Sunday, September 25, 2011

Chores for a preschooler

Turtle recently turned four.  She's always been a very capable, independent young lady.  This past week she stepped up to the plate while I was ill and really helped her daddy around the house.  The helpfulness has continued now that I am in recovery mode. In fact, her first words to me yesterday morning were "Mommy, I made my bed!"  I decided the time was right to introduce a chore chart.

All the chores I selected are things I know she can do with minimal assistance from us:


SundayMondayTuesdayWednesdayThursdayFridaySaturday
Make Bed

Clothes in hamper
put away papers
Put toys away

Make school lunch
X
X
Lay out tomorrow’s clothes
sweep under table



This chart fits on a standard piece of paper and can be printed out at the beginning of the week.  As each chore is finished, we will put a sticker in the box.  The sticker will be a way to visually recognize what has been done and what has not been done.  I will not be telling her "make your bed every day for the week and you can have a treat."  I will find a way of acknowledging the work she has done to help her take pride in her accomplishments.  It will probably start with "Good for you -you made your bed everyday this week!" and work up to "Oh my goodness, you have made your bed every day for a month -we should celebrate! Let's make a new batch of play dough."


Once we have worked with the chore chart for a while, I'll introduce the concept of paid chores, but I think I'll save those thoughts for another post  :) 


Do your kids have chores?  What age did they start?
A Young Girl Blows Bubbles, Each One Containing an Illustration of a Household Chore


And please don't call her CinderTurtle -we're not keeping her home from the ball or having fun in order to do our work  :-P

1 comment:

  1. I would be happy to give Turtle stickers if she came over to my house and helped out her Auntie, too. :)

    ReplyDelete

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