Ever since my kids were toddlers we’ve been trying to figure out how to teach them responsibility through chores.  We’ve always had chore charts for them, and still do.  Their rewards have changed from stickers to magnets to nickels to screen time.  Each new phase in their growing up has brought changes to our expectations and rewards.

Our current system is pretty stable – as in there is no one complaining about it – which is good.  They are expected to make their beds, clean their rooms, pick up toys, and do two household chores every day.  In exchange they are allowed to play with friends and have screen time {as long as they do their jobs with a good attitude}.

But we’ve noticed recently that they are more excited to have money for the ice cream man, the odd toy or book they want or to buy gifts for people.  They keep their money safe and carry it around.  We’ve also noticed that there are plenty of other jobs they could do around the house to help me out.  So we decided to offer to pay them for doing extra chores above and beyond their daily jobs.

So, as any crafty mom would do, I made a job board.  I named it The Task Master.  Now the board is responsible for being task master, not me.  Yay!

My hubby and I decided on what jobs were reasonable and how much we should pay them for each.  As they choose to do these jobs, we will teach them how to do them properly, completely and with their best effort.  Now they can choose how much money they have.  If they want to buy a new book, they can do more work for me.

I started with a few craft store supplies – metal sheeting signs, business card magnets, chipboard tags, scrapbook paper and lettering stickers.

First I measured paper to fit on the front of my chipboard tags.  I attached the paper strips with Mod Podge and added stickers to make the title tags for each board.

I Mod Podged over the top of the stickers to seal them to the paper and prevent peeling off.

When they were dry I cup strips of adhesive magnet and stuck them to the back of the chipboard.

Once the board titles were finished I created tags in In Design and printed them onto scrapbook paper.  I cut the self adhesive business card magnets to fit the tags and attached the scrapbook paper to the magnets.

Yes, I realize they are not centered.  But after I printed them I just went with it.  No need wasting paper.  Or ink. Or magnets.

Now when my kids want to earn a little extra money they can pick a job off the Task Master board.  When they complete it and it is inspected, I’ll move that job to their board.  At the end of the day (or week) I’ll pay them for their hard work. If a job doesn’t need to be done, I can take the magnet off the Task Master board.  When it needs to be done again, I’ll add it back.

Hopefully this well help them learn where our money comes from, the value of it {value of money=the amount of work it takes to earn it}, and how to save it to buy things you really want or need.

Ellie has already started working.  She picked the one with the largest payout {weeding the garden pays more, but she despises that job…as do I} and worked for 45 minutes washing windows.  Payton asked, “What is the easiest job on here?” then ended up laying on the floor listening to Pandora instead.  Ellie is one dollar richer.  Payton knows all the words to The Chipmunks version of Party Rock Anthem.  Kids are funny.