Chore Charts

Shortly after moving in I decided it was time for the girls to really do their share of the work around here. They always help when I ask them to, and have learned to do many different things; but I thought it was time to make it official. I made up chore charts for them and everytime they do a chore they get to put a sticker next to that particular thing on their chart. The things they do are- cleaning the bathroom, cleaning their room, setting the table, emptying the dishwasher, and folding and putting away laundry. They don't do these things everyday, but they at least do one chore a day depending on what needs to get done. When the chart is full of stickers we get to go out and get a prize for them.

I don't want to always get them big prizes for doing chores, but we have been wanting to get them bikes. We have never gotten them real bikes and when we went up to my sister's for the 4th of July it was sad to see them try to ride a bike with training wheels and they couldn't hardly peddle it at all. Meanwhile, their 5-year-old cousin Megan was already riding a 2-wheeler without training wheels! We are pretty behind on teaching them that skill. We had gotten them plastic hot-wheel type bikes when they were 2, and they never really rode them so we never got them new bikes. Though kids bike from walmart aren't that expensive, it is a big deal to get a bike. But we didn't want to wait until Christmas because they'll only get to ride a few times before it is too cold. So we made them do steady chores for a couple of months so they could earn the bikes. About 3 weeks ago was when we decided to get them. We had a FHE on the importance of hard work, and then went out bike shopping. They were so excited. They are getting better at riding their bikes, though they still want mom or dad right behind them just in case (even though they do have training wheels). It is going to take some practice though because they just don't seem to have much natural skill in this area. We'll get it though.