Job Jar

I listen to a podcast by Simple Mom. She has lots of neat, simple ideas for families to live in an organized, but simple way. The other day I heard her mention her chore sticks. I liked the idea, so I am using it at our house. We call ours Job Sticks because the boys understand the word "job" but couldn't quite understand the word "chore." Our Job Sticks go in our Job Jar. As Simple Mom suggested, you collect a bunch of craft sticks. Then you think of a list of kid friendly jobs, write one job on each craft stick and put them in a jar. Now I've seen people get pretty fancy with their job jars using paint, craft paper, pretty jars, etc to decorate them. We kept our's simple. I simply wrote our jobs on unpainted craft sticks with a Sharpie, then stuck all of them in a green plastic cup. Each night before dinner, we all draw three to four sticks and those are our jobs. When we've completed our job, we put the stick back in the jar. So far, our jobs center around meal time prep and pick up. Here's what we have in our jar.

Clear off table before and after meal

Set out napkins and forks

Turn off TV (before meal)

Move kitchen chairs

Spray table

Wipe table

Sweep

Vaccuum

Mom's Choice

Dad's Choice

Some silly "jobs" I throw in from time to time are:

Make a silly face

Tell a joke

Favorite thing today

Some time I'm going to surprise the boys and make a stick that says go get ice cream

The boys are responding to this system really well! N especially likes it. He's kind of taken charge of making sure we draw sticks every night and he keeps us all accountable for our jobs. Each time he completes a task he's very happy to return his sticks to the jar with a sense of accomplishment.