Looking for a simple way to make chores and other things more fun for your kids? These chore cards are easy to customize, print and make doing the hard stuff, a lot more fun.
A new year always is gives a fresh start to pretty much everything, even mundane things like chores. Around our house, doing chores never seems to be very fun, so I’m constantly looking for ways to make something we have to do a little bit more exciting.
I dug around online and found many great options. I even downloaded a few and tried them out, but I finally decided that I’d create my own and implement the best features of what I found online.
I like simple and fast, so the file is easy to open up and all you have to do is customize the bits of text so that it matches what you want to track. You can grab our own file below:
How to Use Your Time to Be Awesome Chore Cards
Once you’ve downloaded the file to your own computer, you’re halfway done. First, find and open the file in Adobe Acrobat Reader (it’s free!) You’ll see the chore titles highlighted – simply click on those boxes and type in your own customized list of chores to track.
Any hole punch should do the trick, but I love the punches that make fun shapes. The one pictured above punches out a star shape and the kids can easily punch their own cards – once I’ve reviewed their work, of course!
Adding a Twist to the Chore Punch Card
I don’t give allowance to my kids for completing chores. I do however provide some additional chore options that they can take on and earn a few dollars if they’d like – these are usually jobs that happen less frequently – think cleaning the back porch, sweeping out the garage, that kind of thing.
I am a firm believer of rewarding hard work and consistency so I do often provide rewards of some kind for completing an entire chore card (this is usually an experience of some sort) or providing a small prize or treat for punching each spot for one particular chore if it’s being an “extra hard” one for some reason. We sometimes struggle with reading minutes and unloading the dishwasher – so we try to get it done and make it fun at the same time.
Sometimes I use the chore card in a slightly unconventional way – I’ve found that it also helps to track things that don’t seem so chore like but that we’re still struggling to see success on. Here are just a few ideas we’ve included on our chore cards that fall into this category:
- personal prayers or scripture study
- saying kind things to others
- not saying certain words
- improving our attitude
- reading minutes or working on perfecting math facts
- spending a few minutes each day on a larger project such as cleaning our rooms, sorting toys, making a larger craft project, etc.
I hope that you can put these Time to Be Awesome Chore cards to use!