Confession time…I am not 100% completely thrilled to have my three kids home all day long, all summer long. I love my kids. Really, I do. And I always look forward to summer vacation and all the fun in the sun to be had. (Check out THIS POST for some resources to make a summer fun list.) But there are two things that drive me bananas about having the kids home all summer—mess & squabbles. If anyone has a brilliant squabbling solution, I’m all ears, but today we’re going to talk about the mess issue. Every summer I try a new summer chore chart idea for my kids. Not because the ones I’ve tried haven’t worked, but there are just so many fun ideas to try and I think the kids appreciate the variety.
In case you’re having mixed emotions about making your kids work hard over summer vacation, there is loads of research backing up the positive results of requiring your kids to do chores. Helping out around the house allows them to gain confidence and be more productive throughout their lives. See THIS ARTICLE from The Center for Parenting Education, or THIS ONE from Michigan State University Extension Program to read more about the benefits of requiring kids to do chores.
Work hard this week/woo-hoo! this week
This year, I labeled my summer chore chart the “Summer Work Hard and Woo-Hoo! Chart”. I’ve got a free printable for you HERE as an editable pdf. You can print it out and hand-write your chores and fun stuff, or you can download it and fill in the form fields if you like the look of typewritten forms better than your handwriting. Here’s an example of mine for the first week of summer vacation.
In both the “work hard” and “woo-hoo!” columns, I included five boxes. Here are the instructions I gave my kids to explain their responsibilities.
- Complete all five “work hard” tasks this week. You decide if you want to do one per day, or get them all done early in the week.
- Some of the “work hard” tasks are not directly tied to the “woo-hoo!” rewards. Some of these are planned in advance and I decide when we do them.
- Some of the “woo-hoo!” rewards ARE dependent on you completing your “work hard” tasks. If you complete some of your tasks early in the week, you will get some of the “woo-hoo!” rewards early in the week. If you choose to leave all your tasks for Friday night or Saturday morning, you are choosing to not participate in the “woo-hoo!” rewards, as we will run out of time.
SIMPLE AND FLEXIBLE
This summer chore chart is deliberately simple and flexible. You could choose to link specific tasks to specific rewards; I wanted to allow some spontaneity in planning for my week, so I left it open-ended. So far, my girls have responded well. It is interesting to see their personalities in the way they approach this. The oldest likes the flexibility of being able to choose when she does her chores, the middle one needs reminding or she’d pick up a book and forget she even had chores, and the youngest wants to jump right on it and get everything done the first day.
Grab your free printable HERE and reduce the mess stress in your house this summer!
Join my mailing list to receive updates when new printable resources are added to the library, plus tips and encouragement for your organized homeschool journey.
You May Also Like…
