School's out for summer and that means I have had the good fortune of having my teacher bestie M join me for long afternoons at the pool and other summer adventures!! On one such occasion we were discussing summer chores and she mentioned picking the seven biggest ones, calling them the Summer 7 and making a reward chart. I sort of tuned out at that point... or maybe the convo turned to much more interesting subjects such as the Lilly gift with purchase, Honeysuckle Lemonades with Chick-fil-A diet lemonade or Disney. At any rate, we didn't speak of it again but we both simultaneously created our own summer chore chart based on her idea!
Mine is a pretty bare-bones approach good for kids of any age. I printed the chart for both kids on one page, laminated it and have been using a dry erase marker to keep track. (You could also just print one each week and write directly on it.) The littles adore the visual reminder and I am pretty excited that they are using the minds and their muscles to stay sharp this summer! Here is our list:
1. Make bed
2. Read independently
3. Summer Workbook (I use Summer Bridge
. The K-1st is a little easy for Whit, but the 3-4th is pretty challenging! They are 2 pages per day and a great way to stay summer fit.)
4. Tidy Up - this is all encompassing... you get it out, you clean it up
5. Something nice
6. Elsa - they have been getting free passes on this, but caring for their puppy will be the real deal in a few weeks!
7. Mom's Choice - ah.. my favorite on the list. For example, John's last one was bringing all of the groceries inside.
They have the potential to earn $1 per day, and it's an all or nothing deal. My littles are extremely motivated by money and they use this income to buy things like ice cream at the pool, spend at Target, etc. I picked up $50 in $1 bills at the bank so that I can pay out at the end of each day. No more IOUs because somehow or another I think John always cons me out of more than he has earned.
Now, bestie M made hers "SUPER" cute and called it the Super Seven, complete with great graphics. You can find her blog post and a link to download her version here.
I think we've finally found a system that we can stick with all summer long. Fingers crossed!
xoxo
Mine is a pretty bare-bones approach good for kids of any age. I printed the chart for both kids on one page, laminated it and have been using a dry erase marker to keep track. (You could also just print one each week and write directly on it.) The littles adore the visual reminder and I am pretty excited that they are using the minds and their muscles to stay sharp this summer! Here is our list:
1. Make bed
2. Read independently
3. Summer Workbook (I use Summer Bridge
. The K-1st is a little easy for Whit, but the 3-4th is pretty challenging! They are 2 pages per day and a great way to stay summer fit.)4. Tidy Up - this is all encompassing... you get it out, you clean it up
5. Something nice
6. Elsa - they have been getting free passes on this, but caring for their puppy will be the real deal in a few weeks!
7. Mom's Choice - ah.. my favorite on the list. For example, John's last one was bringing all of the groceries inside.
They have the potential to earn $1 per day, and it's an all or nothing deal. My littles are extremely motivated by money and they use this income to buy things like ice cream at the pool, spend at Target, etc. I picked up $50 in $1 bills at the bank so that I can pay out at the end of each day. No more IOUs because somehow or another I think John always cons me out of more than he has earned.
Now, bestie M made hers "SUPER" cute and called it the Super Seven, complete with great graphics. You can find her blog post and a link to download her version here.
I think we've finally found a system that we can stick with all summer long. Fingers crossed!
xoxo
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