I know Lis mentioned she was interested in pictured chore magnets for her kids. I remembered these free printable cards for morning routine and thought it should be easy enough to make these for any sort of chores. Laminate them and use magnets or punch a hole to use on hooks maybe. What chores are you thinking of picturing, Lisa? I think it's good for kids to get in the habit of chores, but I'm still trying to decide what a 2 year old can/should be expected to do...
And do you use some sort of reward? Or do they just do it because it's part of their routine?
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I love those cards. They are perfect for a two year old.
ReplyDeleteI think it depends on the chore and what works for your family. I have been trying to do a "cleanup" session each evening (well some evenings at least) with the kids. But I like to call it family game time. First we get the living room all cleaned up and THEN we pull out some of our fun games out of the closet to play together. I am trying to create daily cleaning habits with the kids, like we clean up our room before bedtime and we clean up the living room before Daddy gets home etc etc. And I am trying to teach them that we have to clean up before we play. It still is a little bit of work on my part and quite honestly most of the time I feel like I am just picking up after them (and it is a lot easier that way), but I am learning. It helps that they do "cleanup" time in nursery. Mia thinks that if she is singing the cleanup song, it is suddenly more fun. Also, more often than not I am helping them do their chores. And I am okay with it.
My thoughts are that most chores should be done because you are part of a family and we all help to take care of each other and we pick up after ourselves. But I think that if there is something extra special the child wants that they can earn it as a reward by doing extra out of the ordinary chores. And sometimes the reward is just being able to play (ie, we can't play with our toys until we put our breakfast plates in the sink, or make our bed or whatever it may be) That's just my 2 cents though. Different things work for different families and with different kids.
Thanks for that link, Celia! I've actually already drawn pictures for them. Ruth was excited to color them and Will laminated them for me.
ReplyDeleteI've been meaning to do this for a LONG time and I even started collecting pictures from magazines once, and I took pictures of the kids doing the actions themselves, and I never finished the cards up. It was hard to narrow it down, and I still ended up with more than that website, but Ruth and Rex do pretty well with it. Rex needs a lot more help, but I'm hoping that going through the steps now with me will make it easier for him to be independent with it later.
I still want to make a place to velcro them to and I havent decided what would be sturdy enough. Magnets are too easily dispersed and lost by my kids so I think I'll do velcro and some heavy back to hang on the wall with a pocket to put the finished items.
Our routine is (so far they get to choose the order, though we require potty time before breakfast):
potty
eat breakfast
make bed
brush teeth
pray
comb hair
get dressed
On chore days we have the kids chose a chore (wash mirror, window, fold laundry, vacuum) to help with. Rex follows his dad around and will help with everything, whereas Ruth does her one and is done. At school they have cleaning works like mirrors, and dusting plants, and others I cant think of now. Ruth loves chopping foods for dinner (we started with mushrooms and she's done onions and bell pepper, cucumber).
I'm starting to require them to do extra chores to earn back toys they have left out and I had to clean up, but they dont seem to mind that half their toys are in my room yet, so I'm hoping this will start to work soon so I can have my space back (or I may have to get rid of some toys)!