Chore Cans

I'm so excited about these "chore charts" for my little guys. I got the idea at Make It Sparkly Mama . Instead of having a "list" on another piece of paper that I will lose or forget is on the fridge these are out and tangible and easy for them to "check" off what they've done.

You'll notice two colors on the background paper of the sticks. One is for AM chores (above it's in green) needing to be done before school and the other is for PM chores (above in black) to be done after school until bedtime. My kids are little so yes, I still need to remind them to eat breakfast and put on their shoes etc....but ultimately I could just have a stick that says "get ready for school" and it could encapsulate them all. When they've completed their chore, they move the stick over to the "done" jar.

I really want to make some optional star shaped or bright red sticks that help them to remember to be helpful to each other. Maybe something that says "Do something nice for your brother today" or "Hug your brother." Mine are so close in age they can use the gentle reminder one way or another.

Below are some close ups of the sticks. I've also written on them what the task is for my budding readers. The picture is nice for little ones who can't read or are very visual. These brown and green are for my oldest and the black and green w/red sticks are for my youngest.

These designs were cut on a cricut but you could just draw pictures, print them out on the computer, or cut them out of a magazine and they would work just fine. I modge podged them to the paper and then used glue dots to glue them to the stick.

Both kids have a set of jars that are decorated differently so they can tell them apart. Here are my youngest sons. His are done in sports theme. I wanted to cut out "to do" and "done" on the cricut but ran out of time and will probably add that later when I have more time. Then I will not need the little tags hanging down.

For the first few days I told them if they had all of their chores done and sticks moved over to the done side that they would get some sort of treat. A piece of gum or 25cents would do the trick! Love it when they are little and so easy to please.

Enjoy! Oh and I did these from left over Tastefully Simple Jam Jars which clean up beautifully. I modged podged the sports one but the other one I didn't I just wrapped it and used the modge podge to glue the edges together.

I had very cute paper picked out but the boys didn't like it and they wanted to pick their own paper so camo and sports is what it ended up being. Love this idea...Thank you Make it Sparkly Mama! She has some great ideas....check her out.