their $5.

I had already determined that if each child earned 5 beads each day by the end of 4 weeks the jar would be full.  Of course, behaving at church on Sunday is worth 5 beads, so it's not too hard for them to get their money.


Here's our chore "chart".  I think it might stick around for a while.

4 comments:

  1. I LOVE IT!! Our primary does this too. ONe marble per kid goes into the large jar if they bring their scriptures. I think I'm gonna have to start it too. :)

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  2. we've been doing this for a while and it seems to work well. We also use it for behavior issues or whatever they need help with. We use pom poms and when they fill up their jar they get to do something special (like go to a movie, go get ice cream or whatever motivates them).

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  4. What do you do if they try to put a marble in the jar without you looking? How do you know they don't sneak one in there from time to time? That's my biggest concern with these types of behavior tracking methods.

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