Chores...Chores...Chores

My kids have daily chores and over the years we've gone through various incarnations of the dreaded chore chart.  Okay, my kids actually like their chore charts, they love to check things off just as much as I do.  Strange, huh.

Several years ago we started off with this version.  I love that it separated their chores into different focus areas.  I also added lots of pictures because no one except Makenna could read at the time (although, I ended up adding pictures to hers too because she wanted them).  Each week I'd print out a new set of chore charts and they'd gleefully cross off each chore as they finished it.

Early in the school year, I realized we needed a change.  I was tired of printing new chore charts every week and I wanted to make room for the kids to work on personal and family goals.  This one worked fairly well, as long as no one lost it half way through the month (like Ben, over and over).  But, as the school year ended and we headed into summer I started to want something new again. 

I wanted to be able to teach my kids new chores, but these chore would only need to be done once a week.  Plus, Josh wanted his own chart, so I needed extra room to add in pictures for him.  I thought and thought and was pretty much stumped.  Until I came across a new blog (well, new to me) called Raising Lemons and I found these.

Well, not these exactly, although they're very similar to Raising Lemon's charts (thank you, thank you!!).  I had plenty of room to add in pictures for Josh.

And room to add that perfect Daily Chore line to provide me with the opportunity to introduce my kids to a few new chores.  To avoid weekly printing, I stuck our finished chore charts into sheet protectors and the kids are checking them off with dry erase markers.  At the end of the week, we just wash them off and they're good to go for another week.

The one thing we've lost is the extra room to write in their own goals,  I haven't quite decided what to do for that, I'll have to think about it.  Maybe I'll print a second sheet and stick it in their first page protector making their chore chart double sided.  Hmmm, I think I like that idea.  What do you think?

How do you keep track of chores?  I love to hear different ideas (and I seem to be desiring changes more frequently lately) that help me to tweak my own!!