What I've wanted to do is organize chores and meal planning. The kids needed motivation and my husband, who stays at home, is not the greatest with meal planning. Often times, it will be four in the afternoon and he still doesn't know what he is making for dinner. He has nothing defrosted and usually what ends up happening is I pick up dinner on the way home.
I've already posted in detail about our chore board. I have better pictures I'll include in this post. I have also made a few modifications, which I'll explain below.
Here is the chore board in better resolution. The system is explained in my previous post (linked above).
Here is a close-up of the "Pick Your Chore" Board. I've added about 16 more chore chips. On the far right are four "Little Helper" chips. I felt that my three year old was at a disadvantage doing chores. She often wanted to help one of the other kids with a chore, so I opted to add a few chips just for her. Also, I added "Write a Journal Entry" for the three oldest. With it being summer, I want them to keep up with writing, penmanship, spelling, and so on. I've also combined "Set Table" and "Clean & Clear Table." I found that setting the table was too easy in our house since we usually assemble the plates before going to the table. I've created three of these combined tokens, one for each meal of the day.
Now, here's the newest change to my chores and responsibilities center. It is a chore tracking board. At my husband's request, I created a tracking board for most of the chores to 1) see what has been done over the course of the week, and 2) to prevent overkill on some of the chores.
The number of squares next to each chore represents the most that chore can be done in a week, unless it becomes needed. For example, if the living room has been vacuumed three times, but someone makes a mess with chips or whatever, it can be vacuumed again.
My husband, towards the end of the week, can see at a glance, what rooms are still needing attention. He can let the kids know or he can take matters into his own hands and do it himself.
Now, I know that kids aren't exactly perfect with cleaning, which is why there is the second section below in green marker. He has to use the big vacuum at least twice a week in the living room and dining room and once a week in all other areas. He needs to do a complete scrub down of the bathroom once a week, dust the house once a week, and clean the fridge/microwave once a week (he alternates these so they are done once every two weeks). On Saturday, the board gets cleared off and all chores are up for grabs. As the week progresses, the available chores gradually becomes less and less.
Alright, now here is the entire "command center" including my meal planning board. A close up is shown below of the meal board is shown below and I'll explain that in a bit.
And here it is!
Using an old cork board that I had, I went to work. I printed on clear address labels, various meals that we eat in our home. I also printed on address labels, the recipe location and the ingredients needed to aid in creating our shopping lists. The address labels were affixed to card stock cut to size.
One column is the main course and side, if applicable, and the second column are vegetables. I've colored coded everything:
Green - Veggies
Blue - Easy & Quick recipes (30 minutes or less)
Purple - Involved recipes (more than 30 minutes)
Orange - Crockpot recipes
White - Left Overs, Eat Out, Other
All the meal cards are stored in the "Meals" box, which is just a crayon box covered in paper. At the end of the week, the meal cards are placed in the "Used" box. The veggies are returned to the veggie box.
This board is pretty much complete, except I'm thinking of painting the clothespins. The wall is also complete except for something above the boards (it just seems empty). I'll come up with something.
I'm just excited that it is finished. :)
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