Teaching Responsibility

Elia will be 9 in October, and Ava will be 7 in November. It is time these girls start having more responsibility around the house so we created a chore chart. I cannot take full credit for the idea because I saw a chore chart similar to this one at another Arlington mom's house. However, I changed it up a bit to fit us and our needs. Of course, I had to color code mine so all the sticks in the Monday pocket match the writing on the Monday pocket and so on. Here is a picture of Elia's chart:

And Ava's:

Some of the chores include:

* cleaning up their bedroom

* cleaning up the playroom

* vacuuming their bedroom

* vacuuming their playroom

* wiping down the countertop in their bathroom

* make their bed

* do their homework

Once they complete a chore for the day they move the stick to the "DONE" pocket until all their chores have been done. At the end of the day, they move the sticks back to their original pocket and start all over the next day. They do not have any chores on Saturday, and they are given a chance to earn "Bonus Bucks" throughout the week. They can earn an extra dollar for things like feeding the dog, walking the dog, dusting the furniture, etc. The girls earn $6 every week so that is $1 a day since they do not have any chores on Saturday.

Both girls have a 3 drawer compartment where they keep their money. The drawers spell JOY going down. The J stands for "Jesus" since He comes first. The O stands for "others" because we should think of others next. The Y stands for "you" which means them. They put $1 in the "Jesus drawer" so they can take that money to church to put in the offering plate. They put $1 in the "other drawer". They save this money up for other people. For example, they had saved up about $25 for others so they used the money to buy a stuffed animal for a child in Guatemala. They put $4 in their drawer. They can spend that money or save it. Most of the time, they are pretty good about saving it up for something they really want to buy.

The chore chart and the allowance drawers have worked great and I hope they continue to so my girls will keep learning responsibility.