When my boys were small, one of my favorite end-of-the-school year projects was making a cute chore chart for the summer.  Now that they are teenagers, they don’t really appreciate the cute anymore, and complained that they wanted a little less micro-managing!  We tried a summer without any kind of chart at all, but it soon became clear that they weren’t ready for that either and we needed to find some middle ground.

Enter the chore stick.

We started by sitting down together and listing the tasks that I felt like they absolutely needed to do every day for me to be happy.  They have other jobs and projects that they help with throughout the summer, but for our family, that list of daily responsibilities isn’t really too long – but they are things that can quickly slide if we let them.  I found that just having a visual list didn’t have the same effect as when they actually have to physically handle something in order to “check off” their tasks, so I headed to the craft store and purchased a package of thick wooden craft sticks.

I painted the ends of the sticks – a different color for each child – and then used a Sharpie to write the tasks on the other end.

A quick printed label for the jars and that’s it.  As they finish their tasks throughout the day, they move the stick from the “DO” jar to the “DONE” jar and I can tell with a quick glance if everyone is finished and who needs yelled at er, um… gently reminded.