Our new chore set-up

I've decided recently to encourage and engage the kids in the running of our household. I've decided they are willing and finally ABLE to contribute to some of the cleaning around the house daily. I have pinned several "chore boards" the last while, but none of them seemed to fit our style or suit what I wanted. Most of them were focused on earning money, or reward tickets that after a certain amount they got a toy or prize. This was not the approach I wanted to take with our kids. I find, that despite our best efforts, the "Entitlement Generation" as I like to call it, is creeping into our home as well. I don't want my kids to help around the house with a monetary goal in mind because that is only encouraging selfishness, which in elementary/preschoolers is ever-present and something we are trying to teach them out of. I want them to help around the house because they want to be contributing members of our family and because they feel more confident in themselves as a result. We need to start young, so that by the time they are ready to start their own homes, they have all the skills necessary to run and manage their own homes.....and don't need to call and ask how to make scrambled eggs (Seriously, my sister has done this twice!!!). My goal for my kids (boys and girl) is for them to be able to do all the homemaking skills, I want to be able to say "your welcome" to my sons wives one day, beacause we have trained them to be thoughtful, helpful men!

Anyway, back to the "chores", I hate that word! It brings negative thoughts when you say it, or when completing them. If my own mantra in completing household tasks is Colossians 3:23 - "Work willingly at whatever you do, as though you were working for the Lord rather than for people", than calling them "chores" just doesn't suit me well. I've been wracking my brain the last while trying to come up with an alternative, and finally it came to me....Contributions! That's what my goal is, to have them contribute to the running of the family, so it just makes sense.

Next, I had to come up with a system...Boards, and because my kids can't read yet, pictures it was! I went around the house taking pictures of things that they could do everyday. Everything was ready to create, so I went to Dollarama last night and browsed for supplies I could use....

This is what I found:

These cork tiles came in a 2-pack and they are thin, so I was able to attach them to the wall with pushpins in the corners.

Next I found these:

4-pack of self adhesive clips (I forgot to take the pic before opening). I stuck these clips onto the cork tiles:

Next, I printed a few copies of the pictures I took the other day:

Then, I busted out the Cricut to make the name labels and title area for the boards:

I stuck the names and title onto a piece of black paper, I used my paper trimmer (couldn't live without this). This is mine:

I was really happy with how they looked.

Now it was time to laminate everything. I couldn't imagine my life without my laminator. I have a constant wall file of "to be laminated" stuff...as you can see, I was laminating more then just the stuff for this project. This is the one I have here.

After cutting everything out, it was time to assemble the area. Here is the finished product:

I added a couple of boxes. One for the kids to put completed pictures into, and another for me to store the pictures in. Now, to see if our new system works......