The Best Kids Chore Chart Cards + A Free Printable
I am the type of Mom who believes that it is my absolute responsibility to teach my kids how to be independent. I heard a few months ago that a Mom’s job is to work her way out of a job, and if you do, that’s how you know you’ve done it right.
That’s why I made these free printable kids chore chart cards.
To teach my kids the skills they need to make it on their own is vital. So many kids these days have no idea what it truly means to work hard and sit back and enjoy the satisfaction of a job well done. Teaching my kids all of these small tedious details is super important to me as a Mom.
Do you want to download the free printable kids’ chore CHARTS? Check out my Kids Chore Chart Post. Scroll down to download the Free Chore Chart CARDS.
You can also see how we teach our kids about money in this post: 11 Reasons to Get the Greenlight Debit Card for Kids
While we don’t live on a farm like my dad did growing up, I can still make an effort to teach my kids how to work around the house. And you can too! This simple chore system can teach our kids how to be hard workers and to learn important life skills.
Why are chore charts important?
Chore charts are a great idea to help teach responsibility to your children. Parenting is tricky, but one of the main tasks of being a parent is teaching your children how to be good adults someday.
While chore charts might not seem like the best way to become a #1 mom, it is actually a great way for them to learn how to organize and stay on top of necessary tasks.
Another reason why chores and chore charts are important is because your children are a part of the family, which means they should help out. I don’t mean that they shouldn’t get to enjoy being a child, and parenting does mean that you’re in charge of what happens around the house, but age-appropriate chores will help your children learn about time management and responsibility.
What I Do with My Chore Chart
I made a printable chore chart for each of my children (you can download that printable chore chart in my Free Kids Chore Charts post) and knew that I wanted to put that chart somewhere in the house where we could all see it.
I decided to make a board with the printable chore charts, as well as my chore cards.
MORE KIDS SYSTEMS
New Chore Board
I mentioned in my previous post with the Free Kids Chore Charts, that I don’t give my kids an allowance (gasp!). They have daily and weekly chores that they do just because they are a part of our family.
But I do want them to learn how to manage money from a young age. So my husband and I decided that we would create a system that allows my kids to earn extra money in exchange for extra chores! We wanted everything to be in one place and at-a-glance.
We made an easy magnetic bulletin board where everything could be in one place. I wanted to create a hub for our lists of household chores so we weren’t running all around looking for chore charts and chore cards. You shouldn’t have to search for your chore charts, so this helps to streamline the process and doesn’t waste time.
I purchased a 24″ x 36″ galvanized sheet metal piece from Home Depot and put it inside a 24″ x 36″ frame that I purchased at Michael’s! It fit perfectly and I have never done an easier DIY project! In fact, I wouldn’t really even consider it a DIY. It was that easy!
Next, we placed all of the kids’ (laminated) chore charts and chore cards on the board. I would strongly recommend laminating the paper. In fact, I also recommend printing them onto cardstock instead of printer paper if possible. They will last that much longer!
Then, I added their “Chore Cards” to the board.
What are chore cards?
Because I wanted to give my children a way to earn money, I created these chore cards. These cards are the extra chores that my kids can do to earn money. (If you have little ones, you might be able to trade chores for stickers, but when they get older, your children will probably need bigger rewards.)
Doing chores around the house is super helpful, but giving money in return for work around the house will help them later in life as they learn to work hard with the “reward” of money well earned.
Having pre-made cards with a list of chores your child can do to earn that cold, hard cash they are after can be hard. Sometimes it’s difficult to think of chores off the top of your head! So having pre-written chore cards will help solve your biggest challenge. (You’ll find the printable chore cards at the end of this post!)
Since I have my chore cards all printed out, I just had to add them to the board in my “chore hub,” so I used magnetic clips that I got from Dollar Tree.
MORE KIDS SYSTEMS
Supplies Needed for the Chore Cards and Chore Chart Board
Luckily, I already had most of the supplies on hand but I have linked the products below if you want to make it yourself.
Supply List:
- 24″ x 36″ Frame
- 24″ x 36 ” Galvanized Sheet Metal
- Clear Plastic Jars
- Chore Cards (download them below)
- Magnets to hold jars onto the board
- Magnetic clips to hold ‘Chore Cards’
- Thermal Laminator
- Laminating Sheets
Ticket System
Instead of paying them in money every single time a child completes a chore, we decided to use a ticket system. Because our kids are young, we can get away with cheap labor (for now). So each ticket is worth 10 cents. Depending on the level of difficulty of the chore, it may be worth a lot of tickets!
When they complete the chore (and it has passed my inspection) we give them a ticket with their name on it and they get to put it in their “ticket jar”. At the end of the month, they trade in their tickets and we pay them in actual money.
If you have a hard time remembering to pay them their tickets, you could create a specific time of day or a particular day of the week. Put a reminder in your phone if you need to. (I have noticed that my kids are less than enthusiastic about doing extra chores because sometimes I forget to pay them.)
My kids are SUPER excited about the chance to earn money. I am excited to teach them how to actually save up their money for something bigger than something from the Dollar Store!
We even decided to help them set a goal of something larger that they wanted to purchase to incentivize them to work harder for a larger goal. This helps teach responsibility with money, how to save, and how to spend wisely.
Free Printable Chore Cards
Because it can be hard to create a chore chart or chore cards yourself, I’m giving you access to a free printable download for chore cards. Get your free chore card download link above!
If you have an ad blocker, the form might not show up on your page to download. If that’s the case, just email me and I’ll get it to you.
You can download and use these printable cards and other blank chore cards to help create a system for your own children. (And because everyone loves a free printable, you can check out one of my other free printables here with a great chore chart for your family!)
I hope this was helpful and that you can use some of these ideas with your own family!
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I am trying to make the chore charts for my kids. I however, have 3 boys so pink is not a favorite color (well, my 2 year old likes it right now, but that will be a thing of the past before I know it). Is there anyway to get one of the chore charts in a blue?
Hi Heather! The Chore Cards come with Colored as well as Gray bordered files. When you download the file you have access to all of them and you can edit them as you wish. Hope that helps!
Hi! I was trying to download the cards as well but it won’t let me click the link! Can you please email me?
Yes me as well!! PLEASE!! It will not allow me to download….UGH!
Did you sign up for my newsletter? Also, if you have an ad blocker, the form might not show up on your page.
How did you stick the magnetics on the plastic jars?
Hot glue! Lol!
im not finding a link to download
In order to get the download link, you have to sign up for my newsletter. After you enter in your info, you’ll be sent an e-mail with the password. Have a great day!
Hi. I am unable to see a link to download the cards. I tried to click on the pictures but nothing happened. How can I download them? Thank you
In order to get the download link, you have to sign up for my newsletter. After you enter in your info, you’ll be sent an e-mail with the password. Have a great day!
Reward charts is really work. But……
I have three kids. The eldest child I raised using rewards and everything was fine, but when he was about 5 years old, he accumulated the amount he needed and refused to do chores. I couldn’t make him do anything else, because his already had a certain attitude to matters. Now he is 7 years old, it is impossible to force him to do household chores. I don’t know what to do. I am not ready to put pressure on him, as it affects the child’s mental health. With the second child, everything was somehow easy, he took the vacuum cleaner himself, helped clean the table and put away the toys. He repeated everything after me and I just praised him. The third child I raised using printable star reward charts. The son liked it, but the stars were constantly lost. Then we switched to the Manini app. Now the youngest child is 3 years old and we already know how to do a lot. I don’t scold him if he misses something or doesn’t want to do it.
Now I think about it and wonder how different all children are)
Kids really do have such different personalities! Being a parent is a whole lot of trial and error, right?!
I’m sorry you’re going through that. In our house, we’ve decided to just give our 7, almost 8 year old an allowance. She has the option to save it in the Mom/Dad bank and earn interest or spend it right away. Whenever she asks for something I’ll ask her if she has enough money saved up, if she doesn’t…then I’ll say ” you know, I sometimes don’t have the money the buy things I want, so I just wait until I save, it’s a tough decision. ” That’s something different from chores, I just give her things that are age appropriate and really give positive feedback. ” You know, it would be so helpful if you could help Mommy get the bathroom trash and empty into the big trash can. Mommy has a lot of chores and I value your help! ” She’s very willing to help and I don’t scold her. She does it weekly without pay and no reward. She also started to take out the recycle with me and give me any dishes around the table, into the sink.
I think if you make it more a fun thing, or praise (not too much) you’ll see there will be a child who will want to help, because that makes a good family team member!
I keep allowance and chores separate. At first she thought she was ” working ” those chores for allowance.
Hello, I am not always super Tech savy and was wondering how you typed in names to the chore charts. I tried to figure out a way to add a text box but I am not very good at it. Do you have any pointers for that since you can’t just type on the PDF? I really appreciate you sharing these I am really looking forward to starting this!
I made the forms editable so you actually should be able to click into the blue box and type your name.
Did you remove the glass when you put the galvanized steel inside the frame?
Yes, the only thing left in the frame is the galvanized piece.
Where is the free download? Maybe I am missing something but I can’t find.
You should see a box where you can enter in your Name and E-mail to sign up to get my weekly newsletter. You will then be sent an e-mail with the password to my resource library where you can download all of my free resources. If you don’t see it, perhaps it’s because you have an ad-blocker installed into your browser. Hope that helps! Let me know if you still can’t figure it out and I’ll e-mail it to you!
Looking forward to utilizing the charts!