Children: Work before Play

I wanted to share an idea that I implemented this week with my daughter. It is a morning and evening 'job' chart that helps teach children what they need to do to get ready for the day.

Kalli is old enough to start pulling her own weight around here, so I thought she would be ready for the next step. Now she knows what she is expected to do each day...and these are things she can do without assistance.

Instead of a chore chart, the idea is based around using their fingers. Each finger represents a job that needs to be completed.

Morning jobs are:

Get dressed
Make bed
wash face
brush teeth
comb hair

The child holds out her hand and puts down a finger as the job is completed. Once all the jobs are memorized on their hands, there won't be a need for the picture chart, but until then, here is the picture that is hung at eye level so Kalli can see what needs to be done.

I traced her hand, and drew a picture for each job, as well as wrote the words for her since she is starting to recognize letters and words. The picture is mounted onto yellow cardstock, and I used contact paper to laminate it since I want the poster to last for a while.

Here are the evening jobs:

Pick up toys
Bath
PJ's
Brush Teeth
Story & Pray

This is mounted onto black cardstock, and again, sealed with contact paper.

So far, Kalli has been very excited about the jobs that she can do "all by herself". And, it's been rewarding for me because I don't have to fight her about getting things done. I just tell her that she can't play games, play with a friend, or any other thing she wants to do before her jobs are finished. It works in getting her motivated.

I'm not sure where I got the original idea, probably a Works-for-Me Wednesday tip. All I know is that I saved the idea to my computer in October 2006. Kalli was only four months old --years away from being able to do her own chores--but the original author made a comment in her post that really hit a chord with me. She said that helping little ones take responsibility, and doing 'Work before Play' has "made morning/evenings go much more smoothly around here for years!".

Even with a four month old, I knew this was an idea I would eventually implement. So far, so good.