Picture Chore Charts for Small Children (PreK)

Yelling at your kids is no fun.

Nor is repeating yourself MANY times for them to do simple routine tasks.

I want my kids to be PROUD of themselves.

I want them to be self-succient and INDEPENDENT.

And, the less I have to tell them what to do, the better.

So, I made up these picture chore charts.

It's been ONE DAY with these charts in certain places of the house, but lo and behold...

IT'S WORKED MIRACLES so far.

Kai came into my room this morning at 7am, already dressed for the day.

I went into his room later on and the bed was SUPER NEATLY MADE. Then I went downstairs and checked on the entry way.

NOT ONE PAIR OF SHOES OUT, it was immaculate.

I told Kai how proud I was of him.

A glowing smile

from ear to ear.

"Ya! I just looked at the chart and I did it!"

SUCCESS!

Although I take the liberty of writing JAPANESE wherever possible since Kai's been reading in Japanese, it's the idea that counts, I'll post some pictures anyway.

But.....I'm sad that the picture quality stinks...

The first picture is of the garage door--this is the door we go through to GO OUT anywhere.

I posted two signs.

"potty"

and

"put your shoes on"

Heaven knows how long these two things take for the kids and me having to yell at them to do each thing (times 2 kids) is just nuts.

I wanted to omit the chaos and frustration!

a better look at the two signs.

This is in their bathroom.

Signs say {night time routine: shower, pajamas, brush teeth, and potty}

Close up of 3 of the bathroom (night time) routine.

This is in Kai's bedroom. I put up the things he should do when he wakes up.

1. "morning routine" 2. change clothes 3. make bed 4. shoes=go downstairs and tidy up the entry way

Next is of our daily routine. The kids like to know what's next on the agenda during the day, so instead of not know what to say or being frustrated that they'd even ask, I made these with magnets on the back to stick them on the fridge.

Although we have days where we veer from the "routine", this is our typical agenda and I've noticed that the kids function better knowing "what's next."

We have:

breakfast

prayer, scripture study

chores--kai unloads the silverware from the dishwasher

play time

lunch

study time

QUIET TIME {read, play, build, etc}

dinner

Clean up toys

a better look at the daily routine chart

Hope this helps someone....it's working for us and I'm sure we'll eventually put up some type of a simple award system, but it's been SO nice not to have to yell or remind them millions of times of what they're to do. More importantly though, it's been priceless to watch their faces light up when they see that they can do things on their own, and how happy they get when they can make us happy and proud--I truly believe that children just live to please their parents-they are pleasers. The more opportunities we as parents can give our children to be proud and show them they can do things on their own, I believe we are teaching them to be self-motivating, goal oriented, independent adults!