Free Kids Chore Chart Printable + 6 Tips For Success

When it comes to teaching kids responsibility, some parents are looking for ways to make life a little easier. Daily and weekly chores are an important part of growing up; they teach children about the importance of hard work and give them a sense of accomplishment. The best way to get your children on board with this idea is by giving them age-appropriate tasks that match their skills. Making a fun, colorful chore chart also helps motivate kids and keep them on track!

Making kids do their chores is sometimes more work than doing the actual chores yourself. You may be bound and determined to teach your kids how to work. Chores teach them accountability, responsibility, life skills, and hard work. Teaching kids how to be productive members of society starts at home, and it starts with you as a Mom. Keep reading to learn how to implement your kids’ chore chart printable in your home.

Don’t forget to scroll down to get your free kids’ chore charts!

If you are looking for an entire chore system, check out my post Kids Chore Chart Cards Free Printable. I also have a tutorial on how I make my chore board.

You can also see how we teach our kids about money in this post: 11 Reasons to Get the Greenlight Debit Card for Kids

Some Moms feel like their life is to serve their kids and do everything for them. I feel like my job as a Mom, is to teach them independence and responsibility. Because I won’t always be there to help them with every little thing and if I can teach them these important life skills now, they will be that much farther ahead when they are grown. That’s where a chore chart comes in handy! And a free printable chore chart makes it even easier.

So what do you say? Are you with me? Are you ready to help your kids learn how to work hard, and be responsible? It sounds overwhelming, but implementing a chore chart in your home will really help you and your kids to work together better without the nagging. It’s a process but it’s worth it!

What is the best chore chart?

An important part of introducing a chore chart is making it exciting! Although chores are not going to be fun for kids, there need to be some positives about doing chores. Making a fun chore chart for them to look at can be a huge helper! A Colorful chore chart is way more exciting than plain black and white ones.

Don’t forget to scroll down to download your own free printable chore charts, I have six different color variations!

If your kids are really young, they get especially excited about a new chore chart. Marking things off the list can also be really satisfying for kids as they accomplish each specific chore. It helps to keep kids motivated!

If your kids are really young, stickers are a great way to go. You could even make it some sort of an event and make it exciting for them by allowing them to go to the store with you to pick up stickers. Or let them pick out some stickers online that they are excited about.

One of the best things to look for when choosing a chore chart is to make sure that it is appropriate for your kids’ age. That’s what I love about using my free printable chore charts. You can customize it to fit your family’s needs exactly so you can assign age appropriate chores for each child.

How to Set up a Chore Chart System for Kids

Here are a few at-a-glance steps to help you set up chore charts for kids. Keep in mind that hanging a chore chart on the wall is not enough. You as the parent need to follow through with rewards and punishments in order for your chore chart system to be successful. It’s going to take a lot of work and repetition but eventually your kids will start doing things on their own and learn valuable life lessons along the way.

Steps to Create a Chore Chart System:

1. Determine what tasks need to be done around the house (keep track of simple tasks over the course of a week).
2. Decide what chores are age-appropriate chores to help teach responsibility.
3. Download my free printable chore charts.
4. Fill out the chore chart file to your specific chores.
5. Print the free printable chore charts (give each kid their own chore chart).
6. Hang the chore charts in a visible area where your kids will be able to easily reference it.
7. Decide if you are going to offer incentives, allowance, screen time, etc. that will motivate kids.
8. Only allow kids privelages such as TV, video games, or friends when all of their chores are completed.
9. Repeat, repeat, repeat. It’ll pay off, I PROMISE! My kids are living proof!

Choose Age-Appropriate Chores

It’s also important to choose age-appropriate chores for kids to do. If you have “Clean the Playroom” as one of their chores but they take one look at the playroom and burst into tears, it might not be age-appropriate! Or it might be too hard of a chore for their age. Age appropriate chores are kids chores that could be done between 2-7 minutes, or more for older kids.

Even as adults, when we see a huge project in front of us we easily get overwhelmed and shut down. But if you can give them age-appropriate chores, they can feel accomplished and successful when they complete these tasks. Here is a great article for age-appropriate kids that you’ll find really helpful.

It’s important to teach kids how to do household chores a little bit at a time if they seem overwhelmed with a task. When my kids are overwhelmed with picking up our Legos, I tell them to choose one color at a time or one type of Lego. This is one of the best basic life skills that you can teach kids. What’s the best way to eat an elephant? One bite at a time! The same concept applies when you are trying to teach kids responsibility and doing household chores. My free printable chore charts are a huge part of that process to help kids learn that process.

What Chores Should Be Done Daily?

When deciding what kids chores should be done, take about a week and think about things around the house that you’d like help with. Keep a running list of things for your younger kids as well as your older kids. Determine what household tasks need to be done and how often. The areas in your home that get the dirtiest are the kids chores that should be put in the ‘daily chores’ section of the chore chart. Here are some ideas of kids chores that should be done daily that you can assign to your kids to encourage kids to progress with simple tasks:

1. Sweep the floor
2. Wipe the Sliding Glass Door
3. Wipe the counters
4. Take out the trash
5. Brush the dog
6. Clean up the dog poop
7. Pick up dirty laundry
8. Quick Clean bathrooms
9. Picking up their bedrooms
10. Tidy up the toys
11. Load the Dishwasher
12. Unload the dishwasher

Don’t forget to scroll down to download your own free printable chore charts, I have six different color variations!

Our Chore Schedule

Here is a picture of all of my kids’ chore charts. We have a rule that they have to get all of their chores done (except their daily reading) before 8:00 AM. I wake them up at 7:00 (during the school year). Some of their chores are as simple as brushing their teeth (which, in my opinion, isn’t really a ‘chore’). Some of them are more difficult such as vacuuming the family room or my very favorite: cleaning out the car (and their least favorite I might add).

Adding their morning routine onto their chore chart can help kids learn to accomplish simple tasks such as getting ready. This may be something that you only want to do for young kids but older kids can also benefit from it if they are teens or tweens and often forget important hygiene skills. This also helps kids grow their self-esteem as they learn to accomplish simple tasks. Then the chores can get more difficult as they get older.

Having a chore chart takes a lot of the pressure off you as the Mom. It takes a bit of training, but after awhile, children grow and as they learn how to follow and check off the chore chart, they learn time management, responsibility, how to follow directions, how to focus and stay on task, and the pride of a job well done.

Daily and Weekly Chores

My free printable chore charts have daily chores as well as weekly chores. I found myself having a hard time finding free printable chore charts that had both of those concepts, so I created one myself! My kids refer back to their chore charts several times a morning (even at a young age) and it relieves a lot of pressure off of me to remember each and every chore that they need to do each day. Not to mention how incredible it is to have your kids help you maintain a semi clean house…because moms shouldn’t have to do it alone!

If you have young kids, you can diy chore chart and add pictures to help them understand what their chores are. Chore charts are for the whole family, not just for young kids.

I also highly recommend setting a time that your kids should be done with their chores. Giving kids a deadline helps them learn time management.

Why I don’t Pay My Kids For Most Chores

Growing up in my family, I wasn’t paid for chores. But I do remember my parents always had chores for us to do. And looking back, I really appreciate the effort that they spent to teach us how to work.

We do not pay our kids for chores but they have a list of daily chores that they need to accomplish before they are allowed access to screens, games, or friends. My kids do not get paid for chores because I believe that there are many chores that need to be done because they are a part of the family and need to help pull their own weight.

As a mom, I am not in charge of doing everything for everyone. It’s a team effort and while they don’t love doing chores now, I know they will grow up and appreciate it later.

How To Still Teach the Value of Money

Some people argue that they give their kids money for chores so that their kids can learn the value of money. I completely agree with this concept which is exactly why we have extra chores that my kids can do in order to earn the cold hard cash they’re looking for! Aside from their regular chores, I have come up with a list of age-appropriate chores that each of them can do if they would like to earn more money.

The amount of money they get for each chore depends on the difficulty of the chore. Some chores are worth $0.25, some chores are worth way more! In order to keep this straight, we have a kid’s chore chart, as well as kid’s chores cards so that we can easily differentiate between what chores are paid and what chores need to be done in order for my kids to access their privileges each day (such as playing with friends or watching screens.

Pick Appropriate Incentives

When my oldest daughter was very small, I went to the dollar store and stocked up on a bunch of junkie toys that I thought would incentivize her towards completing her chores. It worked great for the first couple of weeks but over time, it got old and she lost interest.

The reality was that giving our kids more and more and more stuff isn’t doing them any favors. So I no longer buy my kids dollar store toys in exchange for doing their chores. That might work for some families but I just felt like it brought in more junk into my house that broke into seconds and went into the trash.

Another option would be to have experiences that they can work towards. For example, if you have a child who loves animals, maybe create some sort of incentive system where they can earn a trip to the zoo! Or if you have really active kids, let them work for a trip to the trampoline park! I find that these activities are so much more rewarding for kids and so much better than more toys!

Free Printable Chore Charts

Below I have created free printable chore charts in 6 different colors for you to download and use in your own home. The best part? They are editable! So you can download the free printable chore charts and then type in the names and chores that are best suited for your family.

I also forgot to mention that I always print mine out on white cardstock and laminate them. Then they can just check off their kids chores using dry-erase markers and wipe them off at the end of the week. Much less paper waste.

I have included a link (below) to my favorite laminating sheets and a laminator that has great reviews (they don’t sell my laminator anymore). Enjoy!