How do I motivate my children to finish chores, be rewarded for good behavior and be held accountable for the summer smack-down that goes on and off all summer? Sticker Chore Charts!
Tom Petty was Free Fallin’, Lynyrd Skynyrd had his Free Bird and Ricky Gervais loved his Free Love Freeway but ’round these parts there ain’t nuthin’ for free. You want it—you earn it. Or, I know a nice Amish family looking for an extra farm hand this summer. Your choice.
Last summer I created Summer Chore Flip Cards for the kids and they worked like a dream combined with a Sticker Chore Chart. If they completed their daily chores and didn’t act up, they earned one sticker. Each sticker they earn is combined with others to create something. By the end of the summer the charts were blooming with sticker flowers and trucks filled with stickers. It’s also a fun lesson in math and money. My so, then five years old, would count his stickers, almost daily, and figure out how many he needed to earn the LEGO set he picked at the beginning of the summer.
Sticker Chore Chart materials:
- Poster board: I used half sheets so they could fit on one door
- Multi-colored paper
- Scissors
- Stick glue
- Multi-colored round label stickers
- Small google eyes (optional)
- A sense of humor (not optional)
Themes for charts:
Insects: “Buggin’ Out”—Stickers can be made into bugs. Add one green sticker a day in a line to make a caterpillar.
Birds: “Rockin’ Sticker Chart tweet, tweet, tweet”—Round colorful stickers can be berries
Flowers: “Flower Power”—Stems in pots can be made into flowers with round stickers
Cars and Trucks: “Race to the Finish”—Use the stickers for the car wheels or load them in the back of a truck
Sky and Rainbows with Balloons: “The Sky is the Limit”—Cut out white clouds and make rainbows and balloons with the stickers
Fruit trees: “Reach for the Top”—Cut out trunks and tree tops from paper and decorate with one sticker as fruit per day
Fish: “Gone Fishin’ for Stickers”—Using blue board draw seaweed and cut out some larger graphic fish when a circle sticker is earned give it fins and an eye.
Step One: Pick your theme. You can cut shapes from poster board or paper and glue them on to the poster board. Having your child draw their own board would be great as well or you could draw it out for them.
Step Two: Print out funny titles or funny sayings from your computer in a fun typeface. Cut them out in the shape of text balloons. *TIP– Kids LOVE, LOVE, LOVE text balloons. I have a feeling we will be adding more as the summer progresses.
Step Three: Glue all of your shapes and text balloons onto your poster board. Tie a piece of string or yarn to a pen and duct tape the end of the string near the chart. This way the kids or your can decorate the stickers if needed adding stems, antennas, fins etc.
*TIP To keep the stickers handy, clip them with a magnet clip and put them on your refrigerator or any magnetic surface .
Each sticker can equal $1 and or certain colored stickers can be worth more or less like 50 cents for doing something above and beyond. When we did the flowers last summer the middle stickers were worth $2 for doing special jobs.
All materials available at Staples
Questions about themes? Just Ask Holly!