DIY Chore Chart – VIDEO

Parenting

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Do you need a family chore chart? How about a household chore schedule for you and your husband or roommates? I’ve got some great ideas for household chore charts in today’s video as well as some tips for surviving the tail end of summer chaos. Watch it below and then make a chore chart!

Do you need a family chore chart? How about a household chore schedule for you and your husband or roommates? I've got some great ideas for household chore charts in today's video as well as some tips for surviving the tail end of summer chaos. Watch it below and then make a chore chart!

Hey all!  I’m SO jazzed to share with you our summer schedule that’s been working really well for us these past few weeks as well as our experience with chore charts lately! We’ve worked hard to figure out the best way to get our household chores organized and working well for the teenager on down to the preschooler and toddler. I know that household management can be one of the most frustrating aspects of being a mom so I hope my sharing what’s worked for us can help you and your family too!


Since it’s summer, I assume everyone’s enjoying basking in the warm glow of long summer days and creating nothing but heartwarming memories while their children are home all day long! Wait, no??

In all seriousness, I think most of us WANT to frolic in the sunshine and enjoy our kids in the summer while they’re largely free from the bulk of their schooling & extracurricular activities, but we often make one big error: I think we often (mistakenly) abandon all structure to our summer days in favor of “having fun”. And if you’ve ever ignored all your responsibilities to sit and binge on Netflix for 12 hours, you’ll know from first-hand experience that there IS such a thing as too much fun.

So today I’m sharing our basic summer schedule and chore chart system so you can see how we’re organizing our hours this summer! Don’t worry- it’s nothing rigid or inflexible, and it requires very little work from mom. Instead, it’s given us the freedom to do fun things, without fear of overstimulation and meltdowns from the kids. I explain the whole rundown of our schedule and current chore system in the video below but here are some bullet points:

1. Our schedule is organized by 2 hour blocks to avoid over-planning down to the last second. Here’s what it looks like most days:

Wake up: kids complete morning basics (get dressed, brush teeth, make bed, etc) and eat breakfast
8-10am: we all do daily chores and breakfast dishes
10am-noon: swim!
12pm- eat and clean up lunch
1-3pm: quiet time
3-5pm: free play, invite friends over, maybe some screen time, fun outing
5pm – prepare dinner, eat, clean up
7pm- ready for bed!

2. Daily physical exercise and quiet time are KEY! If you don’t have a pool, getting your kids out to ride bikes, run in the sprinkler or jump on the trampoline will do wonders for their minds and souls all day long. It’s harder for us to get outside in the summer here in Phoenix (because it’s a billion degrees) but it’s still super important! We’d also tried (exhaustingly) to adopt a habit of daily quiet time in our old house, but we just didn’t have enough bedrooms and space to separate all the troublemakers. Now that we do, it has been a GAME changer!! Mimi and Alice take naps (I put Alice in a portable crib in my closet so they will both actually sleep) and the rest of the kids go to their rooms for those 2 hours. I allow them to read books, play Legos, listen to audiobooks or do any other quiet (non screen time) activity. Occasionally I let kids out to play together in the play room, as long as no fights break out. This is also mom’s time to work on the blog so it’s been a boon to us all!

3. We revamped the chore chart since moving and it now includes the following for each child:

*zone of the house to pick up
*dish job (done multiple times a day: loading, unloading, sweeping under the table, etc)
*daily chore: things like cleaning the kitty litter, wiping down the busiest and dirtiest bathroom, vacuuming high traffic areas, etc
*weekly chore: similar to above but the things that only need to be done once a week like dusting, deep cleaning bathrooms & vacuuming bedrooms.
Each kid has the same chores for a full week, and then we rotate.

4. Keep it SUPER simple and really flexible. When cousins wanna play, we’ll often abandon all chores and go play for the day. But the next day we stay home and get back into the groove. Year after year, I keep learning just how vital routines are for our children. Even though I often want to be the “fun mom” and throw our schedule to the wind, it often comes back to bite us in the form of cranky, exhausted children who are no good to me 🙂 Holidays and special occasions are a great time to let the schedule go but for most of the summer, we’re reaping the benefits of sticking to it!

And remember, practice makes perfect! I love to hone and re-hone our job system until it’s running flawlessly. If something’s not working for you, change it! You’re the parent (or household manager) and you get to do whatever you want!

That’s about it…watch the video below for how to make a family chore chart yourself. One that’s so simple, even your toddler can understand it!  Good luck, mamas!



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8 Comments

  • Reply
    Daily Homeschool Schedule - See how we run our home with 8 kids!
    November 26, 2018 at 3:54 pm

    […] Kids play outside, finish chores (our full chore chart explanation is here!), whatever! I wake babies up and we just hang out for an hour or so until I need to start […]

  • Reply
    Daily Cleaning Schedule & Favorite Cleaning Products • Bonnie and Blithe
    December 28, 2018 at 3:06 pm

    […] Be sure to also check out this post for my favorite deep cleaning trick when life is crazy, and this video for a look at our kids’ chore chart! […]

  • Reply
    5 Tips for How to Get Kids to Do Chores - Advice from a mom of 8 kids!
    April 11, 2019 at 8:53 pm

    […] Have your seen our chore chart video here?Do you have any other tips for how to get kids to do chores willingly?? […]

  • Reply
    eva
    March 15, 2020 at 11:57 am

    Thank you bonnie! I’m about to start homeschooling my kiddos because of this crazy covid-19 and you are such an inspiration! I only have 3 kids but they need to help more for sure! Seeing how you orchestrate all yours, you give me hope!

    • Reply
      Bonnie
      March 16, 2020 at 3:17 pm

      You can do it, Eva! Good luck to you

  • Reply
    Kids and Chores {Episode 2} – Outnumbered the Podcast
    February 22, 2021 at 10:11 pm

    […] Bonnie’s DIY chore chart video. […]

  • Reply
    Melissa T
    May 18, 2022 at 4:19 am

    Who does the laundry?! 🤪
    I have 8 kids and currently it’s our two oldest girls who share this job.

    • Reply
      Bonnie
      May 26, 2022 at 6:11 pm

      Good question! My oldest children (11+ all do their own) and the rest take turns. I generally load and unload, the kids sort, fold and put away.

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