My Latest Creation - Chore Chart

When I was shopping for back-to-school supplies in teacher catalogs, I kept running across hanging chore charts for kids. My favorite is the one from One Step Ahead, but here are some more options.

I thought this would be a fun idea for Katie Anne. She loves to help with chores like cleaning, unloading the dishwasher, putting away groceries, or helping with laundry. So, I thought it would be fun to get organized with this type of thing and set up a reward system as well.

Also, pooping in the potty is still very hit or miss (no pun intended). She's been 100% trained on peeing for months, but pooping is another story. She'll go for several days with no accidents, including at school, and we'll think we're totally in the clear ... and then go for several days where every poop means a complete clothing change. We've tried positive reinforcement for the desired outcome such as rewards like lollipops or extra playtime on her Dora video game ... negative reinforcements such as timeouts, spankings, making her wash out her panties, or Dora watching restriction ... emotional ploys like being "so sad and disappointed" when she poops in her panties ... basically ignoring the negative aspect of it and just saying "Oh, well -accidents happen!". No change in behavior - Pavlov's dogs she ain't. So, I thought the chore chart might serve as an additional potty training tool as well.

I didn't want to pay $29.95 plus shipping, so I thought I'd make the chore chart myself. I used posterboard, construction paper (which I diecut at the Teacher Resource Center), and sparkly pink paper from Hobby Lobby. I created the background for the chart, including three pockets to hold the rewards, stars, and chores.

I made up a bunch of chore cards (some which she can already do easily, like brushing her teeth or helping with laundry, and others we'd like to work towards, like making her bed or setting the table) and reward cards on Excel. I printed them out and laminated them at the TRC as well. Then, I used little Velcro dots that I found on sale for $1 a package at Big Lots to create the actual chart.

Estimated project cost:
Posterboard: $0.49
Construction Paper: free at TRC
Sparkly paper: $0.50 per sheet x 3 sheets = $1.50
Velcro dots: $1.00 x 3 packs = $3.00

Total: $4.99, plus tax

So, that's not too bad for a chore chart!
Here's the finished product!

(She hasn't really earned that many stars yet... I just wanted to show it with some stars on there.)

We put it to use this morning. I let Katie Anne pick the first four chores she wanted to work on...

Notice that pooping in the potty is not on her list. Sigh. Well, that's okay, because I want her to get the concept of the chart, and that probably will be easier to do if she's successful the first go round.

Every time she completes the "chore", she'll put one star in that row. Once she's earned five stars for that chore, she's done earning stars for that one and will have to concentrate on the others. Once she's filled the entire chart (20 stars), she can have her reward! (This isn't our original idea... at first, we just thought any time that she completed the chore, she'd get a star, and we wouldn't worry about rows. However, upon reflection, we realized that she could brush her teeth 20 times and fill the chart, easily circumventing the "poop in potty" card. So, we changed our idea to mean that you have to do each of the chores five times each to fill the chart.) We are not worrying about days of the week or anything. So, she should fill her "brush my teeth" row in 2.5 days, and then the others might take a little longer based on opportunity to do the chores and, of course, her willingness to do them.

She got her first star this morning for brushing her teeth. She was very excited to put the star on the chart herself! She's already thinking long and hard about what her first reward will be ... so far, she's alternating between going out for icecream or going to the playground.

Here's hoping that we get lots of chores done - and potty success - from our new chore chart!