fab friday {#5 chore sticks}

Each Friday this month I’ll be counting downto my #1 Back to School help.{It’s going to be fun!}So make sure you follow along to find outwhat helps make our family run justa little bit smoother this time of year.

#5 on my list is our Chore Sticks!{Found this idea on Tip Junkie a few years ago.}It really works well for our family.We use this system during school.  {During the summer I usually change it up.}As soon as the kiddos get home from school, they grab their jar & get to work on their chores. {Their “chores” also include things like eating a snack, homework, reading along with the usual chores like cleaning your room, putting your clothes away, etc…}I like to have them complete all their chores before dinner. It makes evenings a lot less stressful, & we have more family time. Yeah!

These are super easy to make.  First I let each of my kiddos pick a color.Then we got jumbo popsicle sticks & painted just half of the stick.The boys chose orange & blue, and the girls picked pink & purple.Each child gets their own personalized jar, too.    

  

Then on each stick I wrote their chores.The yellow sticks are for family chores{dusting, cleaning windows, bathrooms…}Those get rotated each week.Then we put the sticks in the right jars.  That easy!{Their names are the same color as their sticks, so that makes it even easier!}

   

At first we put the sticks in writing side up &when they complete a chore they flip it the other way- color side up.So when all the colored ends are UP, they know they’re done!

     

I bought a cute little basket at Hobby Lobbythat fits all the jars perfectly. Yeah!I put a smaller jar in the middle to hold extra sticks& a pen in case we need to make changes later.{or if the “clean the bathroom” stick mysteriously disappears…we can easily make another one! Yeah!}

So, how do you handle after school chores in YOUR family?Hope you have a fabulous weekend!