We have had many methods of listing jobs at our house. Most of the time I’ve written out the lists on bits of paper, but I am not very consistent. I decided it was time to do something new with our job lists.
My new job chart system had to
- indicate levels of importance to help the kids prioritize,
- incorporate large and small tasks, as well as daily and weekly tasks,
- provide an incentive,
- look pretty enough to keep in a prominent place in the kitchen.
I made about 50 magnets. The green magnets indicate personal scripture study. The white magnets indicate making beds and doing homework. Yellow and red are for music and dance. These colors remain constant each day and are placed in order of importance.
The dark blue and light blue tasks rotate. The dark blue tasks are “big jobs” and the light blue tasks are “little jobs”. Most days each child has one big job to do and one small job. The big jobs are things such as changing sheets or weeding. Little jobs are things such as emptying a rack of the dishwasher or picking up toys in a common area or putting away laundry. I don’t have personal hygiene items listed on the job chart. The kids seem to do pretty well with this without incentives or cute reminders.
When a job is completed, the kid turns the magnet upside down. This saves time. As for the incentive, each job completed is one point. Each night I add the points to a running total. When the kids collectively earn 100 points, I take them out to eat. The system is forgiving; I understand that some days are busier than others, so I put up fewer jobs. Also, if a child is swamped with school work, they know what jobs are most important and they work from left to right. If they don’t get one of the last jobs completed, no big deal. They know that they have done the most important things.
If there is a job that I don’t have a magnet for, I just put up the magnet that reads “Help Mom” and they ask me what to do.
So far, the kids and I really like this system.
If you are interested, here are the details of how I made it: The letters are stickers from the scrapbook aisle. The square magnet/dry erase board and easel are from Walmart. I made a list of the jobs that need to be done and ranked them according to importance, frequency, and size. I assigned colors for each category. I typed the jobs on bright circles of color and printed them on glossy photo paper. I cut out the circles, glued them to round magnets and then glued the glass stones on top. I used round magnets and epoxy.
The job chart came about because we had so much success with our family home evening chart which I made in September. Making crafty wall hangings is not my thing, but stretching myself to do this has really helped our family. There is accountability, fairness, and I LOVE the lessons that my children prepare. This chart has made our family home evenings a success. The jobs which rotate are Prayer, Song, Lesson, “Helper”, Conduct, & Treats.
I made the family home evening chart with vinyl rub-on letters which were not very forgiving. Stickers are definitely a better method for a beginner like me. The metal board with the frame was on clearance at Hobby Lobby.
These charts fulfilled personal progress goals that I am working on as a leader and a mother in Young Women.