Our family struggles to stay organized. My husband usually stays back and lets me handle things unless it seems I can't or I ask for help. That being said, its not always the best idea. We have 3 kids 8,4,1 and I am home with my 4 year old and 1 year old everyday all day and that's my choice and I wouldn't trade it for anything. However, help would never be turned down if decided to cook dinner or give baths, I would accept with no questions. My 8 year old son tends to wait for someone to tell him to do his homework, clean his room, take a bath, fix your hair, etc. he never just does what he is supposed to be doing without guidance. So now that he is in 2nd grade and struggling a bit with remembering to bring his homework home or to read his library books and to actually pass the test he takes I decided it was time to things in order before I pull all my hair out. My family does best when mommy is happy, when my stress starts to show everyone is affected and that usually happens when life gets unorganized (90% of the time) . I have tried to work with my sons teacher with getting his school life organized and all I get from her is "well I tell them to do this" well its hard for the PARENTS to remind them of something when its not wrote down on the homework, in a planner or on something somewhere that is sent home with the HOMEWORK. She is a yeller and my son tunes out yelling (I yell sometimes and he ignores me). Now let me tell you a bit about our school so you understand how ridiculous her yelling is for the kids. Our school is a very small town school and goes from grades K-8th and the entire school has a max of 75 kids and 1 teacher per grade the principle is the superintendent. Very small classes and my sons class has a total of 10 kids in it. So if she is always yelling at them before she is a loud lady my son is not ever listening to her babbling. Last year was amazing his teacher was incredible and I wish she had of moved up with the kids. She made them planner binders that had news for the month when tests were for the whole month and spelling word list for the week, a homework folder, a place for papers to be returned and if something changed parents were notified not just the kids. So back to the chore chart idea, I was thinking that since my son is about to have a minor surgery and miss 3 days of school minimum it was best to get him organized before this happens. So I was looking into premade systems that I could by with the stickers or the clear pockets that you put the cards in and at the end of the week there was a prize. But they are a bit expensive and my husband gets laid off twice a year spending $50+ on one of these systems is not a smart idea.
I liked the idea of hanging things on the wall that can be seen all the time instead of something that can be stuffed in a drawer or something more to clutter my kitchen table. So I decided to go with the baking sheet system plus it gave me a reason to get a new baking sheet if I use my old one for the wall. HEHE!!!! So I went out and got a package of round magnets they are called magnetic buttons and my package had 52 magnet buttons that were 3/4 inch (19mm) diameter. I also picked up some foam sheets for 97 cents to cut out and write the chores on. I wrote on the foam first before cutting to make sure I was writing small enough but big enough to read what it said.
I used white duct tape that I already had to separate the TO DO side and the DONE side. I hot glued the magnet buttons to the cutout foam that I had wrote on (don't touch the buttons while putting hot glue on them they get really hot).
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You will notice that there are different colors of foam and that is because I broke them down into categories, Orange is chores that need to be done around the house, blue are personal things that need to be handled on a daily basis and green are chores that are done daily for school and when we go places. I also purchased a package of color coded popsicle sticks that when these are completed they have rewards on them or if they are not completed they have consequences on them. Meaning that at the end of the day if there are still things on the to do side there are sticks that match the chore still there. Some of the consequences are more extreme than the others ex: no sleep overs with grandma and papa. These are more for bad report card grades than for this system. I have them in a separate jar.
If you don't have a baking sheet you can spare and need to purchase one I have bough baking sheets for camping at the dollar store where everything was a dollar. That is also where I bought the duct tape from as well.
Happy chore planning.
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