Back in June, I made Chore Charts for the kids. I went back and forth with this concept because assigning and forcing care of environment jobs isn’t really Montessori-aligned. The Montessori way says that children this age are naturally inclined to help. The idea is that that by inviting a child to help and by modeling expected behaviors of household jobs they will just independently join in and eventually become intrinsically motivated to complete tasks that interest them.
But, honestly, it wasn’t working. 🙂 They weren’t naturally gravitated to any household chore! They just watched me all day — sweep and vacuum and wipe down tables… and then dropped more crumbs on the floor.
Enter: chore charts!
The idea wasn’t too overwhelm them. I just wanted to get them into the habit of doing something (typically after breakfast) that was a shared responsibility for the good of the household and family. As a member of the family, I feel like it’s appropriate that everyone (no matter the age) has a part in making the home run smoothly. I’m choosing not to compensate for these completed chores. I know that it’s common to earn money or an allowance. But I feel strongly that the tasks on their charts are not out of the realm of developmentally appropriate jobs, and they aren’t anything “extra” or anything that they themselves do not benefit from.
On each of their charts, the top four items are specific to themselves. So each kid is expected to:
- Make their bed
- Get dressed
- Wash their face
- Brush their teeth
On the charts these are reflected in blue on Javi’s chart, purple on Lola’s chart and pink on Eva’s chart.
Then, each day, they are each expected to complete two household tasks that rotate between them. These are the green tags and they are movable. I attached velcro to the back so that I could swap these jobs from chart to chart. The household options I chose to rotate through are:
- Swiffer floors
- Vacuum
- Wipe down table
- Fill the cats’ water bowl (which they all decided should include giving the cats treats)
- Dust
- Fill/empty the dishwasher
I really only considered broad jobs that all three kids could do. Obviously, Eva needs a little more assistance (I really only made her a chart because I knew she would want one) and the level to which they each complete the cleaning job varies greatly. 🙂
It’s working out really well! It’s been nearly two months and they are motivated by their charts and love to check off what they’ve done each day. I ended up laminated the sheets, adding magnetic strips to the back and we keep them all on the fridge. They use a dry erase marker to make the checkmarks which wipes away week after week.
Many people say that chore charts do the opposite and that kids are actually turned off to them and they work against the goal. But my kids love it so much, and it seemed to be the thing that actually inspired them.
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